Leaving

“You see that girl over there?”

I didn’t even have to look at the direction of her finger to know she was pointing at the girl previously sitting beside her. But, for show, I turned my head to the girl at the front. The girl that looked so much like her, yet so different. How thankful I was that she wasn’t returning my stare for she found a sudden interest in the phone in her hands.

“What about her?” I finally replied, shifting my gaze back onto the girl that was sending me a feigned stare.

“Well, she saw you looking at her—“

“I was looking at you.”

“Oh, were you?” she wondered with a cheeky grin. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Oh, please. You noticed me noticing you just as I noticed you noticing me.

“That’s my sister, anyway,” her grin brightened. Her teeth—a faded white and almost perfectly straight—gleamed just as bright as her dazzling, emerald eyes. Her smile reminded me why I picked her over her sister. “She wants to know if you think I’m cute,” she continued a little softer this time, catching me by complete surprise.

“You’re kidding me, right?” I eyed her incredulously. “That’s the worst fucking line in the book.”

“I’m serious,” she said matter-of-factly, jutting her bottom lip out in a childish pout. “Salima thinks you’re really cute, and she wants to know if you think I’m cute. So do you?”

Yes. Yes. Yes. “No.”

“Shame,” she shrugged, using her broadly practiced it-doesn’t-bother-me voice. “Because I think you’re really cute, too.”

“Why the hell would your sister want to know if I think you’re cute?”

“Why don’t you ask her?” she asked merrily, her smile seizing to dissolve. She pulled herself out of the seat across from me, took a step forward, and got a good grip on the chair in front of her so that her balance wasn’t troubled by the moving bus. “Thanks for answering, anyway. I’ll see you later.”

The second my stomach twisted in its entanglement of lies was the second I reached my arm out and grabbed her wrist. Forced to halt, she turned around to me again, and with a thin eyebrow raised, she asked, “Can I help you?”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all she wanted to know.”

I shook my head. That was most definitely not what I meant. “You’re just going to accept the fact that you’re not cute?”

“Happy girls are the prettiest girls, so I must be gorgeous.” An ironic saying, because at that second, her smile dropped, and it was as if the world dropped with it. “And as long as I believe that, I don’t need the opinion of some boy I don’t even know.”

“Then why did you ask?”

It pained me to see such a naturally energetic face look so devastated. “Did you not believe me when I said my sister was the one that wanted to know?”

“I believed you,” I lied. It took me a second to realize that I still had my grip around her wrist, and I let go instantly, feeling the heat rush to my face. I quickly added, “Most girls would break down in tears if a guy told her straight up she wasn’t cute. I was just wondering how you took it so easily.”

She plunged straight back into her seat and stared at me with questioning eyes. “How do you know I wasn’t going to jump off this bus, run the rest of the way home, bury myself in a pillow, and then cry my eyes out?”

“You weren’t hurt at all,” I replied. “I could see it in you.” I could see that you’re definitely not like a lot of girls, either, but let’s not encourage that arrogant head of yours.

She was smiling again. One that twitched its way onto her face, as if she were trying her absolute best to hold it in. “Well then that answers your question, doesn’t it?”

What a smartass, conniving little girl. Don’t take that from her, Jayce.

“How old are you?” Smooth. Now it sounds like you’re hitting on a ten year old.

“I’m fourteen.”

I stared at her suspiciously. “You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You look like a kid.”

Her sharp, green eyes widened, making her small face look absolutely appalled. God, she was adorable, but confusing nonetheless. Last time I checked, girls liked being told they look younger than their real age, right? Or maybe that only worked on older women—women over forty with dull eyes and wrinkled skin. But being told you looked like you were ten years old should hardly be considered an insult. In my head, it meant you looked like a baby. An innocent, bashful, adorable baby.

And adorable she was. Bashful—obviously not. Innocent, who knows? But she was definitely still a baby.

“I couldn’t be lying—I’m a freshman. This is a high school bus.” She was absolutely right, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe her. And then she asked, ever so curiously, “How old are you?”

I looked at her. She was staring intently at me, awaiting my answer. I gave in, because there was no need for me to lie about anything. “I’m sixteen.”

“And yet you act like you’re nine years older than me, don’t you, hotshot?” I stared at her in pure bewilderment, wondering where she was getting at. But before I was even given the chance to object, she continued, much to my discomfort, “Well newsflash. You’ve only been alive two years more than I have. A fourteen year old and a sixteen year old—it’s seems like a such a huge difference now, but when you think about it,”—Fuck, this chick can ramble on forever—“When I’m thirty and you’re thirty-two, it’s not weird at all, wouldn’t you say? I mean, think about—“

“I think,” I began, cutting her off, and then turned my head to stare out the window. “That all that talking you do should be considered a crime. You’re killing me.”

“Sorry,” she flatly apologized.

I smirked. A satisfied, inert smirk it was. “You’re an odd little girl.”

“Perfect.”

“Perfect?” I echoed.

I turned back to her, puzzlement clouding my mind. What the hell did she mean by that?

The girl only grinned her wide, cheerful grin again that I was slowly, but surely, growing attached to. “You think I’m a strange girl, and I think you’re a strange boy. We’re perfect for each other.” It was like my stomach was lunging its way out of my system.

Fourteen. She’s fourteen, Jayce. Get a grip on yourself.

“You’re only stranger if you think that oddity is a sign of perfection,” I mused, snickering silently to myself. My head was facing the window again, watching the blurry scene of the world run by like a moving abstract painting.

Silence enveloped.

It’s weird how that was even possible, because a bus full of kids could hardly be considered silent.

But it was like I couldn’t hear anything at all when I wasn’t hearing her.

“What’s your name, anyway?” I asked, clinging onto hope that she didn’t get up and walk back to her previous seat now that I was distracted.

But her voice instantly chimed, “I’m Leaving.”

I cocked a brow upwards. Leaving. It was an odd name for an odd girl—It suited her. I turned to the seat across from me again, to ask whether she had meant it or not, only to see her stare absentmindedly at the front of the bus. That’s when it halted to an abrupt stop, and I suddenly needed no further explanation for what she was trying to say.

She was Leaving. She was leaving. Her name wasn’t Leaving, she was leaving.

“I’m guessing you go to Eminence, too, since you’re on this bus.” She slung her gray backpack over her shoulder as she stood up, and to my dismay, she was already squeezing herself into the crowded center aisle. She was still looking down at me with a smile, however, and I realized that I still haven’t gotten her real name. “You’re sixteen, so you’re a junior, right? That means I still have a whole year to be with you before you graduate.” And just like that, she began walking to the front of the bus. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

I stood up. “Hey, Leaving!”

She turned around quickly; a mixture of confusion and astonishment written straight across her face. I barely made out her quiet, “Yes?” among the students forcing her backwards as more people crowded into the aisle.

“Tell Salima that I do think you’re cute.”

That did it.

She was smiling, wider than I’ve seen in the few minutes I’ve known her. But she was already being pushed further down the rows by the people rushing to get off the bus, so I didn’t get the chance to hear her response before she disappeared.

I planted myself right back into my seat and transferred my gaze over to the window again, just as a steamy noise emitted from the front of the bus, signaling that the doors had shut. When my eyes wandered along the curb the bus had parked against, I saw a quick glimpse of an energetic child crossing the street beside her obviously older sister. The bus may have broken my admiration by pulling back onto the road, but even the voices of the few remaining people on the bus weren’t enough to get her voice out of my head.

“You’re sixteen, so you’re a junior, right? That means I still have a whole year to be with you before you’re a senior and graduate.” She was the cutest fucking thing in the world, and undoubtedly the most annoying.

But I couldn’t think of a single reason why I was so happy that my birthday was last month.

And I was only a sophomore.