Confession from the Back Seat: I Rode Past My Stop on Purpose

I should say first that I am a responsible commuter. I know my stop by the shape of the pharmacy sign, the dent in the bus shelter, the way the road tilts left before my street. On Tuesday I felt all of it arrive and I did not press the bell. I watched my stop slide past the window like a platform from a train that had decided to keep going.

The reason was the person two rows ahead. Not a stranger exactly, a face I had seen on this route for weeks, a woman with a green thermos and a habit of resting her temple against the pole as if it were a shoulder. That night she was wearing a coat the color of a ripe plum, and under the white interior light of the bus it looked unfairly expensive. She was reading something on her phone and smiling, the private kind of smile that makes you want to know the sentence.

The reason was the person two rows ahead.

The next stops went by one at a time, each with its own sodium halo, each one making my walk home longer by about four minutes. I told myself it was the scenic route. I told myself that no one rides past their stop for a plum coat. A man across the aisle took out his earphones and looked at me with the weary sympathy of someone who has done the same for worse reasons.

She got off at the retail park, which is nowhere, in the best way. Under the amber lamp at the stop she pulled the thermos from her bag, turned toward the bus for a moment, and I swear she looked up at the top deck. Maybe she did. Maybe it was the lamp. The doors hissed shut on whatever might have happened next.

I walked home the long way, through the car park and past the closed florist, with a song on repeat and my cheeks warm for no reason I will admit to. Detours are underrated. If you ever need someone to tell your own back-seat confession to, Mira listens on TheFriend, and she will not tell the driver.

Meet Mira: open Mira's profile on TheFriend.