The Edge of Never (7 page)

The driver goes to close the doors but then pulls back on the lever and they squeal open again. A guy gets on carrying a black duffle bag on his shoulder. Tall, stylish short brown hair and he’s wearing a tight-fitting navy tee and a sort of crooked smile that could either be genuinely kind, or something more confident. “Thanks,” he says to the driver in that laid-back way.

Even though there are plenty of empty seats for him to choose from, I still make it a point to slide my bag over onto the one next to me, just in case he decides it’s
the one
for him. It’s not likely, I know, but I’m a just-in-case kind of girl. The doors squeal shut again as the guy walks down the aisle toward me. I look down into the magazine that had been sitting inside the terminal and start reading an article about Brangelina.

I sigh with relief when he passes me up and takes the pair of empty seats behind me.

Finally, an under-populated bus I might actually get some deep sleep on. It’s all I really want to do. The longer I stay awake, the more I think about all of the things I don’t want to think about. I don’t know what I’m doing, or where I’m going, but I do know that I want to do whatever it is and get there soon.

I doze off after staring out the window next to me for an hour.

Muffled headphone music blaring right behind me wakes me up sometime after dark.

At first, I just sit here, hoping maybe he’ll notice the top of my now fully awake head bobbing over the seat and decide to turn the music down.

But he doesn’t.

I lean up, reaching back to rub a crooked muscle in my neck from sleeping on my arm and then I turn around to look at him. Is he
asleep
? How can anyone actually sleep with music blasting in their ears like that? The bus is pitch dark except for a couple of dim reading lights shining down onto books and magazines from above the passenger’s seats and the little green and blue lights at the front of the bus in the driver’s dashboard. The guy sitting behind me is covered by darkness but I can see one side of his face lit up by the moonlight.

I contemplate it for a second and then push myself up with my knees on the seat and I lean over the back of it, reaching out and tapping him on the leg.

He doesn’t move. I tap him harder. He stirs and slowly opens his eyes, looking up at me with my stomach hanging over the top of the seat.

He reaches up and pulls the earbuds from of his ears, letting the music funnel from the tiny speakers.

“Mind turning it down a little?”

“You could
hear
that?” he says.

I raise a brow and say, “Uhhh, yeah, it’s pretty loud.”

He shrugs and thumbs the MP3 player for the volume button and the music fades.

“Thanks,” I say and slide back down in my seat.

I don’t lie down across the seats in the fetal position this time, but lean against the bus and press my head back against the window. I cross my arms and close my eyes.

“Hey.”

My eyes pop open, but I don’t move my head.

“Are you asleep yet?”

I raise my head from the window and look up to see the guy hovering over me.

“I literally just closed my eyes,” I say. “How can I already be asleep?”

“Well, I don’t know,” he whispers. “My granddad could fall asleep in two seconds flat after closing
his
eyes.”

“Was your granddad narcoleptic?”

There’s a pause. “Not that I know of.”

Wow, this is awkward.

“What do you want?” I ask as quietly as he had.

“Nothing,” he says grinning down at me. “Just wanted to know if you were asleep yet.”

“Why?”

“So I can turn the music back up.”

I think about it for a second, uncross my arms and lift the rest of the way from the seat, turning at the waist so that I can see him.

“You want to wait until I’m asleep to turn the music back up so that you can
wake me up again
?” I’m having a hard time getting this.

He smiles a crooked smile.

“You slept for three hours without it waking you up,” he says. “So, I’m guessing it wasn’t my music that did it, must’ve been something else.”

My eyebrows draw together. “No, ummm, I’m pretty sure I know it was the music that did it.”

“OK,” he says, slipping away from the seat and out of sight.

I wait for a few seconds before closing my eyes in case this might get weirder and when it doesn’t, I drift back into the Land of No Dreams.

6

THE SUNLIGHT BEAMING IN through the bus windows wakes me the next morning. I lift up to get a better view, wondering if the scenery has changed any yet, but it hasn’t. And then I notice the music blasting from the earbuds behind me. I creep up over the top of the seat, expecting to see him sound asleep, but he looks back at me with an I-told-you-so smile.

I roll my eyes and sink back down, pulling my bag onto my lap and sifting through it. I’m starting to wish I’d brought something to keep my mind busy. A book. A crossword puzzle.
Something
. I sigh heavily and literally start fiddling my thumbs. I wonder where we are in the United States, if I’m even still in Kansas and decide that we must be because every car that passes by the bus has Kansas license plates.

When I can’t find anything interesting to look at, I pay more attention to the music behind me.

Is that…? You’ve got to be
kidding
me.

Feel Like Makin’ Love
comes from the guy’s earbuds; I can tell at first by the distinctive guitar rift in the solo that everyone knows even if Bad Company isn’t their kind of music. I don’t hate classic rock, but I much prefer newer stuff. Give me Muse, Pink or The Civil Wars and I’m happy.

The earbuds dangling over the back of the seat and practically on my shoulder scares the crap out of me. My body jerks up and a hand flies over as if to slap away a bug that at first I think just landed on me.

“What the hell?” I say, looking up at the guy as he hovers over me again.

“You look bored,” he says. “You can borrow them if you want. Might not be your type of music, but hey, it’ll grow on you. I promise.”

I’m looking up at him with an awfully twisted face. Is this guy
serious
?

“Thanks, but no,” I say and go to turn around again.

“Why not?”

“Well, for one,” I say, “you’ve had those things stuck in your ears for the past several hours. Gross.”

“And?”

“What do you mean,
and
?” I think my face is just getting more twisted. “That’s not
enough
?”

He smiles that crooked smile again, which in the daylight I notice produces two tiny dimples near the corners of his lips.

“Well,” he says, reeling the earbuds back in, “you said ‘for one’; I just thought there might be another reason.”

“Wow,” I say, flabbergasted, “you are unbelievable.”

“Thanks.” He smiles and I can see all of his straight, white teeth.

I definitely didn’t mean that as a compliment, but something tells me he knows as much.

I go back to digging in my bag already knowing I’m not going to find anything but clothes, but it’s better than dealing with this weirdo.

He plops down on the empty seat next to me, just before another passenger walks past toward the restroom.

I just kind freeze here, one hand buried inside my bag, unmoving. I may be looking right at him, but I have to let the shock wear off before I can actually figure out what kind of lecture I want to give him.

The guy reaches into his own bag and pulls out a little packet containing an antibacterial wipe, rips off the top half and unfolds the towelette. He wipes each earbud down thoroughly and then reaches over to me. “Like new,” he says, waiting for me to take them.

Seeing as how it actually seems like he’s trying to be nice, I let my defenses down just a little. “Really, I’m good. But thanks.” It surprises me at how fast I got over the whole sit-next-to-me-without-asking thing.

“You’re probably better off anyway,” he says, putting the MP3 player in his bag. “I don’t listen to Justin Bieber or that crazy meat-wearin’ bitch, so I guess you’ll just have to do without.”

OK, defenses are back up. Bring it on.

I snarl over at him, crossing my arms. “First off, I don’t
listen
to Justin Bieber. And second, Gaga isn’t so bad. Playing the shock-value card a little too long, I admit, but I like some of her stuff.”

“That’s shit-music and you know it,” he replies and shakes his head.

I blink twice, just because I’m at a loss and don’t know what to say.

He puts his bag on the floor and leans back on the seat, propping one booted foot up on the back of the seat in front of him, but his legs are so long it looks uncomfortable to me. He’s wearing those stylish work-boot-looking things. Dr. Martens, I think. Dammit. Ian always wore those. I look away, not really in any mood to further this very strange conversation with this very strange person.

That old lady I met in Tennessee was right.

He looks over at me, his head pressed comfortably against the itchy fabric behind him. “Classic Rock is where it’s at,” he says matter-of-factly and then gazes out ahead. “Zeppelin, the Stones, Journey, Foreigner.” He lets his head fall to the side to look over at me again. “Any of that ringing any bells?”

I scoff and roll my eyes again. “I’m not
stupid
,” I say, but then change my tune when I realize I can’t think of many classic rock bands and I don’t want to make myself look stupid after so eloquently saying that I’m not. “I like…Bad Company.”

A little grin lifts one side of his mouth. “Name one song by Bad Company and I’ll leave you alone about it.”

I’m nervous as hell now, trying to think of any song by Bad Company other than the one he had been listening to. I’m not going to look this guy in the face and say the words:
I Feel Like Makin’ Love
.

He waits patiently, that grin of his still in-tact.

“
Ready For Love
,” I say because it’s the only other one I can think of.

“
Are
you?” he asks.

“Huh?”

A smile etches deeper into his face. “Nothing,” he says, looking away.

I blush. I don’t know why and I don’t want to know why.

“Look,” I say, “do you mind? I was sort of using both seats.”

He smiles, this time without the smirk hiding behind his eyes. “Sure,” he says getting up. “But if you want to borrow my MP3 player, you know where it’s at.”

I smile slimly, relieved more than anything that he’s going to move back to his seat without a fight. “Thanks,” I say, appreciative, nonetheless.

Just before he makes it all the way back, he leans around the outside seat and says, “Where are you going, anyway?”

“Idaho.”

His bright green eyes seem to light up when he smiles. “Well, I’m heading to Wyoming, so looks like we’ll be sharing a few busses.” And then his smiling face disappears somewhere behind me.

I won’t deny that he’s attractive. The short, tousled haircut, the toned arms and sculpted cheekbones, the dimples and how that stupid fucking grin of his makes me more willing to look at him even though I don’t want to. But the reality is that it’s not like I’m into him, or anything—he’s a random stranger on a road-to-nowhere bus. No way in hell would I ever entertain something like that. And even if he wasn’t, even if I knew him for six months, I wouldn’t go there. Not ever. Not anymore.

~~~

The endless ride through Kansas seems to take longer than it should. I guess I never thought about how big states really are. You look at a map and it’s just this piece of paper in front of you with oddly-shaped borders and veiny little lines. Even Texas seems pretty small when you’re looking down at it like that, and always traveling everywhere by plane helps feed the delusion that the next state is just an hour away. Another hour and a half and my back and butt feel like stiff, hard pieces of meat. I’m constantly shifting on the seat, hoping to find some way to sit to relieve the tenderness, but I just end up making other parts of my body sore.

I’m only starting to regret this because the bus ride sucks.

I hear the bus intercom squeal once and then the driver’s voice:

“We’ll be stopping for a break in five minutes,” he says. “You will have fifteen minutes to grab a bite to eat before we get back on the road. Fifteen minutes. I will not wait longer, so if you’re not back in that time the bus will leave without you.” The speaker goes dead.

The announcement causes everyone to stir in their seats and gather their purses and such—nothing like talk of getting to stretch your legs after hours on a bus to wake everyone up.

We pull into a spacious lot where several semis are parked, and in-between a convenience store, a car wash and a fast food restaurant. Passengers are standing up in the center of the aisle before the bus even comes to a stop. I’m one of them. My back hurts so bad.

We file out of the bus one by one, and the second I step off I cherish the feel of concrete underfoot and the mild breeze on my face. I don’t care that this area is hick-in-the-sticks remote, or that the convenience store gas pumps are so outdated that I know the restrooms will probably be scary; I’m just glad to be anywhere but cooped-up inside that bus. I practically glide (like an ungraceful, wounded gazelle) across the blacktop parking lot and toward the restaurant. I take advantage of the restroom first and when I come back out there are several people in line in front of me. I stare up at the menu, trying to decide between a large fry or vanilla shake—never was a big eater of fast food. And finally when I walk out of the restaurant with a vanilla shake, I see the guy from the bus sitting on the grass that separates the parking lots. His knees are bent and he’s eating a burger. I don’t look at him when I start to walk past, but apparently it’s not enough to keep him from bothering me.

“Eight more minutes before you have to crawl back into that tin can,” he says. “You’re
really
going to spend that precious time in there?”