on the bus

Ellie's nose was stuffed up. She could hardly breath in the airconditioned bus. Her seat was cushioned enough, but for how long? She had a long road ahead of her. Tears swelled in her eyes. She knew she was sick, already.

She looked back to see if she could see them. Barely. She wanted to see Eric, but she couldn't. There were a thousand things on her mind she could have said to him, but she didn't want to say goodbye.

Ellie hugged the messenger's bag, and took a deep breath. This had to be worst possible day ever. Why did this have to happen now? Did her mother hate her this much?

She unzipped one of the many zippers of the messenger's bag and found a note from Eric.

Ok, so these may not be your favorite songs, but they're gonna be.

Sorry, I was in a rush. Didn't know what to get, but I had to get you something even if its from Dollar General. Can't go wrong with peanutbutter and chocolate, right?

I wish I were with you right now. This is major withdrawal for me. It'll probably hurt worse for me than you. But I miss you. I love you.

Love,

Eric.

She pulled out the jar of creamy peanutbutter and a big bar of chocolate. She smiled. He'd packed other things like pudding, apple sauce, raisens, cheese and crackers. She looked at the brown paper sack with the the pink compact of birth control pills. He'd put a skull and cross bone sticker on it along with a tiny red heart for a beauty mark. She caught herself from laughing. She could think of him designing a black t-shirt with the same emblem.

Just then her cell phone went off. She suspected it was him. She hadn't gotten to the mp3 player. She doubted they were even out of the city limits. "I told him I'd call first," Ellie said to no one listening.

She flipped open her phone. Didn't even recognize the number.

"Hello."

"Hey, what are you doing right now?" It was Rex.

Ellie froze. There was a lump in her throat. She had to think.

"I'm on vacation." She barely got the words out. She wanted to say it was the worst vacation of her life. It was definitely not a vacation, but he didn't need to know. Why would he care?

"Damn, I just got back from vacation. I need to see you," he said. "I need to explain. My parents took us off to Colorado. They took our phones. Something about family bonding. It felt more like boot camp."

"Well, I can't. I can't talk right now I'm, I'm in Corpus Christie. I wanted to go to the beach." It was hard to think these things up. "And I met someone." She looked at the old Mexican woman in a seat across from her. "And he only speaks Spanish. And he's teaching me Spanish." She nodded smiling to the old woman who looked at her as if she might have a loose screw.

"I know you're upset with me. I'll make it up to you. I promise. Just give me a chance. Please."

"Sorry," She put her hand over the phone and moved away from the phone and acted as if someone was right next to her then said, "What, what was that Mario?" Then she spoke back into the phone, "What were you saying? I couldn't hear that. Maybe you shouldn't call. I'd rather you didn't. Mario might, you know, think something is up and find you out. He'd probably beat you up. And I know how you feel about your face and all. It just wouldn't be worth it." She was smiling then. She took a deep breath and then yelled into the phone. "STOP CALLING ME!" And she hung up.

It was a small rush. She was hungry then. She opened the peanutbutter jar, unwrapped the Hershy chocolate bar and dipped it into the peanutbutter. She broke a piece off and dipped it in the peanutbutter and offered it to the old woman.