The sound of over-hanging branches hitting and sliding across the metal roof and the wide windows of the bus was violent, like a sudden attack of heavy rain crashing from the heavens, as if loud enough to break glass.

But it didn't.

Cassidy barely even flinched, just vaguely acknowledge the sound, turning the next page of her book and shifting further down her seat to get as comfy, or as you could on public transport. There was tinny notes breaking out from her earbuds, just loud enough for the girl behind Cassidy to know she was being warned off, as if anybody actually talked to strangers on buses any more, especially at this time.

Her eyes were heavy and her hair stood at all angles, not changed or touched from how she woke up that morning. She hoped there was at least a hairband in her bag, maybe even dry shampoo if she was lucky enough. She was too tired to think about what she had stuffed into her bag this morning after groggily picking up her phone and finding her alarm had already went off and she only had 15 minutes to get up and get out.

She was lucky she had even made her bus in time.

As the bus began to fill bus stop by bus stop. Cassidy willed no one to sit next to her, even though her body was tightly tucked as far as it could go, her cheek pressed against the cool glass feelings every shake and jostle of the two story transportation.

The bus suddenly lurched without warning, going down and up again like someone mishandling a box; letting go for milliseconds before catching it. The contents, the people rattled with it. Cassidy was one of them. As the bus fell into a pothole her bones shook and her teeth clashed together, just missing her tongue as it shot to the back of her mouth in retreat.

She tastes the phantom of blood but not the warmth of it. Her body still tensed as the bus continued on.

She didn't like taking the bus. In fact Cassidy didn't like taking any sort of public transportation. She hated the feeling of closeness to strangers, she hated having to feel like she must make herself as small as possible as to not inconvenience those around her and not have the favour returned. She hated the fear of someone starting a conversation with her, and she hated it even more when they were drunk and she had no choice but to dig deep and bear with it in fear of them becoming violent.

But she liked the time it gave her to think, the time to let her sit and be able to read and finish one of the many unfinished novels on her bookshelf as she travelled to and from college. She liked the sense of freedom; of adulthood until she got off and the responsibilities started. Until she realised she was almost at her stop and had to awkwardly get herself together again; to hurriedly shuck her backpack on her back  after stuffing her book into it and pluck up the courage to press the stop button, to get up and try to ignore the stares of the other passengers, to pray that she didn't topple over or fall down the stairs. 

But she never did. Didn't make it any easier.