It had been seemingly out of thin air that the boy had materialized. Accompanied by an impeccably timed clap of thunder, the bus aisle was empty one minute then occupied by the gangly blonde the next; as if he'd been plucked like a rabbit from a hat.
It was a Wednesday. Arguably the worst day of the week, the day which acted as an intersection between having gotten through Monday and Tuesday and having yet to get through Thursday and Friday. A day not helped by the first real thunderstorm of the year.
It was also Michael's birthday, a day which in all honesty he'd forgotten about until the girl across the aisle from him asked the date, and he'd remembered his existence began sixteen years ago to the day.
It was also Rachel Wilson's birthday, however unlike Michael, she had parents with money, who remembered her birthday, and so she was not on the bus, but instead parked in front of the school in her shiny new white jeep, waiting to impress her less privileged classmates.
It bothered Michael, that he couldn't look forward too so much as a card on his birthday but it wasn't enough to ruin his day. He knew his parents loved him in their own way and he was sure if he had friends, they'd love him too.
It was a comforting thought, which got him through the long, wet walk to the bus stop, onto the orangish-yellow Twinkie on wheels and into his seat. Which wouldn't seem like a feat worthy of pride to most people, but for Michael, it was. He skipped school a lot, too much, so whenever he forced himself out of bed and onto the bus he was always proud of himself.
He had a Pop Tart on the day in question, Strawberry, and he'd found a pair of earbuds, which were only half broken, on the sidewalk the day before so all and all, it was an okay day, and then Luke had appeared.
Michael was listening to The Killers through his one working earbud, enjoying his stale pastry when one of those infrequent, heart stopping, humbling, claps of thunder shook the dirty Plexiglas window on which he was leaning.
Jumping out of his seat, Michael looked around embarrassedly, his discomfort lessening significantly finding everyone else, even the gorilla like football players, glancing around nervously, trying to narrow their eyes which had widened in terror and laughing uneasily.
Taking a shaky breath, his heart still jittering in his chest like a television show dancer in the fifties, Michael began turning his head back towards the window, however his eyes stuck on a shadowy giant looming near the front of the bus.
Hoping he wasn't seeing things, he blinked, squeezing his eyes together until they hurt then opened them again, only to find the boy still standing there.
It was at that moment that everyone else noticed him too, because a silence quickly smothered the incessant chatter which ordinarily couldn't be hushed, despite the bus driver's aggravated pleas.
The boy was new, Michael was sure of it, West was a relatively small high school and it was predominantly Indian, there were also a fair amount of Asians. White people were the minority at West, making them easily recognizable. In addition the boy was freakishly tall and alarmingly thin in an almost dainty way. He looked like a professional ballerina if she'd been placed in a taffy pull and stretched to three times her normal size.
He tried to remember seeing him before but drew a blank. Looking like he might cry or vomit, the boy slowly began shuffling down the aisle in search of a seat, however the West Crest apartments was the last bus stop making him shit out of luck.
He felt bad for the guy, but not bad enough to offer him the seat beside him. Michael was already ostracized by his fellow classmates, the last thing he wanted to do was draw any attention to himself or the general vicinity in which he sat.
The hush which had fallen over the bus was short lived. Michael tried hard to concentrate on the music flowing from his earbud and bouncing around his skull like a kid on a Pixie Stick high, and not focus on the voices surrounding him, however his attempt failed when Hannah Yen's obnoxiously nasal, high pitched screech sounded from the seat behind him.
"That seat's taken."
The effort of trying to focus on both the voices around him and the music being pumped into him giving him a headache, Michael gave up and pausing the song, pulled the earbud from his ear and began wrapping it around the phone he'd cracked on his thirteenth birthday.
Seeming confused, since no one was sitting in the seat in question the boy took a step forward, then as if thinking better of it, stepped back and edged towards the seat.
"Are you stupid?" Hannah laughed, "That seat is taken."
"No one's sitting in it." He said slowly, his voice deep and laced with a faint accent Michael couldn't place.
"That's Jenna's seat." Troy, a chubby boy who'd sported the same haircut since kindergarten announced.
"She's not in it?" the boy protested weakly, humiliation evident even in the way he stood, his feet, which resembled the oversized paws of a Great Dane puppy, overlapping awkwardly.
"Sit down." The bus driver barked from the front of the bus.
"She'll be back tomorrow." Hannah answered, "And she'll be pissed if some forty foot tall freak is in her seat.
Michael had always hated that he was cursed being an empathetic person in a world filled with people who didn't seem capable of caring about anyone or anything other than themselves. Particularly in instances where he knew he should step up and be a hero but didn't feel comfortable with doing so.
He was already drowning, clinging desperately to an ever deflating floatation device. And he knew it would be honorable to make some effort to save them both, but the likelihood of the matter was, much like the door situation in the Titanic, someone would be the Rose and someone would be the Jack and he wasn't that valiant.
"Sit." The bus driver demanded.
Several people laughed.
And then to everyone's surprise, he sat, on the floor.
For the second time, a silence fell over the bus. Michael figured the new boy had surprised them, putting them at a loss for words, it was short lived.
"I puked there once." Some kid Michael didn't know the name of announced.
Seeming to have not heard him, the boy pulled a pair of earbuds out of his pocket and jamming them into his ears, pulled his knees up to his chest.
It was no fun poking a dead bug with a stick and so finally, the bus chatter turned to other topics and Michael turned back to the window. His gut churning with guilt, wishing he'd offered the boy a seat.
