“Don’t come back here! I have a bomb,” he said with no hesitation in his voice.
With an undertone of laughter, he pointed at me with pure determination to frighten me away. As laughter arose from the depth of the leather bus seats and the black aisle, he was joined by the other kids in roars of squeals and giggles. I walked down the bus aisle to find an open seat, praying it would be the next. As he pointed, I took a few steps back. Hold your head high. Hold your tears back. I heard my father’s voice in the back of my head. Hold your chin up, look him right in the eye. I remembered my grandfather said in his story of a war he once lived through. His wrinkles on a corner of his eye as he pounded his fist against the table to get a strong point across. There was no fear in his eyes, his body figure was tall and strong as I looked up at him. I’ve been through this before. Pre-school, when I came home with red blotches on my skin – bruises forming from an abusive friend. She was ‘just kidding’.
As I made me way to the back of the bus to find a seat, he began to chant louder into my ears. “Don’t come back here! I have a bomb! Don’t come back here! I have a bomb! Don’t come back here! I have a bomb!” he repeatedly shouted. A silent storm started to erupt. Snowflake turned into hail as its rage, but I forced the tears behind my eyelids till it ached; till my heart began to pound harder and my skin began to react to the heated yellow bus.
Slowly but cautiously my feet started to move, as if courage was something I was taught; as if my heart could tread any faster or as a myocardial infarction could erupt. My feet were weights, dragged on by life, as it must go on. My dry slanted eyes of my ethnicity forced tears back until my eyes were a desert that never sought water. My hands climbing back to the back while eye were captured on me, my hands trembling towards every seat. A treacherous journey, day by retched day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by slowing second. My head was constantly on a move to find a seat. I repeat: a seat.
My eye caught onto a girl crying. I remember her face. Her long dirty blonde locks down her back. I remember her. “Sixteen and pregnant”. I remember her name from the whispers down the hallway. To believe them was enforced by the cliques of popularity. She was a savage sent off from the clique: let go. A used tool of a popularity game. True or not, she was human, and beautiful. Her beauty was a bright, glowing face, blonde hair down her slim figure against the others in her group of friends. Her face in the hallways, as she stopped me. My face covered in acne, from the late nights stress and heredity’s genes. My eyes in complete shock to what exploded out of her mouth, “There might be some acne cream to fix your face, but it won’t fix you.”
As if the rumors were worth a death of innocent girl. Rumors hold a fate, as if words meant more than truth. Jealousy raging and fighting an innocent girl who gave me the same fate. I looked at her, and her eyes were placed on mine, and I opened my mouth and said, “I’m sorry”, as if there was no past between us. I smiled at her, and her tears started to ease. Her stained face of mascara started to dry upon her face. She smiled and started to laugh among the other on the bus.
Quick remarks, and kind hearts could only go in such way. Maybe we met at the wrong time, and that’s what I’ll tell myself for now. Maybe one day, years from now, we’ll meet again, and we could give a friendship another shot. For now laughs from afar seemed too close, and hallucination-like views were too real to be forgiven. Chanting kids like screaming angry chimpanzees on Animal Planet.
If finding a seat was this difficult, maybe walking a few miles home seemed to be easier. I turned away and started to walk towards the exit of the bus, the bus driver giving me an ugly stare, “Where are you going?” he asked. The bus monitor’s stubborn eyes glared at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. ‘Sorry’ seemed to be the only thing I could say. I repeated, “I’m sorry”. Sorry, a word of apology, a word for expressing pity.
“Nothing to be sorry for, but please take a seat,” he said.
I nodded. “Sorry.”
Again, a seat on a full bus of kids was rare. Two in a seat. “Can I sit with you?” I asked a girl. Her brown hair was put up in a messy bun, her soccer cleats on her lap.
“No. This might be too close to the back for you. I don’t want to be hurt by the bomb too.” She replied.
I nodded. Again: “Sorry.”
I reached the back of the bus, closer to the boys who acted as terrorists. As if my eyes defined who I was – it did, but as if it defined who I was in the inside. Stereotypes are too mainstream.
Closer I came to the back of the bud, kids were joined in by other kids on the back of the bus, one screamed, “Do come back, maybe It’ll straighten out your eyes!” Laughs started to erupt, exploding from a volcano. Sparks falling from the sky, first piercing my skin, then burning it, killing me. I sat next to that boy…the bus monitor asked him to move over so I could take a seat. His eyes were watering. I wasn’t sure if he wasn’t taking his bad day out on me or if it was from the laughter. As if it was funny from the beginning.
To this day, these words still ring throughout my ears, and it’s still packed in the back of my mind. I still remember the people who were on that bus, their faces and how they still give me dirty glares as I pass down the hallways. Maybe a few years from now, in a café shop, we’ll get along, and maybe we could give it another shot, starting with a hello.
I looked at him with his spiky hair in class today, and he helped me pick up my stuff when I dropped it. While picking papers up, our hands collided and our head bumped, and I didn’t realize it was him, but he has the same eyes: blue and bright. I forgave him for everything…”Sorry.”
– Emilyn Nguyen, To Be Sorry
↠ Emilyn's Journey ↞ 