Thirty
WHILE DEREK WAS IN the bathroom I called the bus station and got fares and a schedule. The guy was even nice enough to tell me which city buses we needed to take to get there.
When Derek came out of the bathroom, his sweatshirt was damp and clean, and his hair was wet and glistening, like he’d wiped down the shirt and washed his hair in the sink.
“Good news first or bad—” I stopped. “Dumb question. Bad, right?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ve got a two-mile walk to the nearest bus stop, plus one transfer to get to the terminal. The good news? The fare is sixty dollars for two students to New York, so we have enough for breakfast.”
I was going to say that didn’t matter, but from the set of his jaw, it mattered to him, so I nodded and said, “Sure.”
We bought deodorant and a cheap comb. And, yes, we shared them. Money was too tight to get silly about that.
The smell of bacon and eggs from the restaurant set my mouth watering, but our cash wouldn’t stretch to cover a hot breakfast. We grabbed cartons of chocolate milk, two energy bars, and two bags of peanuts, then headed out for our hike to the bus stop.
After about a half mile of silence, Derek said, “You’re quiet this morning.”
“Just tired.”
Another hundred feet.
“It’s last night, isn’t it?” he said. “If you want to talk about it …”
“Not really.”
Every few steps, he’d glance my way. I wasn’t in the mood to share, but my silence was obviously bugging him, so I said, “I keep thinking about when I first saw that girl in trouble. When I thought it was real. I was going to do something—”
“What?” he cut in.
I shrugged. “Yell. Distract him.”
“If it was real, you shouldn’t have even thought of getting involved. The guy had a knife. He was obviously ready to use it.”
“That wasn’t really the point,” I murmured, watching my toe kick a pebble along the roadside.
“Okay. So the point was …”
“I saw that knife and I froze. All I could think about was that girl in the alley, the one who held a knife on me. If last night had been real, I might have let someone die because I was too freaked out to do anything.”
“But it wasn’t real.”
I looked up at him.
“Okay,” he said. “Again that wasn’t your point. But what happened in that alley—you still hadn’t had time to slow down and …” He gestured, searching for a word. “Process it. You talked to Simon about it, right?”
I shook my head.
He frowned. “But you did tell him what happened.”
Another head shake.
“You should. You need to talk to someone. You sure can’t talk to Tori. Liz is probably a good listener, but she’s not around.” He paused. “You could talk to me, but you’ve probably figured out I’m not good with stuff like that. I mean, if you wanted to …” He trailed off, then came back firmer, shoulders hunching against the morning chill. “It should be Simon. He’d want to know what happened, and he’d want you to be the one to tell him.”
I nodded, though I didn’t know whether I would. Simon had spent enough time lately on Chloe-comfort duty. I needed to start working stuff out by myself. But there was a related issue I did want help with.
“I’ve been thinking,” I began. “After what happened, I should learn how to defend myself. Some basic self-defense moves.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Great, so could you—?”
“I’ll ask Simon to teach you some,” he continued.
“Oh. I thought … I guess I thought that would be more your area.”
“Our dad taught us both. Simon’s good. Unless …” He glanced down at me. “I mean, if you want, sure, I can help out. But Simon would be a better teacher. He’s got the patience for it.”
“Right. I’ll talk to Simon then.”
He nodded and we lapsed into silence again.
We reached the bus station with twenty minutes to spare. Derek had me hang back, where the agent could see I was a teenager without getting too close a look, in case my photo was circulating. He went up to the counter alone. When he seemed to be having trouble, though, I joined him.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered.
“She won’t give us the youth fare.”
“It’s not a youth fare,” the woman said. “It’s a student fare. If you can’t produce ID, you don’t get it.”
“But we got tickets in Buffalo without any ID.” I put my used ticket on the counter.
“That’s Buffalo,” she said with a sniff. “Here in the state’s capital we follow the rules. No ID, no student fare.”
“Okay, adult tickets, then.”
“We don’t have enough,” Derek murmured.
“What?”
“It’s thirty-eight each for adults. We’re six bucks short.”
I leaned into the wicket. “Please, it’s really important. You can see on our ticket there that we already bought fares to New York, but my friend got sick and we had to get off the bus—”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“How about one adult and one youth? We have enough—”
“Next!” she called, and waved up the man behind us.
The bus station also serviced Greyhound, but their sign clearly stated that their student fares required a special card, which was why we hadn’t bought from them in Buffalo. I tried anyway. The woman there was more sympathetic, but she explained that she couldn’t issue the reduced fare tickets without entering a student discount card number into the computer. So we were out of luck.
“We’ll figure something out,” I said as we moved away from the Greyhound counter.
“You go. I’ll give you directions to Andrew’s house. He can pick me up here—”
“What if he’s not there? He could have moved or could be away. Then I’d have to find Simon, use a good chunk of money for us all to come back and get you….”
Derek nodded, conceding my point.
“You lived around here for a while.” I raised my hands. “I know, it’s not your favorite place to remember, but is there anyone you could borrow ten bucks from?”
“A friend?”
“Well, sure, maybe …”
A small laugh. “Yeah, you sound as doubtful about that as you should. You may have guessed I don’t go out of my way to make friends. I don’t see the point, especially when I’m never in one place long. I’ve got my dad and Simon. That’s enough.”
His pack …
He continued, “I suppose I could find someone. Simon’s bound to have a friend or teammate who owed him money. He’s bad for stuff like that—lends it and never asks for it back.”
“On second thought, considering you vanished under bad circumstances, reappearing now might not be the wisest idea. The last thing we need is someone calling the cops.”
I walked to the stand of brochures and took one listing fares and schedules. Then I went to the map of New York State and studied the two. Derek read over my shoulder.
“There,” he said, pointing to a town on the map. “We can afford the full fare to New York from there.”
“As for how we’ll get there …”
That was the question.