I was sitting on the edge of my seat, my feet in the aisle. It had been a long bus ride, and it still wasn’t over yet. I looked down, still playing with the Hot Hands that Sara gave me. My phone vibrated. I moved the Hot Hands to my hoodie pocket and retrieved my phone from its prison, my jeans.

The light that came from my phone seemed to illuminate my entire seat from the dark. I turned my phone sideways and flipped it up to the full keyboard. The message was from Sara, so I read it. Come here. I looked up and, without meaning to, met her eyes.

I slid my phone shut and put it back into my pocket. I quickly moved myself over to her seat. Sara situated herself and her things so that I would be more comfortable. She slid her bag under the seat and put her purse in her lap. I leaned my head back, resting it on the seat. I could sit there forever. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t look like your very comfortable,” I said. She moved her purse under the seat. Then she moved her legs onto the seat and gently leaned her head onto my shoulder. “Someone’s tired.”

“The cold metal and,” she made an up and down motion with her hand, “vertical position of the window just isn’t very comfortable,” she said in a very quiet voice. It seemed as if my conscious mind had been torn into three parts: The part that wanted to ask why, the part that wanted me to just sit there, and the part that wanted me to listen to my heart. Maybe if life were as nice as I wanted it to be, like a fairy tale, then I would have listened to my heart, but I chose to just sit there in the dark. I did, however, manage to bring myself to lean my head onto hers. I closed my eyes, concentrating on being a steady “pillow” for Sara. This was an amazing moment for me, and I wasn’t about to wake her up by jarring her all over the place.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that. It must have been at least an hour. Finally, our bus turned into the school lot following the other four. “Sara,” I said as I gently nudged her. “Sara.” She groaned and started to toss and turn, trying to get herself to sit up. “How’d you sleep?” I asked curiously.

“I slept,” was all she said. I stepped over to my seat and grabbed my duffle bag. I threw it over my head. The lights of the bus flipped on, waking about half of everyone on our bus up. The bus driver swung open the front door and let the chilling night air flow in. I barely slipped my phone out of my pocket, just enough to see the screen and check the time. 1:00 am. I walked behind some of my friends down the bus aisle.

Sarah, Raven, Laura and I all stood in a group outside. “Hey guys and girls,” we heard what could only be the voice of Mr. Stovall cutting through the crowd. All one hundred and fifty of us turned our attention to him. Stovall put his hands up to mouth in that “cupping” fashion that everyone does when they want to be louder. “We are going to unload the instrument trucks. Hey, I know it’s cold, but we need to. Now don’t expect me to get off what you guys leave on, because I wont. It’ll just stay there. Alright. Lets go.” Mr. Stovall started walking up the hill towards the band room.

“I guess I’ll see you later,” I said as I started making my way towards the instrument semi. I dreaded having to fight my way through a crowd of disoriented woodwinds to get to my trumpet.

“Bye,” I heard them all say simultaneously. One day, maybe she’ll understand….