Emily sank into a vacant seat, grateful there was one free. She felt drained and her whole body ached. It had been a tough week. She rested her forehead against the window, enjoying the coolness of the glass. The rain was coming down in sheets. She had never known a summer as wet as this in the whole time she had been in Japan. It seemed nature was against the world right now
She turned her head slightly to glance around the bus, absentmindedly raising her hand to straighten her glasses. They had a permanent habit of falling out of place now, thanks to her mask competing for space on the bridge of her nose. Like always, every other passenger was also masked. There had been no need for mandates here. The second that news of the virus had been made public, almost every citizen took to wearing one without question. Encountering anyone without was a rarity almost as absurd as the idea of seeing a rhino in a petticoat dancing down the street.
She returned her gaze to the sidewalk. She watched with bated breath for a second as a pair of high school students on bicycles narrowly missed a woman battling with a pushchair. Luckily the seemingly inevitable collision never occurred and the two students soon rode out of view. Then she spied a couple, walking under the same umbrella, their arms linked. Her stomach involuntarily tightened a little as she remembered how she used to walk with Masa like that.
They had met six years ago at a karaoke party through mutual friends. He had been a little shy at first, but after a couple of beers, he had relaxed and gotten up the courage to talk to her. To be honest, he hadn’t made that much of an impression on her that first time they had met, but they’d exchanged contact details all the same. They had messaged for almost a month before she had finally agreed to him taking her out on their first date, to a yakiniku restaurant.
It had been good at first. He was a decent man and she enjoyed spending time with him. So she had pushed down the niggling doubts and before she knew it, the weeks turned to months and then years. But after he was given a promotion, his work hours got longer and longer. She lost count of the number of nights she waited in their apartment alone, not knowing if he would be ten minutes or two hours late, her annoyance switching to concern and then fear for his safety the later it got.
Then one night, it happened again. It was their two-year anniversary of moving in together. She had cooked his favourite meal. They had been struggling over the last few months and so she had been hoping they could use the opportunity to talk and reconnect a little. He had promised he’d be home by 8pm, but he wasn’t. He hadn’t responded to any of her messages either and the meal was long cold now.
At a quarter past three in the morning, she finally heard him fumbling outside the door, trying to get his key in the lock. She forced the wave of anger away. He staggered inside, exclaiming as he fell a little too heavily against the wall of the narrow entryway.
“I’m so sorry,” he slurred. “It was a client. I had to go.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said quietly. But she was all too aware of the ache that engulfed her chest, making her feel like she was being crushed under the weight of some invisible force.
He collapsed on the sofa and almost immediately started snoring.
She went to bed.
The next day, she didn’t even have the energy to question him. Deep down she just knew she couldn’t do this anymore. She felt like she was dying inside. There was no avoiding the truth any longer. It was screaming at her.
This wasn’t the life she wanted.
“It’s over,” she told him flatly a month later when she finally got up the courage to tell him. They talked and both cried. When she saw the hurt on his face she felt terrible and asked herself if she should just try harder. But she knew deep down that staying was a lie and that it wouldn’t be fair on either of them. Her decision was made.
She had genuinely imagined a future for them; marriage, kids, a normal life. It was the kind of life she assumed she should aspire to. The relief she felt when he first left was very quickly replaced by guilt, as she found herself beating herself up more and more for hurting him. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she just be happy with what she had? What if there wasn’t anything more and this was it? Had she made a huge mistake?
As the bus drew further and further away from the busy town centre and the view outside the window became less urban, the number of passengers decreased. The rain still lashed at the windows relentlessly. The noise of the huge wipers sliding across the windscreen was strangely lulling. Emily pulled her cardigan around her a little tighter. The air-conditioning was a little too strong.
Her mind wandered to her friend Tasha. She longed to call her, tell her how unhappy she was, how not herself she felt, how she knew that something was terribly wrong, something she couldn’t bring herself to put words to. She imagined Tash wrapping her arms around her, her hair softly brushing against her face. She could almost smell the subtle scent of Tash’s shampoo and taste her passionfruit lip balm as their lips joined.
This is wrong.
It was getting harder and harder to ignore though. She supposed she was just lonely and that was what was making her mind go to such places. It had to be that.
She had no one else to talk to, but she could hardly tell Tash how she felt and how confused she was about it all. She was terrified of the very real possibility she would lose the only friend she had. She had never felt so alone.
The bus came to a stop and the doors opened. Emily was vaguely aware of a new passenger clambering aboard, but took no real notice until she heard a thump and realised the woman had slipped on the step.
She immediately got to her feet to help.
“Are you okay?” she asked in Japanese, reaching a hand out to offer support.
“Sumimasen,” apologised the woman, refusing Emily’s hand and sinking into the closest seat, clearly highly embarrassed by her dramatic entry.
“You’re bleeding!” Emily exclaimed, pointing to the woman’s knee where her tights were slightly torn and blood had started pooling around a slight scrape. Emily reached into her bag and produced a small packet of tissues. She handed it to the woman, who accepted it awkwardly.
Emily wondered what she did. She looked a little too prettily dressed to be an office worker. Perhaps she was married. She glanced down but couldn’t get a view of her wedding finger for the woman’s bag covered her hand.
“Thank you,” the woman stammered again with a shy smile.
Emily thought the woman looked close to tears. The fall had obviously shaken her. She remembered how she had fallen herself a couple of months back. It had been at a train station. She had twisted her ankle in the process and for a minute or two was sprawled on the ground, stunned, unable to move from the pain that initially overwhelmed her. Not a single person stopped to ask her if she was okay. Instead, they veered around her, refusing to make eye contact.
Upset, later she had grumbled to Masa about how no one in this country seemed to have the heart to help a stranger in distress. He had just smiled and explained that it wasn’t that people didn’t care, but rather they were probably pretending not to notice to save causing her embarrassment.
She had changed the subject. Masa could be so infuriating sometimes, the way he never seemed to see her side. For just once it would be nice for him to say, sorry you had such a horrible experience or something that proved he gave a shit, instead of automatically defending whoever it was who had upset her and always making her feel like she was misinterpreting the world and making a mountain out of a molehill. She knew that if she should ever encounter anyone who fell in front of her, she would definitely help.
The bus continued on and around 7 or 8 stops later the woman stood to leave.
Emily watched her shuffle down to the front. She had just stepped off and the bus driver was closing the doors when Emily’s gaze fell on the seat the woman had vacated. She could see something. She stood and leaned over to see what it was and realised the woman’s cell phone must have dropped out of her bag or pocket. She grabbed it quickly and hurried to the front of the bus, calling out to the driver to wait. He looked irritated. Emily apologised. She was only two stops from her destination and decided she would just walk the rest of the way home.
“Your phone!” she called out, hurrying after the woman and managing to quickly attract her attention.
“Ara! Arigato gozaimasu!” the woman exclaimed, the relief and gratitude on her face probably discernible to anyone of any language or culture.
“You’re welcome,” Emily smiled.
The woman thanked her again. She seemed about to walk off to wherever it was she was headed, but instead stopped and paused for a second. Then she impulsively placed her hand on Emily’s arm, pointing across the road to a coffee shop.
“Coffee?” she asked in heavily accented English.
For a second Emily was inclined to refuse. She had no idea what they would even talk about. She spoke some Japanese, but she was by no means fluent. Besides, she was hardly the best company lately. Yet, inexplicably, something intrigued her about this woman and so she found herself nodding in agreement.
The rain was still relentless. Avoiding the pools of water that were ever accumulating on the ground, they crossed the road and entered the coffee shop.
