The Last Two on the Bus on a Friday Afternoon

The last two on the bus
On a Friday afternoon
Would never actually speak to each other

One was in seventh grade
One in eighth
And neither knew each other's name
Although one thought that the other
Looked like this kid from a movie
But only sort of
And not really

One kid sat all the way in the back
But only after the cool kids left
As that kid didn't want to start trouble

The other kid sat near the driver
And would sometimes converse with her
About what happened during the day
Since the mother of that kid
Never asked, and usually wasn't home
When that kid got home on a Friday afternoon

A note on the table would read 'Order pizza.  Don't stay up too late.  Love Mom'
And there'd be a twenty dollar bill underneath the note
There was a guy that kid's mom was seeing
And Friday and Saturday nights belonged to him
So that kid had the whole house
For two nights in a row
And later on in life
It would occur to that kid
To throw parties
Or have people over
Or just walk out of the house
And find a friend to drive downtown with
But in seventh grade
None of this was present in that kid's mind
So instead it was pizza and Facebook and falling asleep at 2am
With Mom still not home
And the television as a baby-sitter

The other kid, the eighth grader
Was a little more adventurous
With a much more stable home life

Two parents, two siblings
Reasonable Friday night outings
To a movie or the mall
Or to get ice cream
But all said and done by ten o'clock
And bed by eleven even on weekends
So as not to disrupt any biological sleep patterns
The other kid may have

But once everyone was asleep
The other kid would look out a bedroom window
That could just about offer a view of the tops of the downtown buildings
Their pink and purple lights

And that other kid would dream about going somewhere
Anywhere--anywhere where eleven o'clock wasn't the end of the world
And the night--and there was still more living to be done

Even though both kids knew
Exactly what their night was going to look like
As they sat on the bus
And four o'clock started to shake its waking head
They still felt that sense of excitement
That should really only be reserved for people
Who can actually take proper advantage of a weekend

The feeling that something was beginning
And that fun and hijinks were right around the corner

So they'd leap off the bus
First one
Then the other
Still, never really looking at each other

And then they'd think--

Now what?

Even knowing what was next
They'd take a minute to pretend they didn't
And just let Friday
Promise them a little bit more