Years of the Bus

24- An End

“Some things don't last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there.”
- Sarah Dessen

Are we going to live forever? Nobody really knows where we go after death or anything until you’re actually dead, so I guess we’ll never really know if we’ll live forever until we actually die and that’s not a very comforting thought.

But being alive isn’t the only sense of forever. A moment in time will live until it seizes to be remembered. At least, that’s what I think. I think that everything is alive until the remembrance dies. Holding onto a memory can mean even more than physically holding onto that moment and being there in that time.

As I drove the bus for the last time, I could see my house in the distance. There was a huge crowd standing around where we were about to pull up and when they saw us approaching, everybody started to cheer. We could hear them through the open windows. Inside of the bus, we were all silent, saying goodbye to the bus and all of the memories that we’ve held inside of it for the past two months. I pulled up, immediately seeing all four of my brothers, my parents, and all of the other siblings and parents at the front of the crowd.

I put the bus in park and turned it off. Everyone was sitting in the first rows of seats, holding hands with somebody (save for Logan and Ross, who were just sitting beside each other anxiously).

I took a deep breath and stood up, facing all of my friends and my lovely boyfriend before I started to speak.

“Okay, so I gave a speech before we left and I think it’s necessary that I give a speech now,” I began. “In that speech, I said that this summer would be our legacy, and I was so right. When people think about us, they’ll think about this summer and what we did. They’ll think about the moment that we step off of this bus. And when we have kids, we’ll tell them about this summer. We’ll tell them about the bungee jumping and the pregnancy scare and we’ll tell them that we walked on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the sky diving and how we smashed in a dude’s car.

“I also said that after this trip, we were no longer friends. We will become family. Again, I was so right. I can still feel the burning on my tummy too prove it,” I said, referring to the tattoo that I got yesterday on my left side, just above my hip bone. “We are a fucking magical family and not by blood, but by the memories we share. We obviously won’t live forever, but our small legacy in this world- it will last for eternity. Gertrude Baker, Gaige Taylor, Grace Washington, Cory White, Sydney Wake, Turner Andrews, Erin Madison, Rosa Simmons, Ross Blackwell, Logan Adrien, and Kenton Gerald. You are my second family and I love every single one of you so much. So let’s get out there and begin our legacy.”

Everyone cheered, but it was less enthusiastic than the one at the beginning of the summer. We were crying, all of us girls, and the guys had pursed lips and glossy eyes. But they were too manly to cry.

We all lined up in the thin aisle of the bus with Ross in the front and then Logan, Erin and Rosa because those four weren’t getting off of the bus with anybody. After them, it was Gory and then Sydney and Turner, Baker and Gaige, and then Kenton and me. Like getting on the bus, I had to be the last one off, being the Head of the Bus and all. When the bus doors opened, the cheering crowd outside got louder and then Ross started walking off.

I was holding Kenton’s hand in mine, squeezing tightly. I was incredibly nervous about the reaction we were going to get from everyone in the crowd, mainly my dad. On the bright side, my tattoo was hidden, so he wouldn’t be able to see that. He would freak out if he found out that I got a tattoo while I was away, my dad would.