The second-hand made a last slow lap, and then the bell rang out the end of the day. Bodies flowed into the hall from classrooms, tributaries to a great river system, and then pooled and mixed and began to drain out the school’s exits. Rorie made her way to her locker and stocked her backpack and wondered why she’d been so eager for the day to end. Her heart was up in her throat.

(You don’t have to.)
“Hush. I want to.” She murmered quietly, her voice masked by the generous collage of laughter and conversation carrying through the hallway.
(What if your mother finds out?)
“Dammit, Emmy, she won’t find–”

Rorie tried to put two texts in her bag at once and didn’t make it. The books caught on the lip of the bag and fell to the floor in a clatter when her grip failed. She cursed and dropped to a crouch to gather them up where they had fallen, one splayed open in a bouquet of bent pages. As she did, a hand reached out haltingly. A voice said, “uh, hey, can I–”

She looked up. A boy was squatting, staring at her. Terry somethingsomething, from her US History class. Big nose, bad short haircut out of the fifties. Answered a lot of questions with questions during class. He was reaching for but not quite grasping one of the fallen books, and his mouth hung open for a moment when she set her eyes to his. He blinked, swallowed.

“Can I help you with, uh, you got those okay?”

She nodded, grabbed one book and then the other and stuffed them in her bag. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

He nodded, glanced around at nothing, stood up when she did and thrust his hands into his pockets. “Uh, I saw you drop them, is all.”

“Yeah, well. It happens.”

“I’m Terry, by the way.” He pulled his right hand out of the pocket as if to offer to shake, then seemed to think better of it and just let it hang there lamely by his side.

“I know. You’re in my history class, right?”

He nodded rapidly. “Yeah.” He swallowed, glanced at his feet, looked back at her while she closed her locker. “Hey, um, are you, what are you doing after school?”

Rorie flinched, though she couldn’t tell if it was her body or just her brain. She paused and
(honey you don’t have to)
then slipped her backpack onto her shoulders.

“Going to the library.”

“The central branch?”

She nodded.

“I need to go too, actually. Would, uh, mind if I join you?”

(You should go to the library with him, Rorie.)

She shook her head. “I, uh, I’ve gotta go do something on the way. An appointment.”

(He likes you.)

“Oh. Uh, no sweat. Maybe some, uh, some other time.” He shrugged, smiled weakly. “Well, see you later Rorie.”

She nodded. “Later.” Terry somethingsomething turned and walked briskly down the hall, filtering into the crowd and out of sight. Rorie watched him go with a
(he seems very nice)
puzzled frown, and then snugged up her backpack and walked out of the building and down the street to the bus stop. A section of the post-bell diaspora, maybe a dozen students total, stood around the bus shelter or sat on the bench, in ones and twos, reading and talking and kicking absently at the littered grass. Every few seconds one person or another would crane their head up the street to look for the bus. When the headlights and reader board of the 14 came into view, the crowd at the stop slowly shifted and resettled as a whole, without any discussion or interaction. The Bus Is Coming as ringing bell, as unspoken signal. Rorie shifted with them, got her ticket ready. The conversationalists kept up their conversation, the readers kept at their books, but the crowd as an entity, as an ad hoc gestalt, strained and waited for the bus to cover the distance and pull to a stop.

She wasn’t aggressive getting into line, and ended up as one of the last to get on the bus. The bus was nearly full; she surveyed the crowd and debated grabbing a rail and standing, but instead dropped into a seat at the middle of the bus, next to a tired-looking asian woman reading a magazine. The bus shuddered and pulled away from the stop. Rorie pulled out her notebook and pen, and tried to find a way to hold it close to her chest and out of public view.

(That boy likes you, Rorie.)
“What would you know about it?”
(I know. I can tell.)
“Why should you care.”
(I want you to be happy.)
“Well maybe this psychiatrist can get rid of you. That’d make me happy.”
(Hush.)
“Paranoid delusion.”
(You’re not crazy.)

Near the front of the bus, a man dressed in camo pants and a large faded green jacket stamped his feet, one and then the other, and began rocking back and forth in his seat. He spoke in a low, constant murmur, eyes focused on some space behind the legs of the woman across from him. She looked away, toward the front of the bus, toward the driver. Rorie watched the man, and watched the people around him, their willful disassociation from his physical literal presence. Six, four, two feet away, they inhabited their own insulated space.

She put her notebook away and counted streets out the window of the bus.