Resolve

Josh sat in quietly in his seat near the back of the bus. It was a relatively nice bus. A few overhead Televisions were playing some older comedy movie Josh had no real interest in and the buses windows were automatic.

At some point one or two hours into the bus ride while Josh was scrolling through the song list on his MP3 player he noticed that it was low on power.

"Dang I didn't have a chance to charge it before I left," he thought angrily to himself, "It'll take forever to find a place to charge this thing."

Unfortunately the MP3 player charged it's power by plugging into the USB socket of a computer. Josh was sure he wouldn't be finding a computer he could use for that any time soon.

He pulled the headphones out of his ears and shoved the MP3 player into the side pocket of his travel bag. Might as well save what little power it had left for later.

Josh looked around the bus again. He hadn't really bothered to before, but it wasn't like it was super exciting surroundings I was just a bus.

In the isle across from him an overweight fellow was sitting with his head against the window. Josh craned his neck to make sure the guy was still breathing. Sure enough after a few seconds he could recognize faint snoring noises and noticed a stream of drool running down the guy's face.

"Oh lovely," he thought to himself, "Just lovely."

He looked around over the seats in front of him. Nothing special up there either, just a few people occupying themselves watching the movie, listening to music or working on a laptop.

"Why'd I have to get stuck on this bus? Jeeze I hardly blame Mr. Drool anymore."

Josh crossed his arms over the back of the seat in front of him and watched the road out in front of the bus. After about twenty seconds the bus driver made an announcement that they were approaching their stop in Philadelphia.

Josh groaned with boredom, "Yay, another delay on my boring trip to hell. Go figure." Unzipping his travel bag he looked inside hoping he might have packed something else to occupy his time with, if not maybe he could watch that dull comedy movie they were playing. Inside the bag he found a small pack of bubble gum, he took out one of the tiny packets and unwrapped the gum popping it into his mouth.

Just then the bus was pulling to a stop in the Philadelphia bus station. A few people stood up to get out. Josh crossed his arms back over the seat in front of him hoping someone interesting would come in and sit near him so that they could talk. He'd settle for just about anyone right now.

A few people starting coming on the bus, replacing those who had gotten off. None of them looked particularly interesting. Some older couple sat near the front of the bus and some middle-aged balding guy went and sat a few seats ahead of Josh.

The last person onto the bus seemed the most interesting, although still not super exciting by any means. The fellow looked to be a year older then Josh. Josh was fifteen, sixteen in a months time. So the guy looked to be sixteen or seventeen.

He wore a red sports jacket, so he could belong to a team. Judging solely on the guy's figure Josh figured that would be the football team if any. Josh wasn't sure if this was the kind of guy he wanted to be talking to but he really would talk to anyone right about now, and the guy was walking in his direction.

As the red-jacket guy got closer Josh thought he might sit in the seat in front of himself. But he didn't. In fact he walked straight past Josh to the back of the bus and sat down.

"Oh well, looked like a dumb jock anyway."

By now the bus was pulling out of the station and turning back onto the main road. At least Josh was sure this was pretty much the last stop before Baltimore. Thinking about that he began to wonder, once it got to Baltimore and the military school would he wish he was back here on the nearly empty bus?

Before he could complete the though or dismiss it he heard something behind himself.

"Look I'm not interested, go away," an irritated sounding female voice seemed to be coming from the back of the bus, Josh found that odd since he hadn't seen anyone come on at the last stop and head back there and he thought nobody had been there before.

Josh peered over the back of his seat curiously, hopeful that something interesting was going on behind him at the back of the bus.

"Oh come on babe what's wrong? You don't like me?" That was the red-jacketed jock. He was sitting beside some girl at the back of the bus. She looked to be about sixteen-ish as well.

Josh was surprised to see her sitting back there. Whoever she was she wasn't half bad looking and he was sure he would have remembered her getting on the bus if he had seen her. She had a open laptop sitting in here lap which seemed to imply she had been trying to work on something before the jock had shown up. She had shoulder length dirty blond hair and was wearing a blue mini skirt and matching top, almost like a uniform.

"No I don't. Get lost." She was red faced now, Josh couldn't tell if it was out of embarrassment or anger. He didn't usually find this kind of drama interesting and would usually rather ignore it, but it was still more interesting then anything else on the bus.

Josh folded his arms over the back of his seat and watched the seen unfold passively, "Wow I must be bored, oh well. Can't be any worse then that movie."

The jock tried to get his arm around her but she pushed him away and got up to move. As she was walking away he grabbed her arm. She turned back around to face him and gave him a slap in the face for it.

At this point Josh couldn't keep himself from laughing, "I'll laugh at anything right now won't I? Yeesh this place is getting to me."

The jock looked up at Josh and sneered, apparently he didn't like being laughed at. He let go of the girl's arm and stood up walking over to Josh.

"Oh great you've done it now genius," he thought to himself while smirking, "Oh well a black eye or two could make me look tough at my new school."

The red-jacket jock grabbed the front of Josh's shirt at looked him in the eye, "So what's so funny anyways?"

Josh was still chuckling watching this guy, "That would be you."

"Oh yea?" He was apparently trying to act tough, it wasn't going over to well for him either.

Josh gave him a blank look, "Oh no, sorry I got confused for a moment. Come on man, who else would I be laughing at?"

This seemed to catch the guy off guard. To Josh he seemed like the kind of guy that relied on his size to scare everyone away, if they weren't on a bus he'd take him down there and then. But they were.

Josh's eye drifted over to the girl. She seemed to be enjoying this as much as Josh was surprisingly. Of course it'd be easier for her, she wasn't being held up by her collar. Looking the other way up the bus he could see a few people starring at them, this was the last place Josh needed to be involved in a confrontation in.

Josh looked back at the jock, "Mind letting me go? Your causing a scene, and we are on a bus man."

The jock grunted angrily and let go of Josh before walking away towards a seat closer to the front of the bus. Josh smirked and wiped off his shirt.

Turning around he looked at the girl who was sitting back down, "You okay?"

She looked back at him, "Yeah I fine, what about you?"

Josh shrugged, yawning as he did so, "I'm fine."

The girl nodded at looked back at her laptop.

Josh sat back down and looked over the back of his seat at her, "So... what-ca doing?"

She looked up at him skeptically.

"Sorry, just really bored," at least he wasn't lying or anything, "If your busy and want me to bug off just say so and, I'm gone."

She sighed, "I'm working on an English assignment due in a few weeks."

Josh nodded, "A few weeks? So I take you have nothing with a more immediate due date then?"

She shook her head, "Nope, I try to keep things done ahead of time."

"So I see..." Josh reached out a hand over the back of the chair, "My name is Josh, you?"

"I'm Claire," she replied, closing her laptop.

"Claire, that's a nice name. So Claire, where are you headed to on this bus?" Josh yawned again.

Claire smiled up at him, "I'm headed to Baltimore."

Josh raised an eyebrow, "Really now? I happen to be heading there too."

Claire nodded, "Well that's nice. Why are you headed there?"

Josh frowned gently, "My folks are shipping me off to some military school for causing them too much trouble."

Claire's smile flattered, "Oh really? What did you do? You seemed to handle that guy who was here before just fine."

Josh shrugged, "I've ended up in quite a few scrapes actually. I don't go out looking for them but they seem to find me pretty good. It never seems to matter who started it though, I get in trouble for ending it. Heh, I should probably let them beat on me and not get in trouble right?"

Claire frowned, "Well that just sucks."

Josh nodded, "But what can you do eh? Life happens."

The conversation continued on for a while. They didn't really have a whole lot in common, Clarie was a strait As model student and she was scared to death of fighting. But they managed to keep a good conversation going for practically the entire ride.

Eventually however they did reach Baltimore. As the bus pulled up to the stop a number of people stood up to leave. Josh picked up his travel bag and put it over his shoulder.

Josh turned around to Claire who was gathering up her things, "So I guess I'll see you around then Claire."

"Wait, any way I can contact you Josh?... I don't really have many friends here in Baltimore, and it was fun talking with you," she finished collecting her things and looked at him.

Josh shrugged, "Well how many military schools can there be in Baltimore really? You could just look me up, and I'm sure you could find better people to hang around with."

Claire held out a piece of paper for him, "Well uhm, here's the number for where I'll be at if you feel like calling."

Josh grinned, "Sure why not. We better hurry up if we're going to get off this bus though."

Claire nodded and they made they're way to the front of the bus. On the way there the jock who was sitting at a seat near the middle of the bus sneered at Josh. Josh smiled warmly at him and continued on.

Josh and Clarie stepped off the bus onto the platform, "Alright, so see you later Claire. I think I'm already late."

Claire nodded, "See ya."

Josh walked off across the bus station platform with his luggage in tow. Once he got to the main road he spent a few minutes hailing a taxi. Eventually one stopped for him and he got inside.