Wherefore Art Thou

I take the same bus to work everyday. The 10A. I sit in the same seat, third from the back, on the left, next to the window. Not accounting for traffic, or roadworks, or pedestrians at the crossings, or the doors jamming, or people getting on this bus painstakingly slowly, the journey takes 17 minutes and 45 seconds. I listen to the same same playlist everyday, mark the same landmarks with the same chords, making up extra, unaccounted for minutes by starting Radiohead on shuffle. By the time I get on the bus, third stop from the station, just outside the library, there’s usually no more than 10 people upstairs, and 7 or 8 of us downstairs. There’s a mother and her toddler that get on most days, and the child rambles on and on, but other than that, the regulars are quiet people. Headphones, books, mindless scrolling, staring out the window. Peace and quiet.

I even know the bus drivers by name - Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, it’s Greg, who finds the driver seat uncomfortable for long periods, is lactose intolerant, and has three daughters, one of whom is currently studying marine biology. Other days it’s Leslie, Jordan, or Steve driving the bus. They don’t talk as much. This morning it’s Jordan. We make polite eye contact, and I pay for my ticket, and I head to my seat. No-one is walking behind me. I’m the last one to get on at my stop. Two people head up the stairs, chatting about a soppy film they watched last night. I try not to watch them. I walk to my seat

This morning the bus is busier than usual. I put my bag on the seat next to me, oddly and uncomfortably, if just to make me feel less exposed. But by two stops after mine, the bus is filling up, and I have to move my bag to my lap to make room for a woman in her fifties. From the messages she is sending on her phone, she’s been married 27 years this week. Her and her husband are deciding whether to have a party and invite everyone they know, or whether to stay home, celebrate quietly, just the two of them. I shift my whole body towards the window and stare at the takeaway shops flying past. I don’t want to see a dead future of mine, a path worn down and surrendered to the elements. I don’t want to feel her nylon skirt encroaching onto my legs, reminding me that I am unprotected. I don’t want to see someone else sitting in his seat.

Before last night, we used to get the bus together every morning. He works two buildings over from me, and from the kitchen in my office, through the large window to the left of the microwave, I can see his desk. I can watch him work. This morning, I’m on the bus by myself. I can’t look over and read the news off his phone over his shoulder as my music plays. Instead, I’m watching the woman text her husband in the reflection in the window. She needs him to buy milk. I shut my eyes tightly, tighter, tighter.

He’s probably with Alex this morning. I think he went there after he left my flat last night. He probably wiped my tears off his shirt before he got there. They probably spent the night celebrating, hugging, laughing, crying.

‘We can be together,’ Alex probably cried, ‘just you and me.’

He probably grinned as though this was by his own design, as though he had said he wanted this, as though he was the glorious. They probably danced around the kitchen to all of his favourite songs - the songs that I learned to love after a smile lit up his face when he heard them in the supermarket. They probably didn’t mention me, didn’t think about me once. I wish I could say the same.

I know he loved us both. He said he loved us both.

I think he loved me more at first - he used to spend more time with me, spent more money on me, took me to his sister’s wedding last summer, introduced me as the love of his life, spent all night dancing with me. We nearly rode away into the sunset together. He used to buy me flowers every Friday, and then we’d find the soppiest film we could and watch it on my couch whilst munching on the pizza that he’d order on his phone. I used to go to the kitchen at work at 11:11 everyday, catch his eye across the skyline, and we’d make a wish together. I always used to wish to see his face everyday, for the rest of my life and then some.

Then I think he loved us equally for a while. Either couldn’t choose, or was just happy to have a different hand to hold in each of his. Maybe he got bored of only seeing one face, wanted two, wanted more, wanted more, wanted more. He got us the same presents for Christmas last December, identical, even down to the wrapping paper and the green bow on top, exactly covering the reindeer’s face, a little card on the top, our names scrawled on the envelope in a loopy writing that he learned in school, how much he loved us written inside. He spent Christmas with both of us, pulled crackers with both of us, played charades with both of us, ate turkey with both of us, opened presents with both of his, whispered ‘merry Christmas’ into both of our cheeks, loved us both the same. We kissed under the mistletoe. So did they.

He was content, world in his hands. Alex fell in love, drowned in his eyes. I cried myself to sleep, more tears each night than the night before. I wanted him to choose me. He didn’t.

Last week he called me Alex by mistake. He’d never done that before. He’s never forgotten Alex’s name. Even last summer, when he spent every day with me, he always said Alex’s name perfectly in his sleep.

He bought a bar of chocolate that said ‘Alex’ on the front - I combed through the rest of the shopping, and he’d bought me nothing, I was empty-handed. The chocolate was expensive, I used to buy it for him, search for it because I knew he liked it. I still do.

Yesterday, he waved to Alex from his desk instead of watching me make coffee when I went to the kitchen after lunch. At 11:11 he didn’t catch my eye to wish for our future together, he was too busy smiling at the desk opposite his, at Alex’s blonde hair flailing madly under the a/c unit.

He chose Alex. Yet still. He loves me, he loves me, he loves me.

So last night I chose him. I told him he could leave. He argued with me, he said nothing had to change. I told him to leave, and he kissed my face over and over, saying nothing is wrong, nothing was wrong. I begged him to leave, and I cried on his shoulder. He can’t have us both, and Alex won’t wait for him to fall out of love with me. I love him too much to hold him hostage in my heart, when his eye is on a sunset with someone far greater.

Now he and Alex are giggling upstairs on the bus. He trailed up the stairs like a puppy following a child, giddy, excited. He saw me behind him, he avoided my eye. I paid for one ticket.

I squeeze my eyes shut to keep the tears from falling as the bus pulls up to the next stop, and I make a new playlist.