The driver restarted the bus’s self-driving systems. With sloth-slowness, the bus dragged itself from the station, leaving Jaxton behind. As they did, Jaxton pulled himself up from the sidewalk, a glaring of pure hatred burning in his eyes. Just before the bus turned a corner, Devon saw Jaxton fish out his phone from his pocket and snap a picture.

“Guess his hand was fine after all,” Devon said.

Adrenaline rushed from his body, and Devon suddenly felt exhausted. His legs shook, and he had an odd craving for ice cream—nothing fancy, just a simple ice cream with some chocolate coating. Even one of the fake ones would do. Sadly, there wouldn’t be any ice cream chances for a good few hours.

He made he was back to his seat, his duffel bag jammed into the footrest space. Next to him sat the middle-aged woman dabbing at her face with a wet washcloth that filled the seats with an overpowering scent of lemon sherbet.

“My goodness,” began the middle-aged lady. “That is definitely going into the top five craziest things that ever happened to me on a bus.”

“You mean there’s worse?” Devon asked.

“Oh honey,” the middle-aged lady said smirking as she placed the used wet-wipe in her purse.  “oh, my sweet summer child. You have no idea. First off, there weren’t any cats involved.”

Devon nodded. “I mean, cats don’t sound so bad.”

She snorted. “Well this was in fact a 40-something year old man”

“… uh… what?”

“I mean, I ain’t about to judge folk for following their truth, but when he starting doing his 'litter-box’ in the aisle and insisting that the poor driver clean it up—“

She paused. “You know what? Before any other strange nonsense happens today, why don’t we introduce ourselves first? Carla Bright.” She stuck out her hand for a handshake.

“Devon Tomson. No ‘H’, No ‘P’”

“Well, it is a pleasure to meet you Devon Tomson No-H-No-P. And might I say, that is a lovely hat that you’ve got on there!”

Devon beamed.

“Naw… it’s just for a stupid convention...” He rubbed at the back of his head, feeling the leather and the feather between his fingers.

Carla’s face grew serious. “Why would you say that? It’s your hat! It’s your convention! Why would you say it’s stupid?”

Devon leaned back and sighed. Before he knew it, he was retelling the whole story of his day—the fight with Momma, how he got kicked out of the house for not wanting to return the hat, the fight with Jaxton and his goons at the bus stop… the more he told the story, the more ridiculous the whole thing seemed, all because of a stupid hat.

“This is all I got left.” Devon laughed, but tears gathered in his eyes. He wiped them away—Momma always told him it wasn’t becoming of men to cry in public. “It’s been like this ever since I was a kid. Anytime I try to… I don’t know… do something—"

“You mean like get a hobby?”

“Yeah, that. Anytime I start up a… a hobby or something, I always end up having to give it up. Momma’s like “oh, it’s too expensive” or “oh, Neveah doesn’t like it” or “oh, it’s too dangerous, oh takes up too much time away from home”… meanwhile Neveah goes off and does whatever she wants.

“Well, what does your father think?”

Devon coughed.

“He’s not here anymore.” Devon found it hard to look at Carla and stared out the window to avoid her gaze.

Silence filled the bus for a few terrible moments. Devon almost wished that the bus alarm would go off just so something else would fill in the painful, dead air.

Carla sighed.

“You know, Devon, we’re all people, and people are not perfect. I am by no means perfect either. Very, very imperfect, actually. This is just a part of life—but we grow and overcome our imperfections. Did you ever read M.L. Robinson’s “The Four Fires?”

“No,” Devon said. “I heard the TV show was really bad.”

“Oh, it’s awful. Terrible stuff. Shame that’s what most people know it for. Anyway—I see a lot of myself, or how I used to be, in how your mother is acting now. It took some reading, and a whole lot of therapy, to get me to accept just how awful I was acting, even if I believed what I did was right. Now I don’t know your circumstances of your family, and I don’t mean to pry into the life of a stranger… but if I had to guess, I think your mother knows that your sister is a handful, to put it mildly. But with your father…erm… out of the picture, she’s trying to keep the family together as much as she can.”

“But then why’d she kick me out?” Devon’s voice cracked. His eyes itched and swelled. He pulled the troublesome hat from his head, bunched it in a fist. The honking of passing traffic would make the perfect cover to hide the patter of falling tears.