21

“I said open your fucking eyes, Conor! Now!”

This was not his Ella. Sounded nothing like her. Scarcely sounded human. She pulled his head back towards her. He felt her then, one hand pulling his hair, he only felt the cold blade across the top of his eyelid after the first warm trickle of blood rolled towards the corner of his eye - she was digging in.

“Open them, Conor, stop fucking with me.”

He felt the blade begin moving across. The blood pooling and steadily streaming down his cheek. He sent up some tears to meet it. River into the sea once more.

“Alright, Jesus, fuck!” He screamed.

He felt her gently flick up, but could feel it hovering just millimetres away. She lowered his head, gently waving his hair up and away from his face like she was styling it. Sisters. Old habits. Conor slowly opened his eyes. The floor of the bus was covered in ashes, blowing lazily about them from the gentle breeze rolling through the bus doors.

“Sorry we’re late,” she said.

The man said nothing. Conor knew he wouldn’t as soon as he saw him. It was the same man, no difference between depths. It was still his man without eyelids. The man who’d held his hand the first time he took the bus, the man who paid his fare every time he travelled. A man whom, strangely, he realised now, he had always trusted. He realised then that his trust had emerged simply because he’d been there for him, paying his fares. He had never even considered who he was. Too late now. It seemed then as though barely any time had passed since Conor had found Ella in the bloody diamond and realised he did not know the girl: same lesson, different teacher.