Lessons From the Kissing Booth

I waited at the bus stop today with the old man. It had been a few weeks since I'd seen him and I was starting to worry, and my relief was clearly plain to him when he sat down and patted my leg. We didn't say much, he slumped at the shoulders and my eyelids sandy with lack of sleep. I've been dreaming the last few nights of dead girls; no one I can recognize awake, but all certainly no longer alive. I spend all of these dreams trying to save, fix, or understand, and they're exhausting.

He smiled thinly at me, looking older than he ever has before, skin stretched tight over his temples. I watched his hands, lightly clasped on his lap and trembling slightly, and wondered where he goes when he gets off the bus.

Later, on the way home, a man sat with a thick picture frame propped on his knees, unconsciously commuting in disguise as a masterpiece.