The morning air is crisp, leaving Margo's fingers numb, a sure sign that a fierce winter approaches in the coming months. The dirt road meanders through the woods until it meets the graveled one a mile and a half from her home. It is to this intersection she heads to catch the bus, and with only a few minutes' delay, she has no choice but to start jogging. She kicks up a trail of dust behind her.
"Morning, Indiana," calls a familiar voice. She grits her teeth. With a mile already behind her, she's made it to the crossing of Old Dobbin Drive, and Michael Peters strolls around the corner at that precise moment. His attempt at getting underneath her skin does not go easily ignored.
"Silent treatment's getting old," he says from behind her shoulder. Margo can hear his feet shuffling not too far behind, his long legs easily keeping up. "I liked it better when you fought back."
Anger pulses through her. Resisting the urge to turn around and tell him off is beyond difficult. What's worse is she's been resisting for weeks now. But like a deep, pestering splinter, if you try picking it out it will only end up irritating you more.
"Fine," he huffs.
The bus is already waiting at the stop by the time they arrive. This has become somewhat routine; neither is known for their punctuality.
"Ladies first, Indiana." Michael gestures in a mocking manner.
"You know, that's really getting old." Margo snaps her mouth shut. He grins victoriously.
She stomps her way up the bus steps and slings her cursed bag into the first empty seat she can find without speaking to anyone. Not that they care. Everyone went silent around her after the accident.
She presses her head against the cold glass, longing for the time when the stares were minimal or nonexistent as long as her sister was near. The only person at school who speaks to her nowadays is Michael with his lame Indiana jokes, and only a half-wit can find his moronic sense of humor entertaining. So why does she still shrink up inside?
She loops the strap of her bag around her fingers absentmindedly. It wasn't long after Owen gave her this ugly thing that she was dubbed Indiana. "Looks like something out of 'The Temple of Doom,'" Michael had taunted back then.
Suddenly it isn't the boy sitting across from Margo who angers her but her father. This bag is the last gift he gave her before he walked out high and dry on her mom at their lowest point. The last positive memory she has of him. But it is also a reminder of what he did to them.
It doesn't make sense, really. How hatred swarms Margo's thoughts, yet she cannot unclench her hand from the strap of his bag.
This is exactly what Michael gets off on: her weakness.
She squeezes her eyes shut and focuses on the changes in the drive as the bumpy road shifts to smooth concrete, allowing her mind to wander.
The shadows of two empty faces fill her thoughts, both fading memories. She has long since given up on the girl. The boy, however, still holds a fraction of a chance, and every once in a while, his blue eyes slip into Margo's dreams. His warming smile, his thick chocolate-brown hair, his sun-kissed skin... A flicker of hope rises within her that he will make his return, acting as if his absence the previous summer had never occurred. Margo understands his reasoning, of course. After what her family has gone through, she would never have expected his parents to send him and his sister to visit. But a phone call explaining his absence was expected.
"Hey, Margo." The boy snickers.
The memory fades. Gawking with a couple of his friends on his heel, Michael grins the usual smirk he wears before a joke at Margo's expense.
"Is it true what they say?" he blurts. The laughter rising within him makes his words almost unintelligible. "What they say about your sister? That she —"
Before Margo realizes what she's doing, she's already towering over him. Michael cowers away, a look of utter fear on his face.
"Say it!" she threatens, inching closer to him with each word. "Just try to pull that one!"
"Sit down, Margo," the bus driver yells. "Michael, if she hits you, I'm sure I won't see a thing."
The bus roars with laughter, for once on her side. It takes every ounce of restraint within her to sit back down across from him, but somehow Margo finds the strength. And after another five minutes of riding, her anger fades and is replaced by the depression she works so hard to keep buried deep within. The last of the trip is, for the most part, painless and quiet, other than the boy across the aisle muttering private jokes to himself — trying to recover his pride, Margo guesses. Another student whispers to Michael something about taking it too far as students file out of the bus.
Margo stays behind.
After the last person shoots an awkward glance in her direction just before exiting, she lugs herself to her feet dragging the stupid bag behind her.
"It really ain't fair," says the bus driver when she reaches the stairs. "Life, ya know?"
Margo sighs. It isn't the first time she's heard this. "Teenagers are vicious." Once her feet touch the asphalt, she turns to add, "Thanks."
"Anything to see that pretty smile." The air brake exhales as he cranks the door shut.
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