2016 – Day 11

Start writing a story that...

Step 1: takes place: in a bus

Step 2: add a character who: receives a gift

Step 3: add this word: appreciation

Step 4: add a character who: looks out the window
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Benji sat on the Go Bus from Boston to New York, his legs bouncing atop the floor in jittery anticipation. He had finally decided to make the big leap and get a fresh start at life in a real city. Boston was fine and all, but it was too damn small. That old TV show about the Boston bar where everybody knows your name? May as well have been about the whole city. Everybody knows everybody else's business and won't stay out if it. Neighbors. Parents. Aunts and uncles. Ex-girlfriends and the new jerks they're dating. He'd been in Boston all 27 years of his life, and it was enough.

Outside the bus windows, the narrow road they were on took them past brownstones and blocks of shops and nail salons until it finally gave way to a wider stretch of highway. There, greenery began filling in the gaps between buildings, of which there were fewer and fewer, until all Benji could see on either side were forests. The unchanging scenery soon made his eyelids droopy, so he turned his attention to the bag at his feet.

Nearly all of his possessions were crammed underneath the bus in his dad's old army bag. But a few special things he stuffed in the backpack beneath the seat in front of him. He reached down and pulled the bag open to stare at the item at the very top—a present wrapped in silver paper with gold stars. It was from Connie, who told him to stash the gift and not open it until he was outside of Boston. She said it would make her cry to see him open it and also her boyfriend wouldn't appreciate her gesture. Benji didn't want her to cry, but he didn't mind taking an opportunity to annoy the new jerk boyfriend.

"Whacha got there, Connie?" he'd said in a loud voice that everyone at his goodbye party could hear. "Present for me?"

He smiled at her, but she shook her head, her gray eyes locking tightly on his.

"This is not how you show appreciation, Benji," she said, her voice so low that only he could hear. "I asked you to keep that between you and me. It's shit like this that made me leave your ass."

"It's just a joke!" he said, thinking how much he hated her angry stare. She always took things too seriously. He took the present and stashed it in his bag. The jerk boyfriend never saw it.

Now he regarded the present by his feet once more. He wasn't sure he wanted to open it. It was time for a clean break in a city that didn't know him. He zipped the bag up with the present still inside, and turned to look back out the window.