When she was done, she patted herself off as fast as she could with sheets of paper towels she found on a roll sitting on the shelf beside her and squeezed the water from the ends of her hair with them. After pulling her clothes and shoes back on, she put the damp bottles back into her backpack. Aria stood there, holding on to the straps of her backpack and listening to what was happening on the other side of the door for a time, before deciding to exit. When she did, no one noticed. Aria didn’t know whether that was a relief or whether she wanted them to notice. On the one hand, she did not want to get in trouble. She hadn’t wanted them to catch her there. On the other hand, the ease with which she was going unnoticed made her nervous. She was beginning to feel invisible, as if she were a ghost. She was beginning to slip through the cracks in between people’s caring.

Aria went outside to sit in the sun. Her wet hair made parts of the fabric of her coat look darker. Even though the air was cold that morning, the luxury of the sunlight wasn’t lost on her. She let it caress the contours of her face. She opened the top of her coat to let it touch the edges of the ever-present ache in her heart, but was interrupted after a brief time by the sound of the bus driver giving everyone a five-minute warning.

She was the first person back on the bus. Taylor was the last. He had made a nuisance of himself during their meal break, failing to establish a rapport with any of the passengers, with whom he had tried to establish several connections. They seemed irritated by his chummy demeanor. As he walked down the aisle, the few people with an empty seat beside them seemed to tense up for fear that he would sit down next to them. “Hey,” he said, all but crawling over Aria to claim the seat next to the window. “That felt great to stretch my legs for a while.”

Aria afforded him a customary smile. She extracted from her pocket the granola bars that she had stolen and handed one to him. For a half a second, he seemed taken aback, then said “Ah, thanks” and immediately ripped open the packaging. The homey oat-and-honey flavor mollified the both of them. As the bus made its way back onto the highway, they ate without talking, feeling lucky for the snack, which for both of them felt like pure indulgence.