Get A Life | ONC2023 Shortlist

10 | Six weeks later | Hunter

The minute I step onto the 6:53am bus, I feel a sense of inner peace; the sort of serenity I forgot existed in the long, lonely months after my brother died. This large metal box, with its revolting grey and tangerine décor, and its kooky cast of regular characters, has quickly become a place where everything makes sense to me. Particularly now that Luna, the emergency medicine registrar, has given Max the flick and moved in with Omar. #TeamOmar for the win every day of the week.

It doesn't hurt that I usually catch the bus with Darcy.

Spotting me by the front door as I tap my pass, old Mrs Rossi calls to me from her inward-facing seat in the centre of the bus. "Come sit with me a minute, Hunter, lad."

I'd prefer to head further down the bus to Archer, but I comply with the request because Mrs Rossi is the undisputed matriarch of this freeway chariot. She's also Darcy's friend, and it's important that my girlfriend's friends like me.

"How are you doing this morning, Mrs R?" I flash her my most charming smile as I push my navy school bag under the seat and stretch my legs out in front of me.

The octogenarian in question peers at me over pink-framed glasses before returning her attention to the emerald green cardigan she's knitting for Audrey. "I'm old, lad," she says. "How are you holding up?"

As of yesterday, Shane Victor Milano is being held without bail for the murder of Archer Viera. Darcy was right. He won't be getting away with it.

"I'm doing okay, Mrs R."

"Darcy's not with you this morning, I see?"

"Not today. She's getting a lift to school with her sister. They're grabbing coffee together."

"Well, some wonders never cease," Mrs Rossi says wryly. "That Danica's a spirited one. I shouldn't say this, but I was quite relieved when the girl got her licence and we no longer had to deal with her and her little minions every morning."

My laugh is a surprised chuckle, low and raspy and eerily like my brother's. "Dani's okay," I admit. "She grows on you if you give her half a chance. Tamsin and Pia though—the minions? Hard 'no' to those two."

"Hard 'no' indeed, lad. I'd prefer to wipe my backside with a cheese grater than spend thirty seconds with those two oxygen suckers. Darcy's friend Cassidy's another matter. That girl's a hoot. You met her yet?"

"Only over Skype. She's making me submit a written application to date Darcy. The questions are intense."

"Worth the effort though, I'm guessing?"

"One hundred percent."

"The minute I saw you, I knew you were a good one, Hunter Viera."

"Takes one to know one, Mrs R."

"Doesn't it just," she says with a wink.

Itching to go sit with Archer before the back section of the bus fills up too much, I make to stand and pick up my bag. "If you don't mind Mrs R, I'm just going to head up to-"

"He's not there, lad." Her tone is gentle and shot through with so much sympathy it hurts my heart.

"Sorry?"

I refuse to believe it. I won't. He can't be gone. I'm not ready.

"Your brother. He's passed over."

"How do you..."

Please. Not yet.

"I've been seeing spirits come and go my whole life, lad," Mrs Rossi tells me. "When it's time, it's time. This was Archer's time."

Like a helium balloon with a slow leak, I deflate into my seat. I hear what Mrs Rossi's saying, but I'm struggling to process it. "You could see him? The whole time he was on the bus, all these weeks, you've been able to see Archer? Why didn't you say anything? To him. Or to us."

Mrs Rossi pushes her knitting to the side and turns in her seat to face me. Wise grey eyes stare straight into my soul as she takes my trembling hand in both of hers. Her skin is warm and soft.

"Me being able to see Archer wasn't relevant, lad," she tells me. "To him, or to you. A strapping young man like your brother, taken well before his time, doesn't need a little old lady to help him through his passing, not even one as glamourous as me. The thing about this bus, Hunter, is that it's special. It always gives you exactly what you need, even when you don't know what that is."

"I needed to see my brother, to talk to him!" My words escape in a mad rush of vowels and consonants, all ringing with an edge of bitterness I hadn't realised I was holding.

"There's a different between need and want, Hunter. I think, deep down, you know that."

"I really wanted to see him again," I whisper. "Just once would have been enough."

"No, it wouldn't. Once is never enough when we lose a loved one."

"Why Darcy, though?" I ask. "That's the bit I've never really understood. She didn't even know him."

"And yet she caught his killer, befriended his girlfriend, helped bring his daughter safely into the world, and loves his brother. She's exactly what all of you needed, lad. And maybe she needed you too."

"Darcy doesn't love-"

"Trust me, Hunter, she feels exactly the same way you do. You should tell her."

With that, Mrs Rossi pats my hand one last time, and returns to her knitting.

We spend the rest of the trip into the city in companionable silence, the steady 'click, clack, click' of knitting needles, a gentle reminder that some things remain unchanged. After the initial shock of Archer's sudden departure wears off, I admit to myself that maybe I'd expected it, even hoped for it, because being trapped on a bus indefinitely is not the existence I want for my brother.

Instead of wallowing, I remind myself of all the things I loved about Archer—his passion for anything with an engine; his irreverent humour; his constant, delighted surprise at everything life offered, from a rare lunar eclipse to a decent drive-through coffee. I shed a tear for Lily, who should have been his wife; and smile because Audrey got to meet him at all.

By the time I arrive at school, my head is clear, and my heart feels lighter.

I'm waiting for Darcy at our usual table under the elm trees when someone places their hands over my eyes.

"Can I sit down?" she whispers in my ear. She smells like honey and vanilla, with just a hint of chlorine, and I breathe her in with a contented sigh.

"That depends," I say. "Do you have cookies?"

"Might do. I also bought you coffee."

"That's my girl."

"You better believe it."

Removing her fingers from my eyes, Darcy straddles the bench next to me, and casually runs her fingers across my left wrist in habitual greeting. I shiver, as I always do, and lean forward to touch my lips to hers. It's a kiss as brief as a heartbeat and as soft as a snowflake; an unhurried promise of things to come.

"I love you," I whisper.

"I know," she says. "I love you too."

We smile in technicolour.