Meeting Her

42 2 0
                                    


Harley Steele was the girl that your mother always warned you was trouble. Harley Steele was the one your dad always worried you'd come home with, and the one your older brother Nash told you to stay away from. Harley Steele was that girl in the movies that you knew was going to screw everything up the first scene you saw her in. She was the reason for all those songs about falling in love with reckless heartbreakers and how you become more careful next time. Harley Steele was like alcohol- you try to stay away because you know it's bad for you, but every time you got even just a little sip you feel that achingly beautiful burn in your throat and you know you can't quit. She was a natural disaster; dangerous and beautiful and so very devastating, but nothing else could make your heart beat faster.

And even though everyone told you to just walk away, you ran straight for the heart of the storm. Even though every sign said "wrong way" you swore you knew where you were going. And why? Because even though you'd never say it out loud, you don't regret a single thing. Because every second spent with Harley Steele was worth it.

She was worth everything.

You met her on the bus; the Osborn 53 headed east. It was dark too, just past eight. You usually didn't take the bus this late, but you had missed the seven thirty bus and this was your only next option. But, you were glad that Ernie hadn't waited up for you- because it was on that eight o' six bus that you saw her.

You were just sitting there, on the isle seat of one of the benches near the front of the bus, an old man sitting in front of you whose heavy breathing could be heard over the soft music playing from the earphones in your ears. It was 'If You Could Only See' by Tonic- one of your favorite songs. And looking back at it, it was the perfect song to describe your connection to Harley Steele. She was something beautiful that nobody understood.

You were quiet, for the most part- you'd always liked to have your music low, to take in the sounds around you. You'd sit on your usual bus and watch the people around you, watch them hurry home or hurry to work or not hurry at all. It made you feel peaceful, knowing that your problems were so small meant that you could overcome them. Knowing that you were one in a million meant that you weren't alone. You'd always felt like a god doing this, a young god watching the people that you'd never see again and ruling out their lives in your head. It was almost romantic.

But Harley was always different- the complete opposite of you. You liked to think that it was meant to be that way, that two so different people became the same because of some giant cosmic love concept. But maybe it was just because Harley was different from everybody, and that's why you were so attracted to her.

So you were sitting on that aisle seat when you saw her, taking the step onto the bus and flipping open her black leather wallet that looked like it had seen some serious hell. You didn't really see her at first, it was hard to see past the uniform she was wearing- a blue and white plaid skirt with a white polo and these terribly ugly black boating shoes that you hoped were part of the uniform. Your first glance was of the back of that uniform, and the back of her head- her barely past the shoulder, choppy, midnight black hair.

What had made you look up initially was the music- her music. You thought that she hadn't had any headphones in, making you think she was rude. But, as she stepped on the bus in those hideous shoes- you learned to love them, eventually- you saw the headphones that were in her ears. You could faintly hear the music over your own, it was actually something you recognized- you think that it's the band Sublime. You smile because you realize that it's playing so loud through her headphones that you can hear it, and it reminds you of your brother Nash, who likes to listen to his oldies rock so loud you always tell him he'll be deaf by the next day. Her head of midnight hair bobbing up and down to a beat that you could hear if you listened hard enough.

          

You saw ringed fingers take out the familiar silver bus card, like they had done it a hundred times- and obviously, she had, the silver card was one that lasted the whole year. She probably took the bus every day just like you did. The rings only caught your attention even more, there were two of them; one on her middle finger that was black and had a paw print on it surrounded by colorful images that you later learned were depictions of the northern lights, and one on her ring finger that had a band in the shape of an arrow with a long faded red gem in the middle of it. They were two very different styled rings, ones that definitely didn't match but somehow did. You hadn't even seen her face yet and you already knew that this girl would have a story in your head, that you'd go home and when your mom asked about your day you'd tell her you saw the most peculiar girl on the bus that day- a spunky Catholic, that was a first.

Then, she turned around, and you found out that she was all sorts of firsts.

The first thing that you saw were her eyes- mesmerizing grey and blue eyes that looked like those paintings of a stormy sea. Her eyes looked like a hurricane and an ocean in a beautiful mix of dark grey and a pearly blue with hints of enough teal that it almost matched the color of your dyed hair tips, the greenish-blue that covered most of your hair except for the roots that you had let grow out for three months.

She had light pink lips that looked a little bruised on the left side, and that were large for a white girl- or at least that was what you could tell of her ethnicity from her facial structure; although her skin was fairly tan, you assumed because of the eyes that she was at least a percentage of Caucasian. Not that it even mattered, really. You were really more concerned with where the bruise came from.

She was tall and skinny- but not really skinny. You struggled to put a word to it at first, how to describe her, the best way you could put it was that she looked like a runner- or at least that's what your mother had helped you come up with. ("I'd bet you anything she's one of those running girls, mija, from the way you tell it") Her legs were long, making up most of her height, which was just a couple inches under six feet tall. For some reason you had always found tall people intimidating, but not Harley. Harley was intimidating for sure, those piercing ocean eyes and raspy, back-of-your-throat voice that sent shivers down your spine. But it was never her height, you'd actually always found comfort in her height; how when you stood hugging her waist her height kept the strong wind from blowing your hair, how her form took up the entire couch and made it so you couldn't sit down without cuddling into her. Maybe the height didn't bother you because it was Harley's, maybe it didn't bother you because it was always somehow beneficial to you- but you'll never really know which one it is. 

She had a raggedy jean backpack on that, like the rest of her, looked as if it lived a rough-and-tumble life. If she didn't have the uniform on, you would have mistaken her for a back alley druggie from 7th street.  That didn't mean she wasn't beautiful though- god, no. 

You watched as the bus made a small chiming sound, indicating that her card had worked, and continued watching when you saw her turn around. She stopped at the front of the isle, stormy eyes scanning the bus for an empty seat. You watched her from the corner of your eye when she spotted you, her gaze boring into you like she could see all of your secrets, like she could feel what you were thinking- you were almost afraid that you had been found out, that she knew the story you were forming for her in your mind. but then, her look settled on the seats across from you, and you could have sworn you saw her smile. 

Later you found yourself thinking about that a lot, that smile. You didn't know why, but it plagued you more than any disease ever had, sometimes you compare Harley to a disease- because she took over your mind and your body in the mere seconds your own brown eyes had connected with her own crystal ones. You thought about how that smile made you think that she knew what was going to happen; that she knew the entire story to come, even if that wasn't possible. 

She took the isle seat, the one directly across from you so that she was only about a foot away from where you were sitting. She thumped down into the seat with an ungraceful sort of thump, but the smile on her face never left- a mischievous kind of smirk that made it look like she did something she wasn't supposed to but was also laughing at herself. You had never seen someone so goofy appear beautiful and scary. You could feel her eyes on you from time to time, but you tried your best to only use your peripherals and not turn your head- you felt like if you looked over at her somehow you'd be giving in to an unspoken game between the two of you. She immediately pulled something out of her backpack and it took you a couple of seconds to realize that it was a book.

The book was a dark navy blue with a blood red spine and had the title written in thick cursive black words that looked like the spooky curling vines you would see growing on the side of a scary house in the movies- you would have bet your life she was reading a book that would have made your bones shake. She let the book sit in her lap, blue eyes scanning back and forth faster than you could switch radio stations when you were bored; and since her hands were occupied with holding the book and turning the pages, the yellow highlighter she had retrieved from her bag hung loosely from in between her pearly teeth. Every once in a while she'd take the highlighter, uncapping it and highlighting what you assumed were full of deep meaning- it always made you wrinkle your nose, not being able to imagine marking up something as precious as one of the few books that you owned. Even if you read for the rest of our life you'd probably never catch up to the millions of novels Harley had stacked away in her room. 

Her leg was shaking, never in the entire fifteen minutes you shared on that bus did the grey-eyed girl's knee stop bouncing up and down. You made up in your mind that she had some sort of diagnosed deficit or disorder- maybe ADHD (it changed to bipolar disorder after that second date)- something that she was too stubborn to take medication for.  The way her eyes scanned the page like she was finishing a test in the final two minutes of class and her uncontrollable knee made the best guess some sort of hyperactive disorder- but you couldn't tell for sure. 

You decided that she had a family, but it was broken. Someone was missing- maybe her mother died or her father left, or a sibling was taken by the cruelty of the foster system. You couldn't pinpoint what the tragedy was, but you knew it happened- you could see it in everything she did- her torn posture, her fidgety actions. But for some reason it only made you more attracted to her, more curious to find out who she really was. Because even though you could tell that something had happened to her (or maybe it was just your overactive imagination) there was a certain strength about her; the way she held her head high or gave you that same smirk like she knew you were looking at her and she had control over this whole encounter. 

She was completely contradictory and that's what you liked about her. 

That while your hair was dyed to be full of color hers was seeped of it's once golden color to be a deep midnight black, where you had chocolate eyes hers were diamonds. While your music was softly playing as a background to the world you watched pass by, Harley's was blaring so she could loose herself in her own creation. You were sitting still, she as doing everything but- Harley Steele was your exact opposite, and she was a magnet. 

That was the only explanation you had for when you saw her pack her book up and start to get off the bus at her stop... you followed her. 

Bad IntentionsWhere stories live. Discover now