He has a receding hairline, a bald spot circled with greasy short brown hair. I’ve never seen him before. The bus driver is normally a woman.

I climb the stairs and look for a seat.

The front is where the culinary art students sit. The middle is for the musicians and random other students. The back has always been for the auto mechanics and woodworkers.

I hate how everything – even a bus ride – has become segregated.

I enjoy defining the norm.

I change seats every day. Listening to the jokes from the culinary art section, the music theory and idle chit chat from the middle section, and on other days the loud bickering and stupid fights from the last group.

I’m glad I don’t have a group. I enjoy changing my seat each day; it’s always something different. If I sat with the same people every day I’d go crazy.

I make my way to the back of the bus.

The perk of not knowing anyone is to have a whole bench to myself.

I sit down, putting my backpack on my left. I put in my headphones and turn the music down low. The people around me talk freely, thinking I can’t hear them.

I lean back and look out the window.

We pass the unfinished building on the left, my favorite restaurant – Bruno’s – on the right.
We pull into PATHS and I hop out, thanking the driver on the way out.