Years of the Bus

9- A Wrong Idea

“Okay, so why is Kenton mad at me?” I wondered a few days later.

“Why do you think that he’s mad at you?” Baker asked me in confusion. “He doesn’t seem mad.”

We both looked across the bus where he was laughing at something that Ross had just said and it must have been really funny because even Erin laughed and Erin was still bitter towards Ross about that ‘servant’ thing. She actually probably has PTSD or something because of what he put her through.

“He’s not mad in general, he’s just mad at me for some reason,” I whined. “He just won’t talk to me at all and he hasn’t since the morning that we threw all of their underwear in the water.”

“Well, we didn’t throw his underwear in the water, so I don’t see why he’d be mad about that,” She shrugged helplessly. That was true though, all of the guys became victims of our prank save for Kenton because Rosa insisted that he wasn’t mean to her at all that day so he shouldn’t feel the wrath of our revenge.

“I know why he’s upset,” Rosa sang excitedly. “But I can’t tell you.”

“So he is upset!” I exclaim. “I knew it! But why can’t you tell me?”

“Because he made me pinky promise to not tell you,” She shrugged apologetically.

“Can’t you find some kind of loophole?” I whined desperately. “This is seriously killing me.”

“I’ve been trying to think of one, but I can’t. You’ll figure it out eventually, though.”

“Or you could just go ask him,” Sydney suggested.

“Yes!” Rosa agreed loudly. “Do that, go talk to him.”

“Are you crazy?” I asked her in all seriousness. “No, I’m not going to just go up to him and ask him why he’s been avoiding me.”

“Why not?” Sydney stupidly asked.

“Um, because I would probably die from embarrassment or awkwardness or something and it’d just be really bad. He’s really nice and cute and pretty cool so I don’t want to scare him away by like, smothering him or something and then he’d think I’m weird and obsessive.”

“You’re paranoid,” Baker declared while Rosa and Sydney nodded in agreement.

“I’m not being paranoid,” I shook my head. “I’m being cautious.”

“Paranoid,” Rosa fired at me. “Go talk to him.”

“No,” I denied heavily. “I will not.”

“Okay, well then we’ll bring him to you,” Baker chirped just as Sydney scooted over and caught me by surprise by sitting on me. She just plopped down right on my lap so that I couldn’t go anywhere while Baker, Rosa, and Erin ran off to the front of the bus and grabbed Kenton, urging him to come to the back of the bus where I was captured by Sydney so that I couldn’t escape. And even if Sydney wasn’t sitting on my lap right then, it wasn’t like I could go anywhere since we were on the interstate and going 60 miles per hour, it wasn’t like I could just jump off of the bus or anything.

Right before Kenton arrived at the seat bed that I was sitting on, Sydney hopped off of me and scurried off with Rosa and Erin.

“Lanie has something to ask you,” Baker insisted with a troublesome giggle before following my other friends. When she was leaving, she also subtly pushed Kenton into the seat that I was sitting in, so that we were sitting together on the bed, but we were still pretty far apart.

“What do you want to ask me?” Kenton wondered after a few moments of silence that I had used to gape incredulously after my giggling and triumphant friends.