Destiny (Waiting for Forever) (3 page)

R
EFINERIES
dominated the Texas landscape as we made our way to Beaumont, passing a few smaller towns just over the border. The massive industrial plants lit up the night sky with a dusky orange glow. My eyes drooped a few times while I watched the smokestacks pass by the window. I was so tired, but we were only an hour away from Houston and I couldn’t risk missing my transfer. Weird scenarios involving being left on the bus and ending up in Alaska filtered through my mind. Polar bears were trying to steal my backpack, but I couldn’t let them because it was all I had. Brad Mosely yelled at me and told me I was going to jail because I wouldn’t let the polar bear have my backpack. Even though I knew he was in jail for attacking me last summer, I watched as he started to run toward me, but I couldn’t run away because I kept slipping on the ice.

I jerked awake, bouncing my forehead off the grungy window. Rubbing the sharp pain, I looked around and saw we were in a big city, the lights glowing against the blackness of the night. Checking my phone quickly, the display read that it was a quarter to one in the morning. We would be pulling into the Houston bus station any time now, and I dreaded sitting in the Houston terminal for two hours waiting for the transfer. The bus started to slow and turned into a huge circular drive.

“Welcome to Houston, folks. If you’re transferring to another bus, please wait at the curb for your bags to be unloaded. The monitors throughout the terminal will display when and where to go for your next destination. Thank you for choosing Greyline Bus Service,” the bored driver rattled off through the onboard speakers. When the bus came to a stop, the whoosh of the door was barely audible over the babble of the other passengers talking and making plans. I put my backpack on and secured the straps before helping an older woman dislodge a huge carry-on bag from under her seat, where it had been wedged.

I watched a sallow-looking, overweight man pulling luggage from the compartment under the bus. Finally, he reached my big black duffel, and I checked the neon-green tag Carolyn had insisted I attach. When I carried the bag into the station, I rented a large locker and put my duffel and backpack in there for the two-hour layover. It seemed easier than carrying it around the station and making sure no one messed with it. Those two bags contained everything I owned, everything I would need to survive in California. Grabbing the paperback I wanted to read, I went to find a table near the closest coffee stand and pulled out my phone. Even though it was one in the morning, I couldn’t stop myself from sending Carolyn a text.

[Brian]:
Hi Mom made it to Houston. Everything’s ok. Love and miss you both.

With a sigh, I walked over to a coffee stand and looked over the menu. I needed something I wouldn’t hate to keep me awake for the next two hours. Carolyn had always told me that coffee would stunt my growth and that I shouldn’t drink it, so I never did. I figured it was just her way of not having an over-caffeinated kid, so I chuckled as I ordered a latte with caramel in it. When I sat down at the table, I took a drink and decided it was surprisingly good. My pocket vibrated, startling me, and I pulled out the phone, seeing that I had a text message.

[Carolyn]:
Keep me posted. We love you and miss you so much.

Surprised that Carolyn was still awake at that hour, I felt guilty. She had to be up worrying about her son being alone and on his own for the first time in his life. A pang of regret rolled in my stomach, and I set the coffee down. Loneliness followed, and it was stronger than I had ever felt it before. I imagined my mom sitting at the kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee and staring out the back door into the balmy August night. The fan that we shifted between the living room and the kitchen would be keeping her cool even as the coffee warmed her.

The phone display showed I still had an hour and fifteen minutes. Knowing that she was up, it took every bit of willpower I had not to call to hear her voice reassuring me. It was going to be a long trip, and an even longer and harder journey once I got to California. I needed to save the minutes my parents had loaded onto my phone. I’d barely left Alabama and I was already looking for comfort. Briefly, I considered texting Adam to say hi, but deep down I knew it was such a selfish thing to do. A clean break would be better for us both. I didn’t want him hanging around and waiting for me as I had waited for Jamie. I wanted him to live his life and be happy. The irony was not lost on me, since that’s exactly what Jamie had told me to do.

After finishing the first chapter, I decided I definitely needed another latte. I grabbed my cup and was on my way to the deserted counter when I saw something odd. A girl with shoulder-length blonde hair, her backpack falling off her shoulder, was pulling a large suitcase into the women’s bathroom. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, and with her slight build, she looked even younger. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she let the door close behind her in the little alcove leading to the restroom. Two guys, one white and one Hispanic, both in their early twenties, looked conspicuously around at the deserted station before following her in. The second guy had an evil, excited smile as he pulled the door closed behind him.

I looked around quickly and didn’t see a security guard or anyone who might be able to help. Praying that neither of the guys in the bathroom was armed, I left my book on the table and ran for the door through which they had disappeared.

Sensei had taught us the first thing we should do when faced with danger was assess the situation. Peeking around the wall that separated the door from the sink area, I heard a muffled cry. The Hispanic man was holding the girl with her back against him, one skinny arm around her chest, using the other hand to cover her mouth. He was fondling her through her T-shirt as she cried and struggled against his hold. The white guy was trying to unbutton her jeans, but she was kicking and bucking too hard for him to get them open. Finally, he got frustrated and grabbed her hair, forcing her head up so she was looking at him.

“Look, it’s going to happen either way. You be nice to us, and we won’t hurt you. If you keep fighting and making it harder on us, we’re going to make it very hard on you. Do you get it?” he asked, grabbing her breast so roughly she cried out. The girl trembled with silent tears, and I saw her nod. Just as the first guy was pulling her shirt up to expose her bra, I came out from behind the wall.

Surprise was my best weapon, and as I executed a perfect kick to the side of the white guy’s head, the Hispanic guy yelled, and his grip slipped on the girl. She screamed as the white guy’s head bashed into the door of one of the stalls.

“Who the hell are you?” the Hispanic guy yelled as the girl continued to scream. He came at me, trying to connect his fist with my jaw, but I blocked the blow and, as he turned, elbowed him in the back of the head. His face smashed into the wall across from the stalls, and he went down slowly to his knees. The second guy, who was starting to recover from my kick to his head, turned on his knees and began to rise. He lunged for the girl, maybe wanting to use her as a shield. Kicking out hard, my tennis shoe connected with his face, which in turn slammed into the stall again, and he went down fast.

I reached out, and the girl took my hand. Her suitcase wobbled when I gripped it with my other hand, but I righted it and pulled her from the bathroom and down the hall into a more inhabited area of the station.

“Are you okay?” I asked her as she stood shaking, her shirt torn and tears running down her face. “We need to find someone to help you.” Looking around, I tried to spot a security guard or a cop, but she grabbed my arm.

“I’m okay, I just want to get out of here,” she said, and her hand shook as she checked her watch. “My bus is leaving in about fifteen minutes.”

“Mine too,” I told her, checking my phone. She really did look like a mess, and I didn’t want her to go off on a bus alone as shaken up as she was.

“I need to get to the 517 bus going to Phoenix,” she told me, checking her ticket to find the right gate.

“It’s Gate C,” I said, pointing back to the direction from which we’d come. “That’s my bus too. I’m on my way to San Diego.”

“That’s where I’m headed too. Would you mind if I… if I walked with you to the gate?” Her question was timid and shy, and I wondered how she could think I would leave her alone after what had just happened to her. Even if she refused to go to the police, I couldn’t just let her wander around the Houston bus station alone at almost three in the morning.

“No, I wouldn’t mind. You shouldn’t be alone after….” I trailed off, not wanting to say it aloud since she appeared to be a little calmer. “I’m Brian, by the way,” I said, trying to change the subject.

“Sarah,” she said quietly. “Thank you for what you did, Brian.” She looked at her shoes as she said it and walked slowly toward the terminal.

“No problem,” I told her and followed.

We took a wide path around the bathroom, where the two men still lay on the floor. From the activity around the door and hallway, it seemed security guards had discovered the two men, and they were waiting for the police and an ambulance. At least that’s what we heard from the woman at the coffee counter when we stopped to get my book.

Of course, it was gone.

That book was one of the few things I had of Jamie’s, and it was gone. It was just another part of Jamie I had lost. Briefly, as I pulled the locker key out of my pocket in order to get my stuff, I wondered how much more I would lose. The key slid in easily, and the locker sprang open to reveal the duffel and backpack I had stored when I had arrived there. I was incredibly glad I had taken the bus driver’s parting advice and opted for the locker. I’m sure if I hadn’t, all my stuff could have been gone when I got back from helping Sarah. After tossing my backpack over my shoulder, I picked up the duffel and walked with Sarah to our bus, where a small group of people was already waiting to board. I noticed a few faces that seemed familiar from the last leg of the journey. The bus was a decrepit old thing with peeling paint and a small spiderweb-like crack running along the window on the door.

“I hope that bus makes it to Phoenix,” Sarah whispered, nudging my arm, and I grinned at her. I had just been thinking the same thing. Slowly we moved farther up the line, leaving my duffel and her suitcase with a scary-looking bus employee with the tattoos climbing snakelike up his neck and over his lower jaw. He leered briefly at Sarah. She wrapped her arms around herself, looking uncomfortable, so I pulled her closer to me. I wondered what had caused her to be all alone and, more importantly, what else might happen to her before she reached her destination.

“Here,” I said, taking her messenger bag as she climbed up the stairs to get onto the bus. When she was at the top, I handed her the bag and climbed up myself. The bus was half-empty, and I watched as she moved toward the back, looking around at the few other people already seated. I took a seat by the window about midway up the aisle, and was unsurprised when Sarah turned around and dropped into the seat next to me.

“Do you mind?” she asked shyly, and I shook my head.

“It’s just… this is going to sound kind of strange, but you kind of look like my brother Charlie. And, well, if you’d wanted to hurt me, you would have done it in that bathroom. I don’t think I thanked you for that. It all happened so fast, and I…. Well, thank you.” She hugged the brightly colored messenger bag to her chest.

“You’re welcome,” I told her quietly, my own backpack still sitting in my lap. Looking out the window, I watched the creepy guy finish loading all the bags under the bus, the seat jolting a little when he slammed the compartment door. A few more minutes and we would be on our way. Sitting low in the seat, her knees pressed high on the seat in front of her, the messenger bag clutched tightly in her arms, Sarah still hadn’t moved. The evening must have been catching up with her, because she looked like a scared little kid.

“So, I look like your brother, huh?” I asked, setting my bag on the floor at my feet and turning a little in my seat to face her. She reminded me of one of the lost kids from Hudson House, and I wanted to help her. There weren’t many people in the world who wanted to help kids. I had gotten incredibly lucky with my parents. Carolyn would have tried to help Sarah, and that was what she had raised me to do.

“Yeah, maybe it’s your curls or your eyes. You have… well, you have nice eyes,” she said as a blush lit up her face, and I laughed.

“Where is your brother?” I asked, trying to be subtle about figuring out how she’d ended up in a Houston bus station alone at three in the morning. She smiled fondly, and I could tell she must have cared very much for him.

“He’s at Stanford; this is his first year. Mom and Dad were so proud when he got in. They even bought him a new car, and I got his old one.” As if lost in thought, she played idly with the strap on her bag. Her brother was at Stanford, and her parents had just given her a car. That didn’t sound like parents who would have sent their teenage daughter alone on a bus. Something wasn’t right, so I decided to abandon subtlety.

“Sarah, how did you end up alone in a Houston bus station? It sounds like your parents are not so bad,” I told her gently.

“My parents don’t understand anything,” she said, and as fast as it came out of her mouth, it sounded like something she would say out of habit or reflex. Finally looking up from the strap on her bag, she met my gaze and sighed. “They said that it was for the best and that things would all ‘work out in the end’.” She said the last part with scathing sarcasm accompanied by air quotes. “If they could just see how much I love him and how much we were meant to be together, but they don’t.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, trying to decipher the confusing explanation. It had to do with a boy, I was certain of that. Apparently, her parents disapproved. I had a feeling that whatever her reasoning, I would be able to relate.

“My boyfriend, Ryan, enlisted in the Marines when he graduated in June. A couple of weeks ago, he was shipped out to their training center in San Diego. He was supposed to go to the one in South Carolina because we live in Florida, but they changed it. Ryan said he wanted to be able to provide for us, so he wanted to get a good education. His family doesn’t have a lot of money, so this was the only way that he could go to college. My parents hate Ryan because they think he’s white trash or something. They tell me I can do better, but there isn’t anyone better than him. I love him so much,” she finished, smiling for the first time. Her feelings for her boyfriend were obvious and something to which I could relate.