My name is Jordan, and I drive the Number 6 through the frayed side of a small American city. People don’t ride my route for fun. They ride because they’re broke, too young or too old to drive, or too tired to fight traffic one more day.
The bus is old but predictable. The heater wheezes, the lights hum, the ramp rattles when it lowers. And every weekday at 7:10 a.m., I feel the same little jolt in the wheel as I brake at Maple and Third, the stop where the old man waits with his chair angled toward the street.
At his feet is the dog, glued to that chair like it’s the only solid thing in his world. He’s a plain brown-and-white mutt, one ear up, one ear down, ribs just starting to show. His collar is faded, his tag scratched. What you notice are his eyes, locking on my bus the second I turn the corner, wide and hopeful, like he is sure the person he loves most in the world is inside.
The first morning I really watched, the cold went straight through my jacket as I opened the doors and lowered the ramp. Before the metal even touched the pavement, the dog lunged. His claws scrambled on wet concrete, his tail beat the air so hard his whole back end wobbled. He didn’t sneak or hesitate. He charged the steps like this route belonged to him and he was late.
That’s when the old man shoved him.
Not a tap, not a gentle correction. A hard, practiced push with the side of the chair, his thin hand jamming into the dog’s shoulder. The dog yelped and slid back, paws scraping, eyes wide with confusion more than pain. Gasps popped up behind me, and a phone rose in the third row, camera already recording. A teenager near the back leaned into the aisle like he’d just spotted breaking news.
“Sir, animals need a muzzle if they’re coming on,” I called, the sentence spilling out by habit. Years of safety briefings will do that to you. I kept one eye on the clock, because dispatch hates late buses more than potholes.
“He’s not coming on,” the old man snapped. His voice was rough, like he’d swallowed gravel. He never looked at me; he stared straight at the open doors. “Stay back, Buddy. Stay. Back.”
Buddy whined and inched forward anyway, one paw landing on the first step, whole body shaking with the effort to hold himself there. The old man shoved him again, sharper this time, another short yelp cutting through the bus. Someone muttered that he was a jerk, and another passenger whispered about calling somebody to take the dog away from him.
I told myself I didn’t have time for sidewalk drama. A minute late here becomes five minutes late down the line, and five minutes late becomes an email from a supervisor in some warm office nowhere near this cold curb. So I did what I was paid to do.
“I have to close the doors, sir,” I said.
For half a second, his shoulders dropped like something inside him gave way. Then his hand spread flat against Buddy’s chest and held the dog back while I hit the switch. The doors hissed shut between them, clean and final. As I pulled away, I caught one last glimpse in the mirror: the dog standing alone in the exhaust, one paw still raised like he was trying to step onto a bus that had already left.
By lunch, the video was on my phone. Same stop, same shove, same yelp, now framed with bold white letters across the top: OLD MAN ABUSES DOG AT CITY BUS STOP. Comments poured in so fast the screen barely refreshed. Monster. Take that dog away. Somebody call someone. People tried to outdo one another with outrage, all from behind perfect smiling profile pictures.
I scrolled too long, thumb numb, stomach tight. Not one person asked why the dog kept trying to board the same bus. Not one person wondered who he thought he was going to find. To them, it was simple: cruel old man, helpless dog, share, react, move on.
The next morning, I braked at Maple and Third with my chest knotted like a bad seat belt. Phones were already out on the bus before the ramp finished whining its way down. Everybody wanted a part two to the clip they’d posted the night before.
The old man sat exactly where he always sat, jaw clenched, blanket neat over his legs. Buddy pressed into the wheel of the chair, whole body trembling with the effort not to bolt. I opened the doors. The dog lunged. The old man shoved. The crowd reacted right on cue, a chorus of sharp breaths and whispered curses.
But this time, as the bus rolled away and the doors sighed shut, I kept my eyes on the mirror instead of the clock. For one heartbeat, when he thought no one was watching, the old man’s face crumpled like wet paper. He didn’t look angry. He looked shattered.
His lips formed a single name, so soft I almost lost it under the engine.
“Mary.”
The sound hung in the stale bus air like a ghost. It snagged on something soft in my chest and refused to let go. And while the internet kept playing judge and jury on a man they’d never met, I made myself a quiet promise.
Tomorrow, I wouldn’t just drive past Maple and Third and pretend I didn’t see. Tomorrow, I’d step off my bus and find out why a man that broken kept shoving his dog away from the only door it wanted to walk through.
Part 2 – The Storm at Maple and Third
By the time I pulled into the depot that night, the video from Maple and Third had more views than our transit system had riders in a week. Someone had clipped my bus number, the stop sign, the old man’s face, and Buddy’s yelp into a neat little package people could get angry at over dinner.
Drivers huddled around their phones in the break room, shaking their heads and passing judgments between bites of vending machine chips. A dispatcher played the clip on loop, the sound turned up just enough so everyone could hear the yelp and the gasp and the angry comments read aloud in a mocking voice. None of them mentioned that the clip ended the second my doors closed.
“You see this guy?” one driver said, tapping the screen with a greasy finger. “They oughta take that dog away. He shouldn’t be allowed near animals.”
I poured bad coffee into a paper cup and didn’t say anything. The part of me that agreed with them was loud. So was the part that kept replaying his face in my mirror when he whispered that name. Mary.
My supervisor, Mr. Kramer, waved me into his office with a look that said he’d been reading emails all afternoon. He clicked his computer screen dark when I sat down, like it had just shown him something contagious.
“We’ve had complaints,” he said, folding his hands on the desk. “That stop, that man, that dog. People are tagging the transit account, saying we allow cruelty at our bus stops. They’re asking why the driver didn’t intervene.”
He didn’t have to say which driver.
“I followed the rules,” I said. “The animal didn’t board. There was no contact with the bus. My priority is loading and unloading safely.”
“I know,” Kramer said, and for a moment his eyes softened. “But out there, the rules don’t matter. The clip matters. Perception matters. So from now on, keep the ramp clear, keep animals off the steps, and if that situation escalates, call it in. Animal control, police, whatever it takes. We can’t have another video.”
Another video. Like it was a weather event. Something that just descended on you from the clouds.
The next morning, when I rolled the Number 6 toward Maple and Third, I felt every eye on the back of my neck even though the bus was half-empty. People rode quieter than usual, phones in their hands, screens ready. The internet had promised them a sequel.
The old man was there. Same chair angle. Same thin blanket over his legs. Same stubborn set to his jaw. Buddy sat pressed against his wheel, the dog’s nose already tilted toward my bus like he could smell the route itself.
I opened the doors but didn’t lower the ramp yet. My heart thudded in my ears as I unbuckled my seat belt and stood up. The whole bus went still. Drivers don’t usually leave the seat. When we do, something’s wrong.
“Sit tight,” I said to the passengers. “Won’t be a minute.”
The wind cut through my uniform as I stepped onto the sidewalk. Up close, the old man looked even smaller. His hands were bigger than his wrists, bones like sticks under thin skin. Buddy’s fur was rough with old mud and dust, but he smelled like the kind of dog that had been washed a lot once, when someone had the strength and time.
“Sir,” I said, crouching so I was closer to his eye level. “We need to talk about your dog.”
His gaze snapped to mine, sharp and suspicious. “I told you, he’s not coming on the bus. I know the rules. I don’t need a lecture.”
“I’m not here to give you one,” I said. “But the videos are getting attention. People are talking about taking him away. I don’t want that for you. Or for him.”
At the word “away,” Buddy pressed harder into the wheel, like he understood. The old man’s jaw worked. His hand slid automatically to the dog’s collar, thumb rubbing the worn leather.
“His name is Buddy,” he muttered, as if it hurt to say even that much. “Not ‘that dog.’ Not ‘the mutt.’ Buddy.”
“Okay,” I said softly. “Buddy. I’m Jordan.”
He looked at my name tag, then back at my face, like he was deciding whether it matched. “You drive the one she used to take,” he said. “Same route. Same time.”
“She?” I asked.
He flinched, as if he’d revealed too much. “Doesn’t matter. Look, driver, you got a schedule. You can’t be out here chatting with an old man who can’t move his own legs. Just run your route, and I’ll handle my dog.”
Behind me, I heard someone on the bus whisper, “Is he yelling at the driver now? You getting this?” A phone lens glinted in the corner of my eye.
“Sir,” I said, forcing myself not to turn around. “If Buddy keeps trying to get on, someone’s going to call animal control. They’ll say you’re not fit to handle him. They’ll have paperwork and policy to back them up. That’s how this works.”
For the first time, fear flashed across his face, quick and raw. His fingers tightened on the collar until Buddy whined.
“They can’t take him,” he said. “He’s all I’ve got left.”
The words came out in a hoarse rush, like he’d been holding his breath for days.
“Then help me understand,” I said. “Why do you shove him like that? Why does he keep trying to get on my bus?”
He stared at the open doors for a long moment. The ramp control beeped impatiently back inside, reminding me that I was burning minutes I didn’t really have. Cars honked in the next lane. Somewhere far off, a siren wailed.
Finally, he exhaled. “He thinks she’s still on there,” he said. “Every time he hears your brakes, he thinks she’s coming back. He thinks if he gets on that bus, he’ll find her.”
He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing in his thin neck.
“And I…” He trailed off and shook his head. “I can’t let him climb onto an empty bus and find nothing. He’d look down every aisle for the rest of his life. You ever seen a dog look disappointed? Really disappointed? It’s worse than any doctor telling you there’s nothing they can do.”
Buddy shifted, eyes flicking from the bus doors to the old man’s face. He didn’t understand the words, but he understood the tone. Love and fear and something cracked right down the middle.
“Who does he think he’s looking for?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
The old man’s eyes filled fast, like someone had turned a faucet inside him. He blinked hard, refusing to let them spill.
“My wife,” he said. “Her name was Mary. She used to take this route to come visit me when I was in the hospital. Then she kept taking it for her appointments. Buddy went with her every time. He sat right up front and watched the road like he was memorizing it.”
The image hit me hard: a tired woman with a worn purse, a dog pressed to her leg, both of them riding my route like it was a lifeline.
“She died last month,” he said quietly. “Buddy doesn’t know that. He only knows that the bus still comes and she doesn’t. So he thinks she’s stuck somewhere on it. And I…”
His voice broke. For a second, the phones behind me, the honks, the emails, the rules, all blurred into static. There was just this one man in a chair and this one dog trying to climb back into a life that didn’t exist anymore.
“So I push him away,” he finished. “Because if he gets on and doesn’t find her, I’ll have to watch him learn she’s gone. And I can’t do that. Not after holding her hand while she…” He stopped and shook his head. “I’d rather the whole world think I’m a cruel old fool than see that look in his eyes.”
A shiver ran through me that had nothing to do with the cold. I glanced back at the bus. Faces were pressed to the glass. Some curious. Some impatient. One or two softer than yesterday.
“I can’t change the internet,” I said. “But maybe we can change what happens here.”
The old man’s eyes narrowed with weary suspicion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means tomorrow I’m coming ten minutes early,” I said, surprising myself with the certainty in my own voice. “No passengers. No phones. Just you, me, and Buddy. And you’re going to tell me more about Mary. Because if your dog is still riding my route in his head, I’d better understand where he thinks he’s going.”
He stared at me like he couldn’t decide if I was mocking him or offering him a hand.
“You’re just a bus driver,” he said finally. “Why do you care?”
Because I had my own ghosts I drove past every day. Because I knew what it was to be judged by people who only saw a sliver of your story. Because somewhere between my divorce papers and my son’s unanswered texts, I’d forgotten how to step off the bus for anything that didn’t come with a time card.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But I’m already late. So please, sir. Let me help you before someone who doesn’t care at all shows up instead.”
He looked down at Buddy, then at the bus doors, then back at me. For the first time, he nodded. Just once.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Ten minutes early. You’d better not stand us up, driver.”
As I backed toward the bus and climbed inside, I heard the soft sound of him whispering that same name to the dog again.
“Mary,” he said. “Maybe somebody finally wants to hear about you.”
And for the first time since Maple and Third became famous for all the wrong reasons, I felt something like hope hitch a ride on my bus.
Part 3 – The Woman on the Route
The next morning, I pulled into Maple and Third before the sun had finished clawing its way over the buildings. The streetlights were still humming, and the air smelled like wet asphalt and yesterday’s cigarettes. For once, my bus was empty. No commuters. No students. No one holding their phones like weapons.
The old man was already there. He sat in his chair facing the street, blanket tucked around his legs with military precision. Buddy lay at his feet, head on his paws, eyes tracking my bus as if he’d willed it into existence. When the brakes hissed, his ears shot up.
I opened the doors and lowered the ramp, even though no one was boarding. The metal clanged against the curb, too loud in the quiet morning. I stepped down with two paper cups in my hands.
“I don’t drink fancy stuff,” he said as I offered one. “If that’s one of those drinks with foam and art on top, you can keep it.”
“It’s gas station coffee,” I said. “I promise it tastes exactly as cheap as it smells.”
That earned me almost a smile. He took the cup, hands shaking just enough that I pretended not to notice. Buddy sniffed at the lid, then at my fingers, tail thumping cautiously.
“You never told me your name,” I said.
“Allen,” he replied. “Frank Allen. Used to be ‘Mr. Allen’ to a couple thousand kids who didn’t like math.”
I blinked. “You were a teacher?”
“Thirty-two years,” he said. “Middle school. If I can handle a room full of twelve-year-olds, I can handle a stubborn bus driver with too much curiosity.”
I laughed despite myself. The sound felt strange in the cold morning. “Tell me about Mary,” I said.
His fingers tightened around the cup. For a moment, I thought he’d shut down, wheel away, call the whole thing off. Then he let out a long breath, the kind that seems to carry years with it.
“She hated math,” he said. “But she married me anyway.”
He told me how they met in a library, both reaching for the same worn-out mystery novel. How she’d laughed when she realized she’d already read it twice but took it home again just so she had an excuse to come back the next week. How they’d scraped together enough money for a tiny apartment and a secondhand couch that sagged like it was already tired of being sat on.
Buddy shifted and pressed closer to his leg, as if he recognized the rhythm of a story he’d heard before.
“We never had kids,” Allen said. “We wanted them. Life had other plans. So every dog we brought home was… more than a pet.”
“Family,” I supplied.
He nodded. “Buddy was the last one. We found him behind a grocery store, eating out of a tipped-over trash can. Mary said if he could survive on bruised apples and stale bread, he could survive us. She was stubborn like that.”
He talked about the first time Buddy rode the bus. How nervous Allen had been, worrying the dog would bark or bite or get them kicked off. How Mary had smiled, smoothed Buddy’s fur, and said, “If this bus can carry half the town’s troubles every day, it can carry ours too.”
Then he told me about the day the doctor mentioned a word no one ever wants to hear in a fluorescent-lit room. He didn’t say it out loud, but I’d heard enough stories to fill in the blank.
“The hospital was across town,” he said. “We couldn’t afford cabs. I don’t drive anymore. So the bus became our lifeline. Twice a week, sometimes more. Mary in her Sunday coat no matter what day it was, Buddy trotting beside her like he was escorting a queen.”
I pictured them climbing my steps. Not my bus exactly—this route had been driven by others before me—but the same worn floor, the same scratched windows, the same stubborn heater.
“I was stuck in a bed for a while,” he said. “Bad heart. She took the bus alone then. Buddy went with her. Nurses said he’d sit in the hallway outside my room, ears up, every time he heard a cart squeak, just in case it was her coming back from tests. He followed her to every appointment, every scan, every needle.”
He swallowed hard. The coffee in his hand had gone cold.
“When my heart got better, hers got worse,” he said. “Tables turned. I stayed home. She took the bus to her appointments without me. Buddy still went along. Dogs don’t understand switching roles. To him, she was always the strong one. The one who walked. The one who held the leash.”
I thought about the way Buddy launched toward my bus every morning, like the doors might open and reveal the person who made his world make sense.
“Last month,” Allen said quietly, “she went in for a test and didn’t come out.”
The words hung between us, simple and brutal.
“The doctor called,” he went on. “Said they did everything they could. Said a lot of things people say when they’re trying to stack words around a hole that big. Emily offered to come.”
“Emily?” I asked.
“My niece,” he said. “Closest thing we’ve got to a daughter. She lives two states away. Busy job, busy life. She loved Mary, but life is… loud when you’re young. We told her not to rush. Mary would have smacked me with a dish towel if I’d let that girl miss work for a funeral.”
He tried to smile but it didn’t stick.
“The next morning, I came down here,” he said. “Out of habit, I guess. Buddy pulled me the whole way, like he thought we were late. When your world collapses, your feet still remember the way to the bus stop.”
He looked at my bus, empty and waiting.
“The brakes hissed, and Buddy looked at that door like it was the gate to heaven,” Allen said. “He was ready to go find her. To sit in her spot. To wait for her to get off at home like nothing had happened.”
“So you pushed him,” I said softly.
“I shoved him,” he corrected. “Hard. Because if I let him on and he didn’t find her, he’d learn the truth. And I wasn’t ready to watch him lose her the way I did. Not yet. Maybe not ever.”
We sat in silence for a moment while a stray grocery bag drifted across the street and caught on the stop sign.
“I know it looks bad,” he said finally. “A man in a chair beating back his only friend. But that shove? That’s all that’s stopping him from having his heart broken in a language he doesn’t understand.”
I thought about the video. About the comments demanding someone “save” Buddy. About the way outrage spread faster than any bus ever could.
“People think they’ve seen the whole story,” I said. “But they’ve only seen the worst three seconds of your day.”
“The worst three seconds of his day,” Allen corrected, looking down at Buddy. “He forgives me every time. That’s the worst part.”
Buddy licked his wrist as if on cue, tail giving a hopeful thump.
“What if,” I said slowly, the idea forming as I spoke, “there was a way to let him say goodbye without crushing him? A way to ride the route with him, not as a surprise, but as a last promise kept?”
Allen’s eyes flicked to mine, wary and tired. “What are you suggesting, driver?”
I looked at the bus. At the ramp. At the empty seats that usually held people scrolling past other people’s pain.
“A special ride,” I said. “No cameras. No crowds. Just you, Buddy, and one driver who’s already late enough on his soul not to care about the schedule for once.”
He stared at me like he wanted to believe I meant it and was afraid to.
“You can’t fix death with a bus ride,” he said.
“No,” I agreed. “But maybe we can help one dog understand that the person he loves has already gotten off at her stop.”
Allen’s fingers went back to rubbing Buddy’s collar. The tag on it caught the light, the letters worn from years of clinking against metal poles and doorways. I noticed, for the first time, the tiny engraving beneath his name.
It was the address of the county hospital.
Allen saw me looking and closed his hand over it.
“She always said if he got lost, someone could read it and take him to her,” he said. “Now there’s nowhere to take him.”
“Maybe there is,” I said, heart thudding as the shape of a plan formed fully for the first time. “But I can’t do it alone. And I can’t do it if we let the internet tell this story for us.”
He studied my face for a long moment, gauging whether I was serious or just another passing stranger offering easy comfort.
“You’re going to get yourself in trouble,” he said.
“Probably,” I answered. “But I’ve been driving ghosts around this city for a long time and pretending I didn’t see them. Maybe it’s time I made a stop that isn’t on the schedule.”
Buddy nudged my hand, eyes bright, tail hopeful, as if he’d finally heard something that sounded like the word he’d been waiting for every morning.
“Ride,” I whispered to him. “Just not the way you think.”
And as the sun finally pulled itself over the tops of the buildings and lit up the cracked sidewalk at Maple and Third, I realized there was no going back to just closing the doors and watching from the mirror.
I’d stepped off the bus. Now I had to figure out how to drive it somewhere no route map had ever shown.
Part 4 – Rules, Warnings, and Online Judges
If there’s one thing modern life has perfected, it’s the art of scolding from a distance. By the time I finished my route that day, the clip of Allen shoving Buddy had spawned reaction videos, think pieces, and a dozen threads arguing about what “someone” should do. Someone should report him. Someone should adopt the dog. Someone should fix it.
At the depot, the mood had shifted from amused gossip to tight-lipped damage control. A flyer was taped to the bulletin board: reminder of policies about animals on buses, safety protocols, liability. It might as well have had my name written across the bottom in invisible ink.
Kramer called me in again. His tie was crooked, which meant he’d been tugging at it. That was his tell when he was stressed.
“We’ve had more emails,” he said without preamble. “People want to know why we aren’t intervening. Some are threatening to contact the news. Apparently your stop is the most popular corner of the internet today.”
I sat down, the chair creaking under me. “I talked to him,” I said. “He’s not abusing Buddy. He’s trying to protect him. His wife died last month. The dog thinks she’s still riding my route. That shove is the only thing standing between the dog and a heartbreak he doesn’t understand.”
Kramer rubbed his forehead. “Jordan, I’m not heartless. I understand grief. But our job is not to manage one man’s mourning. Our job is to keep the buses running and avoid lawsuits. If that dog jumps under a wheel one morning, or bites a passenger, we are on the hook. That’s how this works.”
“I get that,” I said. “But right now, we’re letting a three-second clip define who he is. People online are calling for his head, and for us to ‘rescue’ Buddy. If animal control gets involved, they’re not going to sit down and listen to the love story. They’re going to see a frail man in a chair and a dog without a muzzle.”
“So what do you propose?” Kramer asked. “We can’t escort every dog with separation anxiety to therapy, Jordan. You’re a driver, not a social worker.”
“Maybe just once, I can be both,” I said before I could stop myself.
He snorted softly. “You always were the soft one,” he muttered.
He said it like an accusation, but there was something like respect under it. Once, early in my career, I’d stopped my bus and walked a terrified teenager halfway across a busy intersection because she’d frozen in the middle. I got written up for the delay. I also got a thank-you card with shaky handwriting. I kept the card. I forgot the write-up.
“I want to run a special trip,” I said. “After hours. No passengers. Just me, Allen, and Buddy. Take them along the route they used to ride, then to where his wife is buried. Let the dog see she’s not on the bus anymore. Let him understand the bus isn’t failing him. She’s just… gotten off.”
Kramer stared at me like I’d suggested repainting the fleet in rainbow colors.
“Jordan,” he said slowly, “do you hear yourself? That is not a line item in our budget. That’s not policy. That’s not anything.”
“It’s compassion,” I said. “That used to be something.”
Silence stretched between us. Outside the office, I could hear the hiss of air brakes, the murmur of other drivers clocking in and out, the low hum of engines idling.
“You want me to sign off on using a city bus as a grief counselor,” he said finally.
“Yes,” I replied. “Just once. Quietly. No fanfare.”
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling like he was asking whatever powers watched over transit departments for patience.
“You really think one ride is going to fix this?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I think it’s going to tell the truth to the only two souls who need it most. And maybe, if it goes well, we can decide later what to say to everyone else.”
He tapped his pen against the desk, thinking. “If this leaks, and someone spins it as ‘bus driver misuses taxpayer resources for private ceremony,’ I’ll be the one answering for it,” he said. “They won’t see tenderness. They’ll see a headline.”
“They’re already seeing a headline,” I reminded him. “OLD MAN ABUSES DOG AT BUS STOP. Right now, we’re letting that stand unchallenged.”
He didn’t answer for a long time. Then he sighed the sigh of a man who knows the rules and chooses, just once, to bend them.
“One trip,” he said. “After your last run Saturday. No passengers. You log it as a route test. Check the ramp, the wheelchair straps, whatever makes it look official. If anything goes wrong—anything—you own it. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, relief washing over me so hard my vision blurred for a second.
“And Jordan?” he added as I stood.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t make a spectacle out of this,” he said. “No posts. No dramatic speeches. We’re not turning grief into content. If this is going to mean anything, it has to stay human.”
For once, I agreed with him completely.
On my break, I sat in the depot cafeteria with my lunch untouched while my phone buzzed on the table. Rosa, a regular on my route who worked double shifts at the hospital, had messaged me a link.
“Is this your stop?” she’d written. “That man? That dog? I thought he just had a temper. Didn’t know there was more to it.”
The link led to a local community page where people had been arguing for hours. Some wanted to “save” Buddy. Some wanted to demand I be fired for “standing by.” Others, to my surprise, were starting to ask questions.
“Does anyone actually know this man?” one comment read. “Has anyone talked to him?”
I typed back to Rosa.
“Yeah, it’s my stop,” I wrote. “His name is Mr. Allen. The dog’s name is Buddy. There’s a story there. I’m trying to listen to it.”
She replied with a string of worried faces. “Tell me if you need help,” she wrote. “I see a lot of families at the hospital who don’t get to say goodbye right. If there’s a way to help this dog do it, I’ll support you.”
Support felt like a fragile thing, but I clung to it.
That afternoon, at Maple and Third, more phones were raised as I pulled in. The rumor mill had done its work. People shifted in their seats, glancing between me and the sidewalk like they were watching a live show.
Allen was there as always, chin lifted, pretending not to see the cameras. Buddy trembled with the effort it took to stay where he was instead of launching himself at the doors.
I loaded passengers, took fares, nodded at familiar faces. Then I leaned out the window just long enough to catch Allen’s eye.
“Saturday,” I said quietly. “After my last run. Be ready.”
He frowned. “For what?”
“For the ride you and Mary never got to take together,” I said. “The one where you both go where she is now.”
Phones recorded my mouth moving but not my words. Bus engines drowned out the rest.
He stared at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.
“Don’t you dare be late, driver,” he said.
As I pulled away, a teenage boy at the back—hood up, earbuds in, phone out—watched me with narrowed eyes. He looked familiar in the way that all kids who film everything look familiar now.
Later, I would learn his name was Tyler.
Later, I would learn he had already posted three videos about Allen and Buddy, each more popular than the last.
Right then, I just saw a kid with a lens and no context, and I felt the clock ticking down to Saturday like it was attached to a time bomb.
Because compassion was one thing.
Compassion under surveillance was something else entirely.
Part 5 – The Ghost Bus Plan
I did not sleep much before Saturday. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Buddy’s paws scrambling on the wet pavement and Allen’s hand pushing him back with more fear than force. I also saw emails I hadn’t received yet, complaints I hadn’t read, and my supervisor’s tired face asking why I couldn’t just keep my head down and drive.
Friday night, I sat at my kitchen table with a notebook I normally used to track overtime. Instead of hours, I wrote down questions. What time would we leave? How long would the route take without stops? Was the cemetery gate open after dark? How would Buddy handle a quiet bus when every cell in his body expected the usual clatter of strangers?
My son texted once around ten. A meme, something about traffic and people yelling at each other. I stared at the little typing bubble and thought about telling him what I was planning. In the end, I just sent a thumbs-up and put the phone face down on the table. It was easier than trying to explain why his dad was volunteering to be the only witness to a dog’s heartbreak.
Saturday morning, Rosa climbed onto the bus with shadows under her eyes and a coffee that smelled stronger than mine. She dropped into the front seat with the weary grace of someone who has seen too many people sick and too many families trying to be brave.
“I heard you talked to him,” she said as she swiped her card. “The math teacher with the dog.”
“His name is Mr. Allen,” I said. “And yeah. I did.”
She watched me carefully. “Is it as bad as people say? Or worse?”
“It’s not what people think at all,” I said. “He’s not cruel. He’s just stuck. Him and the dog both.”
She nodded slowly, as if that answer fit into a thousand stories she’d already filed away in her head. “You planning to do something?” she asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “I got permission for a special run tonight. After hours. Just him and Buddy. Take them where they need to go.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Your boss agreed to that?”
“Once,” I said. “Quietly. If it goes wrong, I’ll be out of a job and probably on the same community page as that video.”
Rosa leaned her head back against the seat. “Sometimes,” she said, “the only way to look yourself in the mirror is to do the thing that makes no sense on paper.”
At Maple and Third, Allen waited like always, but something in his posture was different. Less braced, more resigned. When the brakes hissed, Buddy jumped, then looked at me, not just the doors, as if he understood this bus and this driver were now a package deal.
“You sure about this?” Allen asked when I leaned out the window. “Still time to change your mind, you know.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I’ll pick you up tonight at seven. You, Buddy, and whoever you want to bring. Family, neighbor, anyone who loved her.”
His eyes flickered. “Emily’s coming,” he said. “I called her. Told her I needed help with something I should’ve done sooner.”
It was the first time he’d said his niece’s name without an apology wrapped around it.
All day, I ran my route with the awareness that every stop, every turn, every patch of cracked asphalt had once been part of Mary’s path. I imagined her hands gripping the rail, her breath catching as the bus lurched, Buddy pressed against her leg. I wondered how many drivers had glanced back and seen her and thought of her as just another tired woman in a seat.
Around mid-afternoon, Tyler boarded, hood up, backpack hanging off one shoulder. He scanned his card and lingered near the front instead of slinking to the back like usual. His phone was in his hand, but for once he wasn’t filming.
“Hey,” he said. “You the driver from the videos?”
“I’m a driver,” I said. “This is my route. Those are my stops. Somebody else made them into videos.”
He studied my face like he was trying to match it to the thumbnail he’d seen a hundred times. “People are mad,” he said. “Some at him, some at you, some at the transit system. My cousin says they’re going to show up with signs one of these days.”
“Is that what you want?” I asked.
He shifted his weight, uncomfortable. “I just posted what I saw,” he said. “It looked bad. I didn’t know there was more.”
“There’s always more,” I said. “You planning to film tonight too?”
He hesitated just a fraction too long. “What’s tonight?” he asked.
“Nothing that needs a lens,” I answered.
He dropped his gaze and moved to the back, shoulders tight. I drove on, wondering which would come first: change in the world, or change in one boy with a phone.
When my last regular run ended, the depot felt different. Quieter. Like the building itself was holding its breath. Kramer handed me a clipboard with a route test form already half-filled.
“Check the ramp. Note the wheelchair securements. Don’t crash,” he said. “And remember what we talked about. This isn’t a movie. It’s not a campaign. It’s just a ride.”
“I know,” I said.
“And Jordan?”
“Yeah?”
“If anyone gives you trouble,” he said, “tell them I ordered you to do a systems check.”
I blinked. “Are you ordering me to do a systems check?”
He met my eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I am.”
There was more kindness in that lie than in a hundred official memos.
At 6:55, I pulled the Number 6 up to Maple and Third. The sky was bruised purple, the streetlights just clicking on. Allen sat in his chair, Buddy at his side, and next to him stood a woman in her thirties with a worn coat and a look on her face that said she’d run out of apologies long ago.
“You must be Emily,” I said as I lowered the ramp.
She nodded. “You must be the driver who got my uncle to call me,” she replied. “I’ve been trying to earn the title ‘family’ from him for years. Apparently it took a dog and a bus to make it official.”
Her joke wobbled, but she held my gaze.
We loaded Allen first, locking his chair into place with the practiced movements I’d done a thousand times for strangers. It felt different when the person in the straps was someone whose story I knew. Buddy hopped up onto the bus like he’d been born there, nails clicking on the floor, nose exploring every corner.
“Front seat,” I told him, patting the spot where Mary used to sit in Allen’s stories. “Honorary passenger.”
He curled up there without hesitation, head resting on the edge of the seat, eyes on the windshield. He was ready to ride. He just didn’t know where.
I closed the doors. The bus hummed around us, empty except for four hearts and a lot of ghosts.
“Next stop,” I said quietly, turning the wheel, “everywhere she ever was.”
And with that, the Ghost Bus left Maple and Third on a route no map had ever printed.