I loved the schoolbus.
I had friends in the front,
and friends in the back.

But sometimes when I climbed those steps,
I didn't want to have friends.
I didn't want to smile,
I didn't want to laugh.
I just wanted it quiet so
I sat in the middle sometimes,
right in between everything.

And that's where I met Vanessa,
right there in the middle of the bus.

She sat alone every day,
with her eyes always
cast upon the window
and what lay beyond it.
I noticed her right away
even though she was older
and a few grades ahead of me.

See she was seventeen, and much more
experienced than the fourteen-year-old me.

But I approached her anyway,
working my way into the seat
adjacent to her.
Eventually working up the *****
to actually say something.

We talked for a few weeks,
and she humored me.

Even when I went to sit in the back
and was loud and obnoxious, I would
catch her glancing.
She would look and sneer at me.

So when the day finally came
that she said my name
and told me to sit in her seat,
I dropped everything
and joined her.

Want to see something?
she asked, without so
much as a blink.

Sure, I mean, of course.
I replied, trying my best
not to sound too eager

She kept her eyes on me as
her hands lifted up her skirt,
one inch at a time showing me
more and more of her.

My eyes were locked on
her crotch, I could almost hear
the shutter clicking as I documented
the whole thing mentally.

But she stopped when she revealed
a crescent-shaped scab on her upper thigh.

It was shot through with red lines,
swollen and inflamed and
I swear that it moved and pulsed
right before my eyes.

I couldn't look away
as she picked the scab off
in one big piece, and I saw
a white caterpillar unfold from
her wound in a squelching
symphony of sickening sound
and roll it's way down
her leg, covered with blood and
leaving ****-y streaks.

Then it hit the seat and I gasped
when she grabbed it before it could
crawl away and shoved the
macabre thing into her mouth,
still crawling,
killing it with her teeth.



I never sat with Vanessa again.