“I hope your father gets better,” the woman said, as the printer beside her elbow spat out documents. “You two have a good trip. The bus departs at 6.30pm and it boards twenty minutes before departure, right out those doors,” she said. She slipped two tickets and the IDs under the tiny opening in the bulletproof glass.

Taylor took them, saying, “Thank you, ma’am … come on, sis,” and strolled away in a manner that would give the impression they were in fact brother and sister.

Guarding the tickets like treasure, Aria and Taylor spent the day waiting in the area near the Greyhound bus station to board the bus that would take them from Chicago to LA. They had entertained the idea of spending the day seeing the places in the city that they might miss and perhaps would never see again, but decided against it. They couldn’t afford to miss the bus, even if that meant waiting the entire day for it to come.

First, they walked to the shade of a bridge by a river four streets away from the bus station. Motivated by their triumph, they took two rocks and laughed as they tediously scratched a message into the bridge’s surface. The powder-white words “Goodbye Cruel World” began to emerge from the now-blemished grunge cement. They were conscious that if anyone saw the message, they would think that someone had committed suicide. They found it funny. But the words’ true meaning was a goodbye to the life they had lived there in that city. They were bound for an entirely different life. A life that was no longer a dead end, but one full of possibility and promise.

They spent the rest of the day sitting outside a gas station, under the overhang of the roof, trying to nap and escape the bite of the sun. Aria surprised Taylor with a jug of peanut butter and crackers purchased with some of the extra $314 that remained from the money she’d stolen. They ate it together like it was a celebration meal.

By the time Taylor’s twelfth check-in on what time it was with the gas station attendant resulted in the answer of “six o’clock,” Taylor had worn out the man’s patience. They lined up early with their tickets to board the bus. When the driver stepped down from the open door, wearing a fluorescent yellow vest, they felt the same tension that they had experienced earlier that day begin to revisit them. But all he did was check their tickets and motion them inside.

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 9