To the girl I never knew.

I was sitting on a bus. My old school bus, but nothing changes. The same driver, the engine makes the same the sound, the same roads are taken and even some of the same people are taking their usual spots. I don't usually imagine another driver, different seating arrangements, alternate sounds or different paths. I took all these things for granted. To go further, I relied on my hearing to hear the engine, my eyes to see the passengers and my touch to feel the vibrations of the locomotive. All of those things I took for granted. The fact that I was breathing on that bus, sharing the air with those people and experiencing the same thing, I took it for granted. It seemed like something that's there forever. It was a simple bus ride.

What if it crashed? What if someone died? What if something really insignificant changed? Like the sound of the engine…would I notice or even miss the old sound? Would the experience be any different? One small thing can literally change our world.

So I was on the bus and my friends regurgitated some news for me. It was about a guy I was fond of. I knew him, a lot of people did. He was in a band and I had seen him at so many places and I could only pluck up the courage to speak to him once in my life. I didn't know him well, I always wanted to though, he had the trait of a mysterious figure that made me long to know more about him crossed with the look of typical teenage apathy that gave me the impression that he was just like everyone else in the room; even me. But he still sparked an interest deep down no matter what I've heard about him.

Before I dive into the deep end with this story, remember that this is gratifying information and a lot of it could be twisted, nevertheless, I'm sure that the conclusion is so surreal that you have to question if these events can actually happen to you.

He had a girlfriend, from what I heard they were happy. They were the teenage couple who were going to be together forever. And there is nothing wrong with that. There is a feeling about a teenage love that makes you feel like you have found exactly what you were looking for at that moment in time. It's grace. It's as if it is too good for you to have but you are lucky enough to have it. Maybe it was for putting up with everything at home, the fights at school and the fact that no one understood you. Solace and sanctuary could be found in a soul. And for him that soul was awaiting his arrival miles away.

He traveled, quite literally, from the bottom of the country to the top waiting so long to see her. He assumed everything, he imagined everything they would and could get away with. They were both waiting for this moment. A meeting between two vacant souls to stifle each other so they could never feel alone and unknown again.

He got off the plane trying to collect his excitement and put them into the words he rehearsed days before. He was ready, until a phone rang. Phone calls, like bus rides are something we just assume have little to no importance in our lives whatsoever. But phones, like bus rides can change our lives in a matter of seconds. News was delivered to him that the soul he had traveled so far to see had lost its light.

A car accident. An unfortunate car accident. Another statistic. A lover. A death. To me the worst thing about death is what it can do to the living. It was never about where I was going but what I was leaving behind. And to this day I want to take it with me, I want to take it all with me.

He was cold. He was alone. He was unknown. He felt as if he fell short of something that everybody else around seemed to have, yet too senseless to know what it was. He was breathing just because he was alive. But he didn't feel like living. Not today. It's like a limb torn from his body. A whole limb. How can you function without a limb…did you even want to function? He was still here, but where was she? What was she thinking about right now?

(This is a true story, I had written this blog a long time ago and I have asked for permission to post it. So thank you to those people for taking the time to read it and allowing me to post it.)