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I repress a sigh, telling myself I’m not thinking about the woman on the bus.
It’s a lie.
I can feel her hair in my hands, as though I’m running my fingers through it, making her moan in her special way.
Herspecial way?
I do not know this person.
I’ve never spoken to her.
I need to relax.
As I walk past the green lawns and brown autumn leaves gathered here and there, I wonder if I’m going crazy. If this is what unraveling feels like.
There’s a thought in my head.
The woman on the bus, her hair spilling around her shoulders, cradling our child as she smiles up at me. And then she’s tenderly handling the baby to me, tears glistening in her eyes.
“Elias,” Mary says.
She’s a counseling teacher, a few years older than me, and as bored with these all-hands meetings as I am.
We wait outside the seminar room, since we’re the first ones here.
I nod. “Mary.”
“Why the long face?”
She always asks me this, a joking smirk on her lips.
“Just felt like scaring a few of the students,” I reply, attempting to infuse my tone with the same jokiness.
But it isn’t easy to find anything funny withherin my mind, my woman…the certainty feels completely authentic, the fact that the woman on the bus belongs to me. A protective impulse shivers within when I think about another man approaching her.
“Scaring them?” Mary laughs, shaking her head. “Elias, half of them have crushes on you.”
I shrug. “That’s not my concern.”
Mary gestures as though taking in the whole of the college. The autumn sunlight glints off her wedding and engagement rings. I know she’s been married for years, happily.
Up until ten or so minutes ago, I couldn’t imagine that for myself.
But now I can.
“You’re a better man than most.”
“What do you mean?”
“Is your head really just full of numbers?” she asks.
I laugh dryly. “Mostly.”
Normally, that would be true. But it’s a lie now.
“Most men,” Mary goes on, “would at least betemptedby all the attention. I think that’s why we’re here.”
“Mary, honestly,” I say, ignoring the second half of her comment. “I haven’t noticed any attention. Maybe it’s in your head.”
