The bus stop had seen plenty of visitors pass it by over its lifetime. Its iron-runged seats were rusted, russet brown bubbles cresting their outer edges. The technicolor advertisements sprawled across its glass walls were for products so obsolete they may as well have been caveman tools from the Stone Age. To me, these details were as familiar as the sound of my mother’s footsteps on the stairs, or the bark of my dog, Buster, when it was time for his dinner. Each day I took the bus to school. The corner I chose to stand in was strategic: it was the only place where the roof of the bus stop wasn’t badly chipped (in case of rain), where there was some distance from that weird blood stain on the concrete (ew), and where I could peek discreetly at others who chose to sit on the center metal chairs. Yes, people-watching: my favorite pastime. When you people-watch, it’s easy to blend into the shadows, to lean back and dissolve into the bustling cityscape, and see yourself as just another commuter going through just another day. The crises and celebrations, the highs and lows, they all just bundle together, like a snow globe cradled in a person’s palms, playing out before your eyes. There’s a distance that’s created. It’s calming, in a way, to know that at any level, everyone around you is living their own life, one that you can never fully know or understand. I’ve seen so much over those years of mornings on my way to school. WAhgnAUgh! That day it was cold. I hugged my knit cardigan tight to my chest, tipping forward and balancing the weight of my backpack on my heels. One half-completed assignment for precalc burned at my shoulder. I told myself I would do it on the ride. The wailing (WahHGnagH) continued. It was warped and gargled, and it painted the air with peach and yellow strokes. Nestled between the arms of a young woman was the shape, small and fleshy and warm. Its face was squished, its head was bald, its eyes were squeezed shut in apparent hatred and disgust for the world, but its hands were perfect. Wrinkled and tiny, they grabbed at anything and everything, artfully created, folded origami pieces straight from the heavens. Through Mrs. Ruffoso’s disappointed eyes at my blank pages and the din of first period class, my ears were filled with the needy cry of that baby, and my mind was filled with the grasping of those hands. Rain. Stabbing. Knocking. Shattering against the glass above. My umbrella shook with droplets. Two boys around the age of ten argued with each other beside me at the bus stop. I had three missing assignments. Buster had had an accident in the middle of the night, and I was the one to clean it up. I couldn’t make out what they were fighting about. All I knew was that the bigger of the two boys was rising up, his hands rounded into fists, tight and coiled. He took a swing in the air, fizzing with energy. My grade in precalc was like a Black Diamond downhill ski slope. Buster was getting old. Some days his eyes were fogged and cloudy, and his fur bristled, jumping at my touch. Only my voice calmed him. “Would you please sit down and wait for the bus like normal people?” My voice was sharp, sharper than I intended. The boys’ eyes were wide. The bus screeched to a halt, spraying us with water from the street. Our ride to school was one in silence. That day, the snow globe began to crack. The tall man with brown skin and curly black hair came first to the bus stop, alone. He turned to me with eyes as wide as saucers and mouthed the words with a smile: I’m going to ask her. Resting on his jostling knee was a black box, small and pristine, the perfect clam shell to hide a pearl. I shot him a thumbs up and grinned despite myself. When a woman arrived, apparently in a rush, brown hair tousled by the wind, cheeks flushed and eyes wild, the man ran to meet her. She laughed when she saw him. The laugh disappeared as he lowered himself to the ground. His hands gripped the ring. I saw from my corner that his knuckles were white. I leaned forward but couldn’t hear what was said between them. All I knew was that there was crying and then jumping, and then they both were hugging and kissing and talking what seemed to be a mile per minute. Later on, they asked me to take a photo, but they both seemed to forget to look at the camera. Their eyes rested only on each other. The limit as x approaches infinity of f(g(x)), if f(x)=5ex and g(x)... fragments of equations spun through my mind. I was studying on the bus ride for the final test of the quarter. Just another student cramming for just another assessment. But every time I breathed, I felt like I was there again. In that cold, white room, with that prim, blond lady, and Buster spread out on the table like a child on a winter day making snow angels. When my fingers threaded through his fur, it was cold like ice. His back leg was still like a statue. He was gone. Just another student. I scrounged around in my backpack for a loose sheet of scrap paper, unearthing a crinkled page that had been stuffed at the bottom. What was the difference between an undefined limit and a ‘DNE’ limit again? It was hard to breathe as I copied down the problem. A thick syrup clogged my throat. Heat flamed at my cheeks, tears burning at my eyes. “Are you all right?” I blinked. The elderly woman across the aisle was holding out a handkerchief. I knew her. She always carried a recycled tote bag and read on her Kindle with magenta cat-eye glasses. “Yes,” I said, but I took the fabric and pressed it against my eyes. “I know that I’m just a stranger to you, but you remind me of my daughter,” the woman said. “I hope that whatever is bothering you can get fixed.” “You’re not a stranger.” The words flew out before I could clamp them down. But the woman smiled instead of frowning. And then we began to talk. She told me she wasn’t very good at math, but that her daughter was a calculus teacher in Chicago. And she became determined to text her, no matter how hard I refused. So, in that bus that I had ridden in silence for so long, I had the strangest math lesson I have ever had in my life. Through FaceTime, end behavior notation was detailed, scribbled on the back of a napkin. And then from the aisle to the left, the mother who always listened to music on an old iPod chimed in on a question about square roots. The construction worker who always sat at the back even offered a free tutorial in factoring polynomials. When red bricks became visible through the bus windows and I was stumbling down the aisle to the exit, nodding a thank-you to all those who had helped, the driver cocked his head my way. “If all else fails, pick ‘C’,” he said, with a wink. “It’s always ‘C’.” That was the bus ride I realized there was more to life than watching. That there was more to life than snow globes.