“I need to get off,” I say, and I tug at the doors to get them open, but the bus is still moving so of course they won’t. “I want to get off.”
“Have to wait until the next stop then,” he replies. “Now sit down, son, please.”
“You don’t understand. I need to get off now. I saw someone. I need to find them. I’ve been looking for them. They’ve been looking for me.” I’m panicked now. Because what if she’s gone forever this time. What if that was my final glimpse of her…for real this time.
I’m angry and panicked.
And the driver must see the anger and panic in my face, because he looks angry too. “Son, you need to sit down right now, before I call the cops.”
And I know he means it. And even though I haven’t really done anything wrong, I don’t want him to call the cops. So I go back to my seat, and the fucking old man has put his bag back on the seat again.
“Can you move your bag?” I ask, and I don’t say please this time, because fuck him, that’s why.
And that’s bad of me, I know. But he can see what’s just been said, I think, so he should have moved his bag before I got here.
He mutters under his breath and moves his bag again. And I’m shocked that he could be so rude and I want to tell him so, but I don’t want the driver to be angry at me anymore, so I don’t say anything and I step past the guy because he wants the aisle seat, and I sit down, and then I turn away from him, and I think I’m breathing so hard I might pass out.
I’m shocked that the driver wouldn’t let me off.
I’m shocked at the prick next to me.
And I’m shocked that I just saw Carrie. After all these years.
I think of all the perhapses of today. And yes, I know that’s not a real word, but the realness of words doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is Carrie and the fact that she is here and she’s alive. All that matters is that I have found her when I thought she was lost to me forever.
I shake my head in wonder, thinking through my day one caption at a time, like a snapshot of my life, and how it’s all played out.
Perhaps if I hadn’t agreed to lock up for Charlie.
And perhaps if he’d won instead of lost.
And perhaps if I wouldn’t have stayed so late cleaning and I would have clocked out at five like everyone else.
And then, the biggest perhaps of all. The most important one, if you will.
Perhaps I wouldn’t have seen Carrie again if all the other perhapses hadn’t have ever happened.
I turn to look out the window, smudging a steamy square away so I can see out. The streets are dark, barring the lights on the sidewalk. The rain is still thundering down. But I smile, despite the gloom of it all.
I choose to see the good in today. In tonight. The happy perhaps of my day. The glass is half full, because Carrie is here.
I squeeze my eyes closed and I think of her face. The soft curve of her jawline. The quirk of her smile as she’d turned to him, Mister Fancy Asshole with his too-good-to-get-wet hairstyle and his expensive suit.
Her hair was like I remembered: golden. I wonder if she’ll let me touch it, now that we’re fully grown and her head lice are gone. I bet her hair feels like silk, like I always imagined it would.
It will run through my hands like dry sand.
Like water.
Like air passing over my fingers.
I wonder how much different her body will be. She was a girl back then—a young woman, she had said. But she wasn’t fully grown. Her breasts were small and pert, pink rosebuds blushing at the tip of each peak. Her hips not fully developed, even at sixteen. The curve of her ass fitted neatly into the palm of my hand.
I wonder if it still will.
My body tingles with hope and anticipation. With delirious excitement at seeing her again. At the perhaps of touching her once again.
I think of how happy she’ll be to see me again. Despite the fact that she ran away and hid herself.
From me?
I still wonder.
Did she run from me?
Or did she run from the memories?
