Simone Breaks All the Rules

Plum lip stain with a hint of metallic gloss. Yup. It’s working nicely with my deep brown complexion and my metal-frame glasses. Only, under the bus shelter’s fluorescent lighting, the shade looks… extra. Way glossier than I’m comfortable with for 6:30 a.m. at a headlights streaked intersection. What if I see Gavin on the bus? He’ll think I’m trying way too hard. It doesn’t have to be that obvious that I want him to notice me. I dab my lips with a square I yanked from Mummy’s Marie-Antoinette-looking tissue box before I left the house.
“Typical Simone, dulling her shine,” shouts a familiar voice. I close out of the camera mirror and brace for the storm that is my cousin Gabby.
“I knew all this quiet wouldn’t last long,” I call out to Gabby, who is powering up the flat city street like it’s a hill. She heaves out a breath cloud when she reaches the bus shelter. The few commuters trailing behind her arrive with far fewer theatrics.
Despite the March chill in the air, Gabby’s black puffer coat is unzipped and sliding down one shoulder. Her navy blue uniform skirt is identical to the one I have on, except hers is extra crinkled. An early riser Gabby is not. It takes all the tools in her bag-including a bangin’ morning playlist and bacon-scented candles-to get the girl up and out the house.
“Hey,” she says, louder than necessary, because her earbuds are no doubt on full blast. I give her a wave.
Gabby nods across the street at the bus picking up passengers headed to Newark. “Just imagine! That’ll be your bus next year.”
I purse my lips and give my cousin a side glance. “Hmmph, no, it won’t,” I protest, not willing to concede that I’ll be commuting to the Rutgers Newark campus for my freshman year of college.
“So you’ve spoken to your parents about living on campus?” she asks, and then leans an ear toward me to catch my non-answer. My silence rings loud and clear.. Gabby gives a shoulder-bounce chuckle and plugs her earbud back in.
“For your information, I’m planning on talking to them … soon,” I mumble to myself. The first and only time I brought up my desire to live away from home for college, things didn’t go over so well. Thankfully, the paramedics had been called off in time, and blood pressures went back to baseline. For now, I’m letting things breathe for a while before I mention it again. It’s only been a few weeks-er, months. Okay, fine. It’s been a year, but who’s counting?