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“Oh, so the bus was late again? How many times do you think you can get away with using this excuse, Marcus?” Accused his father with an angry glance.

“But it is the truth, dad...” He half heartedly replied. They’d had this conversation hundred of times already . Marcus was just waiting for his dad’s tirade about respecting public servants-

“You need to show respect for public workers, Marcus. They work tirelessly every day to make sure you can go on with your life, and all you do is accuse them and lie about them just to get out of trouble.” Said Marcus’s dad, almost if on cue.

Marcus stayed silent. It really was what happened, the bus driver was regularly late. In fact, it was rarer for him to be on time than anything else. He tried to get his mom’s sympathy, but she didn’t look up from her knitting.

“Now Marcus, I want you to tell me what actually happened.” His dad demanded.

After a few seconds of silence, he made up a lie. “I missed the bus and had to come back on foot.” At least that way, it wouldn’t suggest he had ran off to do something else instead of waiting at the school’s gate -which, again, was what had happened anyway.

“Ah, see honey, it’s way better when you’re honest.” His mom butted in with pretend-obliviousness, dropping her needles and yarn on the couch before standing up as well as her legs allowed to. “Now, how about we get to the supper?”

A short time after stuffing his face with what little grub was considered the last meal of the day in this house, desiring not to spend one more moment with his parents than he needed to, Marcus climbed upstairs and entered his room, second door on the right.

He threw his school bag on his desk, opened it and started his homework for tomorrow. He decided to start with maths. It was his favorite subject, and he wasn’t half-bad at it, to say the least.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

But five minutes had passed and all he was doing was drumming his pen on his desk, idly distracted by the punk girl from earlier. What was it about her that made him keep thinking of her? ...Well, it probably was self-evident, he thought. He had literally never seen someone sporting clothes like these before. He sighed. Maybe it should be his turn to leave the countryside, go see what the world out there looked like from his own eyes, rather than the screen of a tv or a computer.

Long after dark - which came relatively early for the month of May - Marcus shoved his finished homework in his bag and glanced at his phone. Not too shabby, it was only 11PM. Maybe he had the time for a bit of browsing, maybe even join his online friends for a raid. Or two.

It was at 6 AM that the tiresome alarm rang with a annoying, low quality mp3 of an old timey alarm clock. He had barely slept for four hours that night… With a groan, Marcus told himself he’d just have to catch some Zs in the bus.

After a -mostly- uneventful breakfast (he successfully sneaked some coffee in his chocolate milk), Marcus was out the door and walking to the bus stop. Immediately, he cursed his late gaming session, as he felt like he was about to fall back asleep any moment. As he arrived to the bus station, he still had twenty minutes before the bus would too - and that’s even considering it would be on time. He sat himself on the bench, struggling to keep his eyelids open.

Well, maybe just closing them for five seconds…

The noise of a motor roaring back to full force suddenly awoke him. Marcus barely had the time to open his eyes and comprehend what was happening. ...Was the bus leaving without him? Despite the fact he clearly was waiting right at the stop, and could’ve just needed a shove to be woken up and climb aboard? He was dumbfounded as the bus continued on, which to him, felt as if it was leaving him there out of spite.

Marcus wanted to be so angry at the driver, so mad for how regularly he was late yet didn’t wait for him the one time he needed it… But he couldn’t bring himself to. It was his own mistake that made him fall asleep, right? He convinced himself he was to take the blame here. One of his biggest fears was to grow resentful, he didn’t need to tempt that into his life.

Guess this journey on foot he’d lied about yesterday was going to take place in the reverse direction, in the end… At least the coffee had kicked in after his nap.

He took out his phone and sent out a message to Jules and Sam, “will be super l8 for class tell teachers k tks”.