The first day of school in 1993 was the very first time that I smelled the hazy exhaust of the yellow school bus. The kids were big, their conversation muddled with slang words. I held my mother’s hand tight and hid behind the post box. It was cold and grey and I didn’t even see my brother get on the bus. I felt the tug on my hand, heard the “on va”, smelled the exhaust.

One more year of ABC Nursery on Sesame Street and it was my turn to ride the school bus. I had a plastic book bag, a plastic lunch bag and a laminated bus pass. My hands were held tight amongst their own fingers while my mother’s hands were at home kneading dough. It was my brother’s turn to show me where to sit and when to stand. I missed my mother’s hand. I still do now

So every morning we walked through backyards, shoes scuffing through dirt, then leaves, then snow. You could go through a lot of shoes that way. We stood by the road while the other kids talked. There was a girl named lacey who used the word ‘like’ a lot, and Amanda Dunhollander who had the big hill in her backyard (it was great for crazy carpets and snow sleds), and Megan Sampson who liked my best friend more than me. But when we all got on the bus, we were all just kids, just faces without names. And when we got off the bus we were different again.

In elementary school I learned how to tie my shoes. I learned that if teachers weren’t looking you could sit three in a seat. If the driver wasn’t looking you could get on your hands and knees and crawl under the seats. You always got black stuff on your knees though. I tried being mean and I tried being nice. But that black stuff was awfully hard to clean off.

By sixth grade I learned that it was embarrassing to sing on the bus and that, although I had chosen to be nice, there were still kids who liked being mean. The boy up the street liked to throw snowballs at the bus stop. I cried and my brother said it was okay. That Rogers boy couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, he said. I felt better but I liked to walk home after that.

By tenth grade my parents left the house before I did in the morning. Sometimes the walk to the Rogers’s driveway felt like a marathon. On those days I had about half a gram of weed before locking the front door, and all the bumps on the ride to school felt like bubbles in my throat. Those days, the kids didn’t talk to me at all – not in the morning, not after school. I watched the birds perched on telephone wires and kept my eyes open when the sun was bright. We stopped throwing snowballs but we still pulled hair.

Social hierarchy was a wonderfully malicious adolescent development from which I tried to exclude myself. In effect I was not unknown, but I did not sit at the back of the bus. I found it difficult to even look past the fifth row of seat without feeling flushed. They were looking at my jacket; they were talking about my shoes. I was happier to sit up front, not making eye contact, and think about what cycle came first on day eight.

I woke up to sunlight through window shades in eleventh grade. I scuffed my shoes through dirt, then leaves, then snow. I learned that I was dying; everyone was dying, but I appreciated the way warm breath shot vapor into the sub zero air. I liked to be alive.

The yellow school bus was grey along the ridges and black around the tires. The exhaust smelled so acrid that I began to hold my breath. There was a boy who sat with me sometimes, he was younger and shy. He sat on the very edge of the seat and didn’t talk. I wanted to ask him his name and what sort of music he liked. There was a girl who wore too much makeup and when she sat in front of me I coughed. She smelled like someone had put out cigarettes on her forehead, on her jeans. There was a boy who wore nice sweaters. We made eye contact sometimes.

The best part of high school was, truly, the ride home. Rushing from classroom to locker, locker to exit. The smooth feel of the silver banister and the friendly inquiries of the bus driver. I could look past the fifth row but I didn’t look at people. The bus would rumble, brought to life, and slowly pull away.

The sun shot out from behind the building as it shrank out of sight. The glare was so harsh and undeniable! There were myriad colors in just one blue sky, and thousands of pictures in the clouds. The school disappeared, the soccer fields melting into trees. We ducked beneath the overpass, a brief flicker of darkness sand then corn fields and that blue sky. There were conversations, voices, swear words bouncing off tin walls. The sunlight saturated though the filmy windows drenching every face in light. I knew then that we could only be memories.

They got off, one by one. The sun grew bolder as it approached the treetop and the bus grew quieter. The ride home was always a happy ending. And on my last day in twelfth grade, my purse fell under the seat. When I got off the bus there was black stuff on my knees. I rubbed it off but it was hard to see because I was crying.

I went away to university. I fell in love and ruined it. My mother got old and died alone. I cried and my brother said it was okay. She was happy at home. But I didn’t feel better.

Now I work a desk job and my cubicle is full of Sears’s magazines. I buy outfits so that the machine will call my house to tell me that my order is in. I take the highway home so I don’t have to drive by my old school, my old house. But sometimes I still call my mom to see if she will answer. She’s been dead five years now.

The part about my life that I hate the most is, truly, the ride home. I turn off my computer and file all my papers. I say goodbye to my coworkers but do not care if I will see them tomorrow. I find the rustiest car in the parking lot – it is mine. The highway is littered and the drivers go too fast for eye contact. My mailbox is full of unpaid bills and angry letters from Mastercard. There are dirty dishes in the sink and I bet you there is nothing good on TV.

Today I watched a school bus driving past an intersection. One of the kids gave me the finger. I just smiled and rolled the window down. I said aloud, Smells like teen spirit, but all it really smelled like was exhaust. On my lunch break I called my mother’s house. I think an older couple lives there now. On the answering machine I said, “je suis desolée. Je t’ai toujours aimé. Ce n’est pas loin, maintenant. Je manque encore tes mains. »

On the last day I told the shy boy that I liked his shoes. That was as good as a conversation for me.

Guns always look so light on TV but secretly they are really heavy. I’m tired of being someone and I miss the dirty bus windows. You can never really go back.

Mom, please hold my hand