'What really happened...?' I thought questioningly.

"What'd you mean? Weren't you there?"

"I was. But I couldn't understand the situation. I heard there was a fight..." As soon as she saw me cringe, Principal Levi changed the course of her sentence, "...Or... something else, perhaps?"

"Huh..." I couldn't find the words. I didn't want to relive those horrible memories once again.

Kyle couldn't reply either. He was frowning. Not at anyone of us, but at the ground. Like the floor polished with the odd-looking tiles had done something terribly wrong to him. I resisted the urge to probe him for his current behaviour.

"No one's answering?" Principal Levi muttered quite a bit impatiently, gazing through her meek glasses between us back and forth. I hadn't forgot the glasses. They were more fragile and delicate, perhaps valuable and precious more so, than the rest of the employees' ones at the school. What's with the school and glasses? Almost all of the workers wear them. All that and the glasses had to look bizarre, like they were given specially to the employees of the school, whether they chose to wear them or not. Principal Levi's spectacles had slightly reformed since the last time I saw her—And that was yesterday. The lenses were now much sharper and shriller.

"Blacking out again?" Principal Levi's shrill voice outside of my mind managed to cut through my thoughts. "That's what brought you here in the first place."

"Oh. Sorry."

Principal Levi sighed, "No need to be. Though I'd really want my question to be answered."

"We don't wanna talk about it." The statement didn't come out of my mouth. It was Kyle. He glanced at me, I flinched. "Not here. Not now."

"Well, sure. At least tell me a bit of what happened then, my curiosity got the better of me."

Kyle uttered an outright "No."

"Why not?" Principal Levi pressed.

"I said no!"

Principal Levi's eyebrows shot up high above her widened eyes, they flashed with fury. "That's no way to speak to your Principal!"

"I'm not speaking to the principal. I'm talking to Ms. Levi. 'Assistant' Levi. Is this some kind of prank? If it is... It's sick and lame."

"It's not a prank or joke, you'll regret what you said."

"Will I?" Kyle challenged.

"Yes." Principal Levi promised.

"Can we not argue here? Especially now?" They both turned to face me from themselves, Kyle looking anywhere but my eyes and Principal Levi raising an eyebrow in question. I breathed in and out deeply, preparing for what would come next.

"I'll tell you the whole story. It's a short one really."

And, for the few minutes that had passed, I did exactly that, concluding the explanation with a finite sigh.

Principal Levi gaped at me and Kyle with a disbelieving expression, frozen to the point that I wondered if she spotted a ghost floating behind us. I looked around me and glimpsed nothing but dust. How senseless I had become.

The blood that had drained away from her face flowed into its normal stream, bringing the colour back to her pale skin. I wasn't feeling good either. It had been from that day on that my life took a surprising turn. And, somehow, Kyle was involved. I moved towards him, he was staring at the ground with sudden interest again. He looked... pained. I rolled my eyes and focused on Principal Levi. "Sorry. I gotta go." I went for the door...

"Wait!" I halted in my tracks as she abruptly called out. "We're not done just yet." She looked between me and Kyle. "So, this... 'incident' of yours... It explains the hostility among you two. I'm really sorry, but I have to do this. I've already decided that I'm not letting you go off that easy."

I heaved a sigh, my shoulders tensing. I froze. What am I going to do now? I've never negotiated with Ms. Levi before.

"So, what would you—" I started...

"I want you both to spend time with each other."

A strange, painfully long silence ensued.

Oh no.

I began to tremble, "...What do you mean spend time with each other...?" I queried.

"I don't like this little skirmish of yours ruining your friendship."

Kyle groaned, "We were never friends." He clarified dourly.

"It doesn't matter what you two were. I want you to get along with each other. It's for your own good." Our own good? Spending even a minute with Kyle felt like some type of inescapable hell. An hour, two or even more would undoubtedly kill the both of us, perhaps we would be the ones to slay each other's backs in a severe one-on-one war. I was ready to express what I thought about that decision. "No." I said loud and clear.

"You have no choice, it's a replacement exercise for your punishment. Got that?

"Can't you just give us the punishment then? I can bare whatever it is."

"Okay, sure, I'll give it to you. Sadly, it's this. I realized that it would be the perfect punishment."

"What did we do? What did we ever do?"

"You fought, caused a chaos around campus and broke the rules of trespassing and many more, any other person with authority would've agreed to give you the same punishment. Having to be with each other, am I right? It will make you suffer fittingly for your actions. You need to understand each other and be friends in the process. No exceptions. Not even a simple peace silence away from each other would do it. So, this punishment will come into effect starting from today onwards."

Principal Levi spoke like a general officer who had just revealed the news of a brand-new operation that's about to be carried out by the two deniable agents she had picked up from somewhere. The situation felt all the same, like she was sending us on an impossible mission, one that we were surely never going to survive. Tied to a rogue roller-coaster plowing through the air on a track that had loose its cables and wires, detaching itself from control. And, instead of riding safely up and down the trail of tracks, we'd already be tossed off the safety of our seats and sent tumbling through the air, plummeting from the sky head-first onto the hard ground. I shivered at the thought of that. My mind had gone too abstract with the metaphors. Principal Levi mistook it for rebuttal.

"You have to do it. I know a simple an easy way. Hang out. Yes! That's what the normal kids do. It's so simple! You could go to the arcade, play some games, visit each other's places and even wait for the bus together. Wouldn't that be lovely?" My face turned green and I couldn't hide the disgust that would sooner compel me to spatter vomit everywhere. I was itching to leave from there soon, the office dust had already filled my lungs and threatened to suffocate me or maybe it was the tension...

"Are you all good with that?"

"No, we're not!" We surprisingly yelled in unison.

"Aw, you're already in harmony with each other. That's a good sign. I'm sure you'd get along very well."

"But—"

"I'm sure you'll get along very well?" Principal Levi was so determined, I've never seen her this dedicated to something as stupid and unimportant as this. That didn't matter anyway, she had gained too much confidence now that she had switched professions to a more renowned one. Who knew? She might even threaten to expel us, I couldn't risk that. I had roughly a year and a half left to finish high school. So, I'd give in to defeat, for the sake of my studies, again. I wouldn't mind if it were Kyle though, I'd be more than happy to have him out of here, away from being any where near me. I wish that could happen.

"So, can I count on you two?" she continued, her eyes flashed with the confirmation that she wasn't going to accept a no. "Do I have your word? Will you get along and be well? Now I sound like a mother. Go on. Your classes are still in session. You have one period left before the announcement's finally being made!" she cheered happily and stood up from her desk to stand before us. "I hope you don't disappoint me!"

That was the cue. I immediately pushed through the office door and found myself standing in the small corridor again. I sucked in a breath, the air finally replacing the lump of dust that had long clawed at my throat. Someone cleared his throat.

I turned to regard this person who dared interrupt my breathing session, only to expect and realize who it was.

"Why did you do that?" Kyle demanded of me.

"Do what?"

"Tell her all that. We agreed not to."

"Did we?"

"Would you stop answering my questions like that?"

"Like what?"

"See, like that. Stop doing that."

"Why should I?"

"You're doing it again." He sighed in exasperation and ran a hand down his poo-brown hair—yes, poo-brown hair. "You did this. So, you should fix it."

"Not obliged." I swiftly turned to leave...

"It will never work. We'll never get along. We'll never be friends. That's never happening, got that?"

"What're you implying—"

"That I'll never like you and you'll never like me. Trust me."

"Sure." I said half-heartedly, not wanting to discover what that implied either. I had already lost the energy to deal with this mess anyway. "I'll be leaving now, if you don't mind." I walked away.

The last period that awaited me comprised of an English Literature lesson, my favourite subject ever.

After leaving the Principal's Office happily, I went down the stairs to the first floor and encountered the locker that I had forgotten to visit when I was on my way to the office. My book, not and pencil case were surprisingly still wrapped in my hands. Moments later they fell off, dropping to the floor with a thud consisting of the sounds of pencils and pens alike clacking and the lapping of paper as the book and not fluttered and flapped their pages. My left shoulder tingled with a slight ache, another shoulder had run into it. It belonged to Rill.

Rill ignored me and darted away as fast as she could. But before she got the chance to scurry away out of my vicinity, I called after her. "Hey!" The hall was relatively large, its walls were as solid as ice, perfect for echoes. She had halted. But she hadn't bothered to turn to face me. I didn't need her to anyway.

A few moments of an eerie silence creeped the hall as I marched my way across it to stand right in front of her. I received a dubious look as I did. "What do you want?" she said, obviously annoyed.

"What do you want?" I retorted. Probably not the best of those retorts.

"You to get out of my way."

"Why do you want me to?"

"Seriously? You're gonna play that game with me?" she shook her head. "Forget it. It's not gonna work. You're wasting my time." She moved to get past me, I barricaded her way.

"Ugh. What now? Won't you just leave me alone?"

"Why do you want me to leave you alone?"

"Carrie, get out of my way." I remained poised in front of her.

I bowed my head and stared at the ground. "Look, Rill, I'm—"

"—Sorry?" I looked up at her. "Be sorry all you want, it's not gonna change anything. What happened won't ever change, you can't change what happened. Got that?"

"I'm really sorry," I insisted. "I...I—didn't realize..."

"You didn't realize?" She interrupted. "You didn't realize the depth of what you did?" Her eyes quivered with every word she uttered. "How can you not realize? Why did you do that?"

"Look, it had been days since we ever talked about this. You don't have to forgive me or be my friend again. I'm finally trying to apologize to you. I just want to you to know that I didn't mean those things, really."

"Oh. So, you didn't mean to call me stupid?"

And there it was, the guilt splashed through me with the torrent of a huge waterfall, I had then realized the extent of my actions—sadly, it didn't end there.

"Did you mean to humiliate me in front of the whole school?"

"No... I—"

"Did you mean to end our friendship?"

I sighed, there was no use. "I..."

"No. Stop. Just stop. I can't believe I called you my friend, my best friend even. It seems I've clearly mistaken you for something entirely opposite from who you truly are. A friend... wouldn't betray another."

And with that final, awful note, Rill sauntered past me and I let her, taking in what she had just ingested into me, bearing the clanking sound of the familiar corresponding ring of a bell at the far upper corner of the hall as I stood where I was, completely immobile.

I had failed her. I had failed my best friend. And everyone around me. There was no doubt I would fail Ms. Levi too. There was no way I could be a good friend to Kyle more than I had been to Rill, whether I disliked him or not. There was no way I could live up to my parents' wishes. There was no way I could be what my teachers wanted me to be. There was no way I could achieve what I wanted to do. There was no way my brother would have decided to stay with me if he knew this was going to happen.

"No! Don't bring him up!" I screamed into the hall.

A rush of students immediately bursted out of the various doors that dotted the hall's walls on both sides. Each of them dashed past me harshly, eager to be out of the boring classes they had to endure. No one gave a single glance at me, they didn't come in response to my outburst. That was good.

But that wasn't enough to stop me from dropping to the floor, tears threatening to spill their rage out of me. I thought about him. I thought about my brother.

The tears came out.

If the students rushing out of their classes dumping their books into their lockers hadn't noticed me, they did now. But of course, as expected, they happily ignored me. Some of them flashed occasional odd glances here and there. Others were whispering, muttering, complaining. All those didn't matter anymore, they didn't match the terrifying ordeal I had to endure for a whole year. It was all my fault. It happened because of me. Now it was only right that I suffer accordingly. It was only right that I be miserable my entire life. I shamelessly deprived one, a life, of any of the chances to experience any feelings at all. I'm a born monster.

The tears that had blurred my vision and the sobbing that had drowned my surroundings pulled me out of the crazed frenzy of the world that I had just been in and into the sad, miserable, painful, turmoil of my own world. It was even more despondent than the real world itself. The world that I didn't belong to. It looked like someone else from that world thought otherwise.

I felt a stout hand grip my shoulder.

My eyelids dragged themselves open and I forced my head to turn and regard the interrupter. If it was Kyle, my fists were ready to punch him to his senses. Whatever his intentions were.

It wasn't him.

It was Jill Greenwood. The English teacher who made it to the top of the tally but was Rill's caring mother.

"Carrie? What are you doing here? Are you okay?" She looked as though she was worried for her own daughter, she did picture me as that, not as a traitor either. At least not yet, I suspected she was yet to be informed on what happened. "Carrie?" She insisted when I didn't answer.

I looked up at her as she kneeled down, I noticed that the hall was once again empty, how long have I been there sobbing my sorrows?

"Carrie, are you okay?" Mrs. Greenwood asked again.

"Y­­—yeah..."

The dim ball lights above the hall illuminated the glistening lines of tears that had streaked my face, not making my response at all believable. "Carrie, do you know what time it is? It had already been half an hour after school time." She reached out to stroke the top of my head, "Oh, dear. Tell me you hadn't been crying." I didn't respond. I hadn't needed to. "You were... What's wrong, what happened? Was it about the announcement?" Mrs. Greenwood's pale face lit up as she seemed to realize something, giving me a sympathetic look. "You miss her, don't you? I agree too, you know. Ms. Toffy shouldn't have ever left. She was the school's greatest apple."

"You know what happened to her?" I managed to rasp.

"Oh. Unfortunately, no. I haven't heard from her since. I'll check if I can reach her though." She smiled, and I tried to follow with a weak lift of my lips. "It's okay. You can visit sometime if you like. She won't disappear forever. I guarantee you that."

Guarantees were also guaranteed to be false and untrue in certain instances.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

I nodded slowly.

She looked unconvinced. Mrs. Greenwood stood anyway. "You can go home now. Since your English class was cancelled. We'll pick up on Monday." She gave me a knowing look before she past me and muttered, "Oh and... There was that boy... standing outside...he told me he was waiting for someone... but there's surprisingly no one else here, it's probably you. You better hurry up. I wouldn't want to make him wait. Take care." Mrs. Greenwood flashed her warming smile and left her trail behind. I followed a few moments after she left, not quite able to smile. But before that I picked up the books and case from the ground where I hurled them and tossed them further into my locker, frowning as I noticed there were footprints and dents all over them. Ugh. High school students.

I sighed and slammed my locker door shut, shoving those thoughts deep into the abyss of unknowingness that existed in my mind. I had to gain more control over my thoughts from now on.

"Ahoy!" Mrs. John shouted from the double entrance to the school as I almost reached there, my green bag dangling from my shoulder. "What are you still doing here?" She demanded. This was the only time she ever got to raise her voice, when no one was around, apparently, I'm an exception.

"Oh, um... Was at the library." I said and lied when I neared her, she was gripping the long length of a mopping rod, the bottom end attached to several thick lines of wool that were still wet. She stopped her mopping immediately after she saw me, her transparent glasses revealing her dark eyes trying to convey that she wanted to hold up the upper end of the mop and beat the pulp out of me. I swallowed, hard. Why did she start to hate me so much?

"Library? Always wanting to prove yourself better. Now get out of here!" I didn't think twice before obeying her, she looked too ready to flank me back to my home. But before I leave, I wanted to ask something. "Do you know what happened with Ms. Toffy?"

"Honestly don't know the bout her. Now go before I flunk you away myself!"

I instantly did just that.

The fresh near-evening air escaped the trees surrounding the school, swirling a bunch of leaves around in a whirl. There was a steady wind blowing. I looked everywhere, at the large courtyard and the gateless entry.

Nobody was there.

Why would I ever expect him to wait? It had probably been almost an hour since school ended. I trotted off the school bounds and made my way down a sidewalk, not very far away there was a bus stop waiting for me.

I took my time walking there. I wasn't in a hurry and I probably had no reason to be. I was carrying in my green bag an extra load, walking slowly was more sufficient.

Despite my dragged speed, I reached there in a jiffy.

"Who do you think you are? A queen?" Kyle exclaimed from where he stood leaning on the steel bus stop rod when I got there. Of all places, did he have to be here?

I wasted no second, "What are you doing here?" He never came here, he never went home by bus.

"Waiting for my friend." He replied instantly.

"Your friend? Wasn't your friend supposed to be here by now?"

"Well, she's here now. It's about time you came."

I checked behind and around me, shocked by his statement when I realized what he meant. "I'm not your friend!" I shouted as loud as I could. There were only three people present there; a couple and an old lady sitting on the provided bus stop seats. The couple flinched at my tone. The old lady was watching us with sudden interest. Behind Kyle, I spotted one empty space, right beside the old lady. He moved away and dramatically cupped his hands towards it as I stared at him in disbelief. "What? I saved my friend a seat."

I stood motionless, not wanting to move a muscle until I understood what was going on.

"Isn't my friend going to sit on the seat I saved her?" He insisted. At the moment, I was feeling green and squishy, inside and out.

Kyle jerked forward and placed his hands on my shoulders. I flinched at his action and shook even more when he suddenly turned serious and asked, "Were you crying?"

I tensed and only managed a vigorous shake of my head.

"No? Your eyes are terribly red. You look awful!" he commented much too loudly. What? What did he mean?

My hands instinctively reached up and rubbed the skin around my eyes. "I wasn't. Really. It's probably the wind or something." I halted as I realized what was happening. "Why do you—" I started.

"—are you sitting or what?"

"Me? I—"

He didn't give me the time to finish my sentence as he grabbed my arm and dragged me, gently shoving me down the seat. I shivered. He made contact with me.

"Now. That's better. You shouldn't be turning down an offer from your friend." Kyle glared at me, "It's stupid and tiring." He went back to leaning against the thick metal rod, his back to me.

"You don't realize how much he cares for you, dearie." The old lady whispered into my ears as I sat next to her. I turned to face her, not quite wanting to meet her eyes after what she had just said. "He waited for you for quite a long time. The seat wasn't easy to acquire. My husband was on it." I waited for her to point somewhere. "He already left with his bus though. I must tell you this. Whether this nice boy's your friend or not, he's a keeper." She winked.

My mouth gaped opened as I stared at her in disbelief. As if in cue, a bus stopped by, the numbers etched on the small screen in front of it was familiar but it didn't match my destination. She stood up and boarded it, waving at me. I didn't wave back. The bus rode along the road as it brought whoever that was far away ever so far away from me, these kinds of people tend to scare me, they often speculate the future.

I sat there at the bus stop seat in silence, waiting for my bus to arrive.

"I heard all that, you know." Kyle made known his existence. I had simply drained him out after what had just happened. I winced slightly at the sound of his voice, panicking. He noticed. He looked back at me, a smirk lifting his lips. "She's right. I am a keeper. A really, really great keeper." He continued happily, content with himself. "I'm a good friend."

"A friend?"

"Yeah. Friend."

"I'm not your friend, Kyle. What's going on? Why are you doing this? Why are you acting so weird?"

"Do you want me to answer you back with a question?"

"You just did."

"Alright, miss know-it-all. You forget everything, don't you? Remember Principal Levi? I don't wanna lose my precious grades..."

"Hey. Hadn't you told me yourself that it would never happen?"

"Told you what? I don't remember." He shook his head.

"You do. It was just two hours ago."

"And forty minutes, to be exact."

"Oh. So, you do know when it happened? But you can't recall what you said? Look who's the one forgetting stuff now."

"Mhm. Nothing's ringing."

"Stop it. I'm not kidding. I don't wanna do this either."

"You think I want to?"

"Well, what is it then?"

"You think I wanna be with you, calling you my friend and all, being all kind and caring, because I want to?"

"You made your point. Just answer me."

"What's at stake for the both us if we don't do what dear principal Levi ordered us to do?"

"I wouldn't say order..."

"She did. I 've never seen that kind of conviction in her eyes before. Guess what?"

"What?" I asked exasperatedly.

"She told me herself she would be watching us, closely. Like a creepy, dumb owl."

"Ms. Levi isn't dumb."

"Do you know what metaphors are?"

"Do you?"

"Of course I do. They're..." He trailed off, shaking his head again. I didn't know why I did, but I moved to spare some space for him, he contentedly sat beside me.

For the first time ever since I've met him, Kyle had never looked so worn. And... I didn't care of course. He could do whatever he wanted, do stuff I didn't ask him to do. He could go tired all he wants. I.DON'T.CARE.

'Never did and never would.' I repeated several times in my head.

"Levi isn't gonna let us off easy. She wouldn't tell me what she'd do to us. But she warned that it was going to be as severe as ever." I watched in surprise when Kyle began to shake a little. The wind was picking up around us noticeably faster. The sky was beginning to darken with smoke-ash clouds. "She even said she was going to be watching us. I bet she hired spies to do that for her."

"Spies?" I snorted. "That's a crazy stretch."

"And I named you Crazy."

"That's also crazy. That's not my name."

"I don't know."

"You do. I'm Carrie and that's my name. If you wanna do this, you gotta call me by my real name. Got it?"

"Wait, you're agreeing to it?"

"Why not? I don't care about anything else. I just wanna finish school and finally start my future."

"What do you wanna do?" Kyle abruptly asked the absurd question.

"Um...why should I tell you...?"

"If we're gonna pretend to be friends, we might as well pretend to know each other."

I gazed up at the sky, it was now covered fully with puffy smoke clouds, tiny lines of lightning glimmered through them. It was going to be raining soon, the bus has to be here by now.

"But pretending means you don't have to know, isn't that right?"

"What do you mean? How are we supposed to pretend when we're asked questions?"

"Tell whoever those questioners are whatever we think of?"

"That won't work. No guarantee. Levi seems too ambitious."

"It doesn't always have to be her. It could be anyone else. Family and friends and..." Oh. I didn't have friends anymore. Or at least a friend. And family wasn't something that was readily made for me.

"Don't look at me. I don't have any friends either. I'm too good for them apparently." He looked up and scanned the sky as well, alarmed by the rise of precipitation, but he looked genuinely saddened. And I... didn't—

"Writing," I muttered before I could reconsider and stop myself.

He looked down from staring into the depths of the sky. "What?"

"I wanna do writing, become an established author. Something like that..."

"Cool." Kyle reacted nonchalantly.

"Ok, uh... What do you...?"

"I dunno."

"You dunno...?"

"I just don't know. Hadn't figured it out yet."

"Oh..." We sat there gazing into any far distance in stillness. The silence quite reaching its peak of disappearance as the sky darkened even more and the lightning strikes intensified. I was beginning to fear that my ride would never come. I should have taken the last bus home.

"So..." Kyle began, breaching the awkward silence, "Why do you wanna do what you wanna do?"

"What? Oh, um... I just like it, I guess. It feels nice to capture the world with words, I used to carry a booklet with me for that."

"So, what happened to it?"

"It got lost. All my memories. Gone. Lost." I strained my brain not to think of him again, I breathed in slowly and that helped me to focus.

"Now. Why don't you have an ambition?" I asked Kyle accusingly.

"What? It's not my fault I can't come up with one."

"It literally is."

"That's because I can't. It's boring, fixing on one thing."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is"

"No, it isn't."

"You wanna argue?"

I fell quiet and ignored him.

"Hmph. I was right. I can deprive you of your confidence."

"No, you can't!"

"Of course, I can. It obviously happened just now."

"No, it didn't!"

The couple that were gazing at us frowned at our behavior. Whoever they were, it wasn't safe to be this way in front of them.

"So, Kyle... Aren't you going to tell me why you don't like ambitions?"

"What?" I pointed to the two people that were seated a little bit farther from us.

"Who are they?" I whispered to him, first time I've ever done so.

"Oh. I think they're just joy travelers."

"But they've been there for a long time, right?" He didn't answer.

"Right?" I repeated.

"Oh. Yeah. They do look familiar though." He stretched and gave them a good glance. "I've seen them somewhere before..."

"You have?" I panicked. "Where?"

"Hey. Why are you panicking? They might just be random people anyway."

"What if they're..."

"The spies? You're right. That's too big a stretch. I don't think Levi would go that far."

I gasped.

"What is it?" Kyle spun his head around, focusing on the couple. "What did you see?"

"Did you just... agreed to what I said?"

"No, I pretended to agree, there's a difference."

"No, you did say you agreed to it..."

"Pretended." He had to clarify. This was why we never went along.

"So? You still did agree. I'll take it as voluntary."

"But it's not."

"To me. It is."

"Oh, really? Why do you want me to agree with you so bad?"

"I dunno too."

"You dunno?"

"I don't know. It's simple." I shrugged half-heartedly.

There, in the distance along the road, was a bus pulling up. I smiled as I read the numbers in neon lights '021'. My bus had finally arrived.

Kyle looked at me weirdly as I stood up and shifted my bag over my shoulder. "That's your ride? Do you live that far?"

"Nope. Not really. It's..." I stuttered, "... Just on the way, I guess."

"Oh. Why do I care anyway? You just go home. We'll meet tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? But tomorrow's a weekend." I said, anxious to get on the bus as fast as I could.

"Yeah, friends hang out on the weekends not just in school, don't they?"

The couple, muttering between themselves, nodded in agreement. That's strange.

And I had no time to decide whether it was strange or not, I needed to board the bus before it leaves. I carried my feet forward and started towards it when...

"Wait!" Kyle called. "Friends shout bye to each other. Bye!" He shouted to the top of his lungs, even though I wasn't that far away from him. "Got it?"

"Yeah. Bye."

A drizzle had already begun to silently wet the ground, and by the time I climbed into the bus fumbling for my bus card, it was raining heavily. The clouds rumbled with boundless intensity. The road and the top of the bus reacted noisily to the rain as it lapped severely against them.

I paid my ticket and found myself a seat where it was available, the bus was relatively empty, only a few passengers, like three to five, were present. Not many people were willing to go where I had planned to go.

Gazing out the window, I saw Kyle raising up his hands and waving enthusiastically. I giggled, he had taken the act quite too far. I reluctantly waved back, deciding I was going to play along with Ms. Levi's game. She wasn't going to fail me that easily.

If we had taken the time to know more about each other, Kyle would've known that the bus that I was supposed to ride was numbered '347', not '021' which led out of town. Of course, he'd come to realize that later. For now, this was a story to tell for another time.

If there was anything that was more important to me right now, it was to find out the truth... What really happened?

And the only person who could provide the answer to that question was the affected one herself, Ms. Toffy.