The 47 Metro

The bus stop sits under a streetlight that flickers like a dying star, casting the bench in alternating waves of sickly yellow and shadow. Iris arrives first, ten minutes early because anxiety runs on its own brutal clock, the kind that tells you if you're not early you're already too late, already failing, already proving every fear right.

Her phone glows in her hand—the dating app still open, Sienna's profile picture still there like evidence of something that might not be real. Three weeks of messages. Three weeks of trading favorite poems and songs neither of them had heard before. Three weeks of Iris convinced this would end the way it always ends: with her alone at a bus stop, with her own gullibility staring back at her from the empty street.

She's been here before. Different bench, same disappointment. Girls who turn into ghosts the second plans become concrete. Girls who exist only in pixels and carefully curated words, who evaporate when asked to occupy physical space, to be touchable, to be real.

So Iris came prepared. The taxi app is already open on her phone, one tap away from salvation. Ten minutes, she tells herself. She'll give this ten minutes, and then she'll leave with whatever dignity she can salvage, go home to her apartment where at least the loneliness is familiar, where at least she knows what to expect.

The November air bites at her face. She adjusts her glasses—the left arm held together with duct tape because she can't afford new ones yet, won't be able to until next paycheck, maybe the one after that. The tape is silver and obvious and makes her feel like a child playing dress-up in adult responsibilities. She thinks about taking them off, about letting the world blur into something kinder, but then she wouldn't be able to see Sienna coming. If Sienna comes. If Sienna is real.

——

Sienna arrives exactly on time, which means she's been circling the block for fifteen minutes, gathering courage like kindling, trying to build a fire big enough to walk through. She sees Iris on the bench and her heart does something complicated—relief and terror breeding in her chest like rabbits.

She's real. Iris is real. Sitting there with her dark hair pulled back, glasses catching the streetlight, wearing a jacket too thin for the weather and an expression like she's bracing for impact.

Sienna's hand closes around the pepper spray in her pocket. Just in case. Because the internet is full of people who pretend to be one thing and turn out to be another. Because she's learned the hard way that sometimes the monsters don't look like monsters until it's too late. Because her therapist said it's okay to be cautious, to protect herself, to not feel guilty about survival instincts honed on past betrayals.

But Iris looks up and their eyes meet and something in Sienna's chest unclenches. Just slightly. Just enough.

"Iris?" Her voice comes out smaller than intended.

"Sienna." Not a question. A confirmation. An acknowledgment of something becoming real.

They stare at each other for a beat too long, cataloging details. Iris notices the way Sienna's hands shake slightly, the way she's standing like she might bolt at any second. Sienna notices the duct tape on Iris's glasses, the way her shoulders are hunched against the cold, the way her eyes hold a wariness that mirrors Sienna's own.

"The bus should be here in five minutes," Iris says, because someone has to say something, has to fill the space between them with words that aren't please be real and please don't hurt me and I'm terrified I've already fallen in love with you through a screen.

"Yeah." Sienna sits down on the bench, leaving a careful distance between them. Close enough to be together, far enough to run if needed. "Five more minutes for the 47 Metro."

——

Five minutes becomes ten. Becomes fifteen. The digital display at the bus stop blinks ERROR, then goes dark entirely, leaving them with nothing but the flickering streetlight and the cold and each other.

"Should we—" Iris starts.

"Do you want to—" Sienna says at the same time.

They both stop. Laugh nervously. The sound evaporates into the January night like breath.

"I have a taxi app," Iris offers, already reaching for her phone.

"We could just—" Sienna hesitates. "We could wait a bit longer? If you want?"

Iris looks at her. Really looks at her. Sienna's got her hands shoved deep in her jacket pockets, her dark skin luminous under the streetlight, her hair in braids that fall past her shoulders like silk. She's wearing a Sylvia Plath shirt under her jacket—Iris can see the edge of it, the words "I am, I am, I am" peeking out.

"Okay," Iris says. "We can wait."

——

Twenty minutes. Thirty. The bus stop becomes their entire universe. They sit closer now, the initial wariness burning off like fog under sun. Sienna pulls out her earbuds, offers one to Iris.

"What are we listening to?"

"I made a playlist," Sienna admits. "For tonight. In case—in case you were real."

Iris takes the earbud. Their fingers brush and it's electric, it's devastating, it's the most physical contact she's had in months that mattered. She fits the earbud in and music blooms between them—something slow and aching, a woman's voice singing about longing in a way that sounds like prayer.

They sit like that, sharing sound, sharing space, sharing the cold. Iris's glasses start to fog slightly from the heat of their proximity. She doesn't adjust them. Doesn't want to break whatever spell is being cast on this bench, under this dying light, in this moment that was supposed to be about a bus that clearly isn't coming.

"I thought you'd ghost," Iris says during a quiet moment between songs.

"I thought you'd ghost," Sienna responds. "I've been stood up four times this year. Four different girls. Four different ways of learning I'm not worth showing up for."

"That's not—" Iris turns to face her. "That's not true. They were idiots. You're—" She struggles for words that don't sound like too much too soon. "You're worth showing up for."

Sienna's eyes shine with something that might be tears. "You showed up."

"So did you."

It's such a simple thing. Such a basic requirement—presence, physicality, the willingness to exist in the same space. But it feels monumental. It feels like victory.

——

An hour passes. The last train comes and goes from the station two blocks away—they hear it, the distant rumble, the opportunity sliding past like water through fingers. Neither of them moves to catch it.

"We should probably—" Iris starts, but doesn't finish.

"Yeah," Sienna agrees to nothing.

They don't move. The playlist loops. They talk about poetry—about Anne Carson and Ocean Vuong and Mary Oliver. About lines that cracked them open. About words that felt like coming home. Sienna quotes something from memory and Iris closes her eyes to listen, to let the words wash over her like baptism.

"I can't afford new glasses," Iris confesses suddenly, apropos of nothing and everything. "I work two jobs and I still can't afford new glasses. I do my makeup in a mirror I can barely see into. I walk around half-blind because I'm broke and broken and—"

"You're not broken," Sienna interrupts. "You're here. That's not broken."

Iris laughs, but it cracks in the middle. "I have crippling anxiety. I take pills for it. I see a therapist I also can't afford. I'm a fucking mess."

"I have panic attacks in grocery stores," Sienna counters. "I can't ride elevators. I carry pepper spray everywhere because I'm terrified of—of everything, basically. I'm not exactly a prize."

"You're here," Iris echoes back. "That's not nothing."

They look at each other. Two women on a bench, both broke in different ways, both brave enough to show up despite every reason not to. The streetlight flickers. Holds. Keeps casting them in its sickly glow.

——

Two hours. Three. The city grows quieter around them, winding down for the night. They've given up on the bus. On the taxi app. On any plan that involves leaving this bench and whatever is growing between them like something with roots.

"We could walk," Sienna suggests. "Just—walk. See where we end up."

Iris thinks about her cold apartment waiting. About going home alone after this, after everything. About waking up tomorrow and wondering if this was real or if she'll check her phone and find herself blocked, ghosted, erased.

"Okay," she says. "Let's walk."

They stand. Share one last look at the bus stop that failed them and saved them in equal measure. Sienna's hand finds Iris's—tentative at first, then certain. Their fingers lace together and it's warm, it's real, it's the most romantic thing that's ever happened to either of them and it's happening on a street corner at midnight with a broken bus schedule and no plan at all.

They walk. Through the city as it sleeps. Past closed shops and empty streets, past other people's lit windows and lived lives. They walk until Iris's cheap shoes start to hurt and Sienna's anxiety starts to quiet and the sky begins to lighten at the edges, dawn creeping in like it's been waiting for them to be ready.

They end up at a diner that's just opening, all fluorescent lights and the smell of coffee and bacon. They slide into a booth, still holding hands across the table, and order breakfast neither of them can really afford. But it doesn't matter. Nothing matters except this—the way Sienna laughs with her whole body, the way Iris's glasses slip down her nose and Sienna reaches across to push them up with one gentle finger, the way they've already started speaking in shorthand, in references, in the private language of people falling in love.

"Same time next week?" Iris asks, only half-joking.

"Same bench," Sienna confirms. "But maybe we skip the bus part."

"Maybe we skip the bus part," Iris agrees.

Outside, the sun rises properly now, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold. Inside, two women sit across from each other, sharing coffee and connection and the strange perfect disaster of a night that didn't go according to plan.

The bus never came. But they found each other anyway.

Some things don't need a plan. Some things just need two people brave enough to show up and wait.