by Courtland Low

Created on: February 23, 2009

I look around the bus. The lights are off. All I can see are the silhouettes of my classmates. Murmurs of conversation between tired friends waft throughout the bus: an assignment due tomorrow, a test Monday, something silly someone did on the slopes, who to take to Prom. The only other sounds come from the bus as it rumbles along.

We drive over wooded hills, through empty valleys and under glowing stars. There are no sudden turns. There are no streetlights. There are no worries about school.

Many of the student skiers and snowboarders fall asleep. I feel a weight on my shoulder. The Chinese girl sitting beside me dosed off. A Hi My Name Is' sticker rests on her forehead. The word Sara' is scratched out. Loser' replaces her name. Blonde highlights streak her long black hair. It's tied in a ponytail to prevent me from putting on her hood.

The bus reaches the outskirts of a small town. Streetlights appear, sparsely at first. They shine into the bus, providing moments of illumination. I watch as the bus is filled with playful shadows, dancing and wandering about. Sara stirs a moment, complains about a phantom in her dream, and holds my arm tighter before falling asleep again. The shadows die as the bus leaves the town.

I met Sara just after the New Year at a Vietnamese restaurant. My friend, Alex, invited three people from the younger grades to join us. The new comers already knew who I was. I only knew two of them. One of them, Susan, was one of my classmates' sisters. The other was the tall Chinese girl that everyone talked about, the one that was currently sleeping on my shoulder. I learned the last was Mary, a close friend of Susan and Sara. The three of them were inseparable.

We exchanged greetings before sitting down at our table. Sara made fun of me. Susan and Mary laughed. I returned an insult in jest about her being a recent immigrant to the country. Everyone laughed, even though she had been born in Canada and lived here all her life. That was the first time we met.

After that day, Sara would come see me in the hallways at school. She waved and smiled often. Sometimes she'd poke me. I responded by poking her back.

Two weeks later we went on the first ski and snowboard trip with the school. I made fun of her as she sat on the bunny hill, struggling to stand up. She threw a snowball at me. I covered her back in snow. She screamed as it went inside her jacket. I laughed and went off to the black diamond runs with Alex.

She growled at me whenever she saw me in the

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