*Is that him?*

Your heart beat sped up.

*This boy resembles him alot... I can´t really see...* 

You tried to see better and got on your tiptoes. 

*He is too far away and there are so many people!

I can see the backside of his head, black, shiny, short hair. His hair was the same...

He is rather short and his figure looks quite skinny, just like his´was.*

You would say he was in his early teens, maybe 13 or 14 years old.

Who did the boy on the bus resemble in your eyes?

Suddenly the boy turned his head and you could see his face.

The second while he turned, seemed endless and for that second you really thought that you had found him again and your heart started jumping fiercely.

You could see his face now, but you were instantly disappointed.

He was Asian, for sure, but that wasn´t him. Might even be Korean, but sadly it was not the person you yearned for a glimpse of. 

Your heart beat dropped and you teared your gaze apart from him and shifted it to the bus´s windows, the best was to distract yourself from such thoughts. The passing scenery was nice, it comforted, gazing out into the city streets calmed you. Your eyes were focused far into the distance and they slowly focused to the near until you could clearly see what was reflected in the glass in front of your face.

You saw your reflection, your 20-year-old mature self. And then it hit you.

You mentally facepalmed yourself. You dropped your head slightly to the right so it rested against the cold window, closed your eyes and took a deep breath.

*Stupid me, stupid me. It´s 2012 and seven years have passed since.

Why do I still see the past? 

That boy over there is maybe 14, but he is already grown. He doesn´t look like that anymore. Impossible.*

A few bittersweet memories replayed in front of your eyes, how he looked, how he walked, his rare radiant smile. For a second your face contorted into a bitter expression. But it left as soon as it came. 

*I can´t let the memories get to me.

Today, He is presumably a grown 20-year-old man.

No way, he looks like how I remember him anymore...

And on top of that, what should he be doing here in America? You can never know, but in the same city? The same bus as me? 

You´re insane, Alicia!

Get yourself together!

You don´t know him and his life anymore. He is a stranger now, one of the persons who only stayed for a short time and already left your life. Most probable, you will never see him again in your entire life.

Who knows what he is doing by now? He even might have left this world already...*

At that last thought you shivered and your stomach turned, you didn´t like the thought of him not living anymore.

He didn´t deserve something like that, his pure warm soul did deserve a long, satisfying and happy life.

You remembered him like an angel, if he was one or not, but for you his soul was warmth, it was light and protection and in the dephts of your heart you still wished the stranger was happy and maybe even remembered you- you really wished.

And deep down your inside prayed for his safety, afterall he was involved in all the mess and even if you didn´t want to admit it, he was the connection between you and what happened.

But you had to get over that thing, you shouldn´t remember your past.

At an earlier time you would have started crying at the spot or at least it would have been hard for you to hold back tears. This was not the first time you mistook the present for the past. It has happened often enough, however it decreased with time. And you learned how to handle it and control your feelings. You got used to it.

And even if you believed in time healing wounds, for you it seemed time didn´t heal your wounds.

Or maybe seven years weren´t enough for it? Maybe you would have to be more patient.

For the rest of the busride you spaced out again, watching the passing city sceneries changing... rainy, nice neighbourhoods with small houses, crowded neighbourhoods with tall buildings, downtown streets, shopping streets, skyscrapers, people with umbrallas...

Pictures you knew by heart.

By the time you arrived at your bus stop, which was just a street across your campus, you had forgotten about the incident earlier. On rainy days you were often in such a good mood that not much could change that. 

For the few minutes while walking to the building, you hummed a sweet melody under your umbrella.

Your arts college was downtown but still it was surrounded by a big park and woods.

If you didn´t knew better, you would say it was at the edge of town.

The campus was big, not as big as a governmental public university with sub-campuses spread all over the city, but it had more than five buildings and a huge ground with plants and seating accommodations for students. However the main building was mostly built with glass and steel plates. It was revetted with wooden panels to give it a more natural look and to banish the heavy, massive feeling of advancement given by glass and steel. And to make the environment friendlier, there were trees and bushes all around the campus.      

There were no students lingering in front of the building, except for one guy running to the main entrance in completely drenched clothes.

(Main building/main entrance... ignore the people)

*Dumb guy, he should take an umbrella with him, but I should probably quicken my pace, what time is it ?*

You lifted your left arm to check your watch.

*Okaaaay, I should really speed up. I just have two minutes left...*

You got into your lecture room exactly as the professor was about to close the door.

"Good morning Ms. Green, please take a seat, I want to start soon." Your literature professor said and smiled.

You greeted back and looked for a seat. Normally you would look for Kate and Lilian and head to them, but since you were alomst late and didn´t want to delay the lecture any longer, you headed to the first empty seat in sight. Some of the other students greeted you or waved and you simply replied as you walked through the room.

The other students were okay, they were nice and all, you had no problem with working with them and the like, but you were friends with none of them.

You were just better with the light-brown haired Kate and the wavy blonde Lilian. The three of you would always help each other with assignments, pair up (or better three up) and work together on projects and you would hang around with them in breaks. You could maybe say you were friends, but then only limited - friends limited to this campus and libraries, only in relation to this arts college and your studies.

The three of you never had met to hang around just so or do something outside and not related to uni.

You could, but you three never did. As weird as it sounds, you would probably be good friends, but it just didn´t occur.

Sometimes there are people in your life, where you can feel certain, that you would greatly get along with them, but it just doesn´t happen. In these cases, circumstances or possibly even fate don´t allow it to happen.

Well, you knew these two belonged to your environment of uni. You were certain, you would not meet them again after graduation. And with what you have gone through, you wouldn´t even miss them as persons or friends. Maybe when you would miss your uni life and the atmosphere with it, since Kate and Lily were part of it, you would maybe miss them. But then again, only in the context related to uni.

Don´t think you are cruel or cold-hearted. No, you are not. But that is reality. Such is life and you knew that.

C´est la vie. Simple as that.

So then those two were waving to you from the other side of the room, disapproving of your choice of seat, they wanted you to come over. You didn´t notice until you were about to sit down and saw them hysterically waving and mouthing something inaudible. They were waving you over and pointing to an empty seat next to them.

They saved a place for you. You understood.

You quickly glanced over to the professor, who was still fiddling with papers, so you decided to sit with them (as in most of the lectures you had together). You went over to them with a bright smile and after settling your things you sat down.

You heard your professor say, "As Ms. Green has found a seat for herself, we shall start now. Let´s continue where we left off last lesson... I know, I know - most of you don´t like the current novel we are analysing, so I am sorry to say we are continuing it. Maybe you think it´s boring... but it´s compulsory... I can tell, if you work well, we might finish the analysis by today. How does that sound?" 

The students knew you would be continuing the analysis on the boring novel and the poor attempt of your professor couldn´t motivate you guys any more. The lesson today was pretty boring, although literature was your favourite subject and you were majoring in it. It was one of these tenacious and overlong lessons in which the clockhands would only move macrometers when you thought a lot of time had passed already. But you couldn´t be inobservant, you still had to concentrate to hold your grades.

Sure, you were one of the better students, but if you would space out, you would have to catch up on it sooner or later, alone or with Kate and Lily, either case would be bothersome, so why not use the time?

Kate and Lily were quite good students, too, in fact Kate had grades like you but Lily was even better. She held the top grades through always reaching more than 90% in exams. Kate and you often joked about Lily having a secret formula or magical powers to bewitch the professors. You two to share her magical powers with you.

But in reality you knew, she was better. She was better in analysing, expressing her thoughts and had better language skills.

Perfect for literature.

Somehow it was naturally part of her (e.g. she could easily see through novels and break up all its substance etc.) and it was really nice of her to give you advice and help you with everything. You were happy for her and very grateful, that you came to know her.

It could have been any other stupid student, but it wasn´t.

Now you were almost three years in your uni. 

Time passes so fast. It runs and you don´t notice that.

It somehow is very frightening and you can do nothing to slow it down or stop it.

You wonder what tomorrow will bring, what will be in a year? How will you be?

And a second passes and it is all history, a blink of an eye to see it passed already.

Time is a creepy thought. However you define it.

Just use it in a wise and productive way and don´t waste it.

You were doing a bachelor of arts in major subject literature, of course it was split in different compulsory parts like literature analysis, classes for writing, classes for English etc. and minor subjects you could choose yourself. You had taken "Comparison between other languages and their literature" for the first three semesters and now you had "European literature".

You really liked European literature, most of your favourite books were from there. Maybe you will list them some day.

And as an compulsory extra course (to broaden the students minds and for a change of subject) you had dance classes for the whole six semesters - because your stupid time table didn´t allow anything else besides fine arts and you weren´t the greatest painter. Because you had never danced or took any interest in it when you started uni, you were desperately searching for any other alternatives. But failed. So you had to accept.

As your class was finally coming to an end, you were thinking.

*It´s March now, four months and I´ll have my bachelor.

It feels like yesterday I just graduated from high school.

I was eighteen and I knew exactly what I wanted to do, become an author. And getting accepted into this Arts College was not easy for most of the students.

It was easy for me though, I´m really thankful that THEY were with me and helped me get an admission easily. But as helpful as they are, it still isn´t easy that I can´t take a single step nor move my little finger without their consent.

Simple, planned and settled life.

It´s unfair. Trapped in this peace and safety.* 

Sometimes you wished for something exciting to happen, to take risks, go through an adventure. But these thoughts were dangerous, life was not a game and thoughtlessly starting something on a whim was not in it, not for you. 

*I have nothing against peace and safety, but something against that ´trapped´.

But I´m not in the position to complain, how dare I? My life´s a lot easier than it could have been and maybe a whole lot better than the most people´s life in this earth. And that´s all thanks to them.

Peace, safety, health and education. All you need...

And I know that my peace will be gone in a not too distant time, well not that kind of peace...

Alicia, be prepared to have a tough and nasty schedule at the end of your bachelor studies!

Soon I will have to study hard for my final bachelor exams. Read mountains of novels and books, exams over exams and no free time...

I can already see myself sitting in the bus not observing people but struggling to finish reading text passages for my lectures.

That´s the life of a student...

I don´t wanna think about it...*

______________________

While you were in uni thinking this and that and attending your next class, someone was probably thinking about you. In the same city, the same district as your home, just a fifteen minutes away from it.

In a house with five stories, she owned the second and third. On the doorbell outside the house was:

[5] Wyatt

[4] Smith

[3] Seiji

[2] Psych. Doctor´s Office - Dr. Michiko Seiji 

[1] Med. Dental Surgery - Dr. Jane Miller

The flats had the same size in all floors, but the rooms were ordered differently.

So in the second floor in the office of the doctor you could see two females. An Asian looking women in her mid-twenties was sitting behind a desk - the doctor - and the other one, a young teenager, was sitting in a comfy chair in front of the desk.

The whole room itself was in a comfortable and cozy atmosphere. Anyone, who would step in, would immediately feel good in it. The cupboards were made out of mahagoni woods, everything was matched in either a warm reddish-brown or a calming light green. There were some plants and it was intended to be comfortable so that the patients wouldn´t be stressed by bright colours or an unpleasant atmosphere. Afterall it was a psychological doctor´s office, patients should be calm and in comfort and not intimidated. Since every psychological patient has his/her own problems, therefore you should be expecting the worst, e.g. patients with a bad experience with the colour green. It would have been best to keep it white and simple, but white doctor´s offices are the most intimidating to patients, so Dr. Seiji wanted it like this.

"I really don´t know what to do anymore... but it´s so nice of you to let me talk to you and open my heart to you... and that for free... how can I repay you? With money, you know, not possible, but is there any other way? I keep using up your time, when you could have paying patients or do something better in the same time..." With a heavy sigh Sarah looked at me with sincere, but hopeless eyes.

"Dear, don´t worry. I like to help you. You need my help and as a teenager you have no money, I don´t want anything from you. I will be content and happy if you get through all this without any bigger harm. Please just try to stay out of their fights, they have to decide for themselves.

You should give them some time, don´t get hurt, okay? And please tell me right away, if they start hurting each other physically. I will have to do something then... but if nothing drastic happens, wait 2-3 weeks, like I said before, when nothing changes, I will try something else." I replied with a worried but tender expression.

She just nodded. She looked so lost. *Poor girl.*

She was just fifteen, facing angry and fighting parents day after day since months and they even tried to hurt each other before. Her 17-year-old brother even started doing drugs.*How difficult must it be for her to stay in that home?*

"Do you want to stay for a bit?" I asked.

"No, thanks. I should go back to school, this is the only time I can come here without them knowing and I shouldn´t waste my precious school time, my results already suffer enough from this all..."

"Oh yeah, I´ll give you an excuse note, your teachers shouldn´t think bad of you and remember to come to me again in a few weeks, okay? I´ll think of something that will probably help them, if they don´t stop it by themselves- and keep me informed, just give me a call, okay? I´m here for you, Sarah." I told her, looking into her eyes warmly.

I stood up and gave her a loving motherly hug. 

"You know, you really are like a good friend- and if I may say that... I would rather have you as a my mother." She said shyly.

I smiled at her, laughed slightly and said "Thanks, I feel flattered but your mum is definetely a better mum for you than me, if not, then you two wouldn´t be paired up. It´s naturally better how it is. I know she loves you very very much, just like any other mother does. But there are some who can express their feelings and others who can not, she is probably one of those, who can´t... it will be okay in the end. Don´t worry."

She left with a slightly better mood, but her gestures still indicated a heavy problem above her head.

I sipped a bit of my coffee. *This leads to a divorce, I can see that. This situation remembers me of Alicia´s situation a few years ago, when her parents went through a hard time... it´s so sad, so many divorces happen these days, perhaps they will not last for long anymore. I think she will be okay, she`ll go through it.*

Thinking, I went to my window, I saw her walking down the street with insecure steps.

*It´s raining heavily. I wonder how Alicia is doing...*  

Yep, this contains a lot of unnecessary blablabla important information to build up the story and "your" environment.

Thank you for being patient.

I LOVE YOU.

// Who is HE? Who are THEY? Who is the doctor? Hehehehe...