Things My Teenage Son Tells Me About What Happened That Day, on the Top Deck of the Number 22

by Mairead Robinson

Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash

He’s foetal beneath his bedsheets. They were mucking about, he says. They snatched her satchel. Her coloured pens were a spilled rainbow rattling in the aisle.

He tells me Scott put his hand on her thigh. That she stood, swaying on the moving bus. That it was Ritchie pushed himself against her as she reached, stumbling, for the bell.

He tells me it was at that bend in the road where the lamp-posts stop, where the hedgerows grow, where the traffic speeds up.

He tells me the shock of the headline: Fatal Hit and Run, her school photo beneath, quotes from her parents, perplexed at why she was walking home. His voice pillow-damped, he tells me she always sat in the same seat. That she smiled at him once. That he told them to leave her alone.

And because he’s my son, I have to believe he’s telling the truth.

Mairead Robinson lives and writes in the South West, UK. Recently placed first in Bath FFA, SL Bridport, and published here and there. She tweets @Judasspoon and skeets @maireadwrites.bsky.social

This story won first prize in the March 24 Monthly Micro competition. It also won the People’s Prize.