by Avery Pugnetti, 16
I wonder what the other people at the bus stop think of me as I watch them through my grown out bangs. I look down at my green baggy cargo pants, pockets stuffed with lint and old, empty gum wrappers, down at my dad’s crusty old band shirt that bunches at my waist and swallows my skinny frame. Both are still wrinkled from being crammed into my bag but I don’t mind, the only people who ever cared what I looked like were my own, alcohol-stinking, dirty parents, who couldn’t even take care of themselves, let alone a kid like me. So here I am, waiting on the side of the road at a random bus stop one state over from where I lived, waiting for the bus that’s already 15 minutes late, to take me to my Aunt in California. I can imagine it now: me, on the bus, passing a huge, newly painted sign welcoming me to “The Golden State.”
I had planned to take only one bus to California, the ones that go all the way there with as few stops as possible and, hopefully, as few people on it as possible. But, when I had gone to the ticket counter the lady at the front told me I didn’t have enough.
“I have 180 dollars!” I remember saying to her, checking the crumpled bills in my hand to make sure.
“I know and I’m very sorry, but the total cost to travel with us is $200 per person.”
“Please” I begged, “I’m a child, can’t you discount my ticket considering I take up much less space than an adult?”
The woman, probably in her early 60’s, looked me up and down doubtfully, doing what old ladies do with their glasses when they are trying to make it look like they are judging you. Well her judging worked, because I ended up snatching the money off the ticket counter and marching my way over to the next counter, the one that sold tickets cheap but to the most random places I’ve ever heard of.
That’s how I’ve somehow landed in a town, splat in the middle of Arizona, unironically, called “Nothing.” You wouldn’t believe the look on my face when the bus driver decided to pull over here of all places. Especially, when the bus I was supposed to be on, the one that took you directly to where you wanted to go, the one with luxury seating and air conditioning strong enough to blow the hair out of your face like those models in the hair commercials I see on the TV, drives by.
I gawk at the people inside, staring into their souls and being jealous of every single one of them. I see a couple of kids that look my age in there along with a family with the reddest hair I’ve ever seen in my life, a group of women laughing to each other in the back and, a very large, smelly looking man. So when the light, maybe the only traffic light in this whole god forsaken town, turns green I watch as the bus pulls away. Taking the kids, and the family and the women and that fat, smelly man, sitting in, dirtying, the seat I was supposed to sit in, away from the place I was supposed to be going.
And as I watch the rickety old bus I had just unboarded from heave its tired body down the road, I turn towards the sun, calculating how much time I have before it goes down, before marching step-by-step in the opposite direction: towards California, towards my Aunt Clara.
I take my time walking, making sure to take breaks in the shade of cacti or the occasional big boulder, and limit myself to only two sips of water per hour. Or, at least what I estimate to be every hour, my phone died a few miles back but I’m waiting to really need it before wasting the charge of the portable charger I brought. The map I’ve been carrying in my sweaty hands has gotten damp and folds in weird, unnatural ways compared to the pristine condition it was in when I purchased it.
As the sun starts going down, my odds of finding a place to stay dwindle down, and I can tell tonight’s going to be a camp out under the stars in the Arizona desert. I spin on my heels and start walking towards a cluster of rocks I see about a quarter of a mile to my right, thinking back to all the things I brought with me. There was the crappy, hole filled blanket (the only one I had space in my bag for), a sleeping bag from when I was a little kid (far too small for me), a flashlight, a pack of batteries, a lighter, two changes of clothes (one that’s been used and already dirtied), tooth brush and toothpaste, deodorant (I may not look nice but I sure as hell will smell nice), a pocket knife, my phone (still dead), a portable charger, jerky, a bag of Fritos chips, a can of baked beans, a bag containing 6 pre-made sandwiches I had stuffed back into a plastic roll bag, three water bottles (one already dangerously close to being empty), a deck of cards, a bag of baby carrots, a map, and 200 dollars (which has now depleted to $140).
After setting up camp, aka un-rolling my sleeping bag and dumping the context of my bag out on the ground next to it so I can rummage through my things like a pack-rat digging at the ground for seeds. I pick through my things, organizing them and, after remembering to plug my phone into the charger, carefully take out one of the sandwiches. My stomach growls loudly, ravenous for food after only getting a little helping of cereal for breakfast this morning before I left the house. I think back to that morning, how I hadn’t had to sneak out at all. I got dressed and packed up early yesterday, not really caring about how loud I was because, like always, my parents were either out getting high or drunk together or passed out on the couch or in their bed, oblivious to the world. It was odd then, when I realized that I sort of missed them. Over the past few years I had gotten used to their carelessness, to their absence, but, even when they were gone most of the week, I could always count on them to come home, even if that meant returning only to clean up before going out again. So now, all alone in a quiet wide, flat, empty desert I reminisced about my parents. Not the ones I got to experience when I was little, the ones I used to miss before I realized they were gone. No, now I miss the broken ones. The ones who, even after everything they had done to me, or rather what they hadn’t done for me, I loved.
I finish the sandwich in what seems like record breaking time, and despite telling myself not to, I unwrap a second one and start eating that one as well. Halfway through the second sandwich, I decide to take a break and build a little fire before the sun disappears completely behind the mountains. I get up from my little make-shift nest and start gathering as many things that I think will burn. I pull dry grass from the dry soil, and, after searching in the dark for a little bit, I find a few dry twigs from bushes that I can use too. When I return to my spot, I lay the sticks and grass in a pile and use the old lighter I stole from the kitchen table to get a good flame going. The fire ignites immediately, eating the dry kindling and sending embers floating into the air. I sit back down on my sleeping bag and scoop my remaining few possessions back into my backpack. I turn suddenly, looking around for half of my sandwich, mouth watering at the thought of it. I twist and look around my surroundings but, even when I get up and shake my sleeping bag out, I can’t find it anywhere.
Suddenly a small russell in the bushes nearby made my heart stutter. I grab my bag, just in case I need to make a run for it, and take out the flashlight I packed, shining into the brush.
“Hello?” I ask weakly. And, even though the number one rule of any horror movie is to not wait around for the murderer to get you (especially if you’re alone), I step closer and ask again, “Any one there?”
Wow, I probably look so stupid if there’s no one here and I’m just talking to myself, I think wryly. Except, something was there. I say “was” because the second I shine my light on the far left side of the thicket, a small creature jumps out at me. I scream loudly, into the night, wishing for a moment that I had never gotten the idea to leave. But, that moment quickly passes as I’m knocked to the ground by a small—much smaller than what I first imagined—furry animal. The animal, which, after attacking me with licks finally backs off, turns out to be a scruffy little dog. Its hair is matted, sticking up in crazy directions that make it look like some sort of crazy tumbleweed.
The dog prances around me, eyeing my bag with a certain look that tells me exactly where the other half of my sandwich went. I sigh and return to my spot on my sleeping bag, trying to shoo the little dog off as it inches closer to me.
“Nuh uh, I don’t have any more food for you,” I say. The dog, who is small enough to be a puppy, and blends in almost perfectly with the dessert sand, doesn’t move.
“Alright, you do you little guy,” I sigh, deciding that it can at least be an extra guard if anything tries to sneak up on me. “Just don’t expect any more food,” I add, and promptly stick my overflowing bag into the bottom of my sleeping bag. After kicking it further down with my feet, I nestle into the sleeping bag and, with the fire still blazing, gaze up into the stars.
As the night goes on it gets colder and colder. At first, unpacking my bag and pulling on the extra layers of clothes I brought helped to shield me from the cold. However as the temperature drops the wind becomes more aggressive, so much so that the fire has been snuffed out, taking my only source of heat with it. It picks up sand, tossing it through the air like tiny bullets raining down on me, And all I can do is zip the sleeping bag up as far as it will go, tuck my head in where the wind won’t reach and hope for the sun to come soon.
Apparently the shooting stars were not on my side tonight because the next morning could not have come any slower. Barren, the name I gave to the dog, couldn’t keep up with the cold ether and ended up scratching at the edge of my sleeping bag until I, reluctantly, let him in. While some might say that allowing a stray dog from the desert to cuddle with you is unsanitary, my biggest concern was getting through the night without freezing to death, not whether or not I’d get a tick. And good thing I let him in when I did because our shared body heat really did make a difference, and soon I was able to sleep soundly.
…
It’s hot now. Somehow the chill of the night has disappeared entirely and now Barren—who, even after an hour of walking, is still following me—and I are dragging ourselves through the sticky, thick heat of the desert. I mean what did I expect? I think unamusedly to myself. For the next few hours the heat is so blistering and scorching hot that I can’t help but feel like mother nature is against me.
At around noon I realize it’s too hot to walk and plop down under a cluster of rocks I find to eat and drink. Even though I said before I wouldn’t give him food, I couldn’t properly enjoy my sandwich with little puppy dog eyes following me, so I gave him one to eat as well. As we’re sitting on the curb, or, more realistically, me panicking over what to do next and Barren sitting happily on the curb, a car stops in front of us. The car isn’t anything special. It’s pretty beat up with dents and scratches covering the bright orange DIYed paint job, but the thing that gets me most about this car is its contents: the entire second row is filled to the top with junk and other various household items. I wonder if the owner lives in their car, and what it would be like to always be on the move. I walk over to the passenger side door squinting through the window, one hand hovering over my eyes to block the sun, as I try to see who the driver is. To my shock, it’s a frail, (much too frail to be driving) old woman.
“Hey hon,” she says in a voice that belongs to someone who smokes wayyy too much. As she rolls the windows all the way, the cool air pumping from the AC feels heavenly on my skin and I’m practically leaning into her car before she even asks if I need a ride.
The drive into the city is much shorter than I expected it to be, and I get a small scene of pride in myself for the distance I was able to cover on my own. After dropping myself in Barren outside my aunt’s apartment, or what I hope is my aunt’s, the old woman speeds away. While one part of me is grateful for her help, the other can’t help but wonder how safe her driving skills are when it comes to city laws.
I excitedly climb the apartment’s many staircases, Barren following happily at my heels, until I finally reach floor four. Without giving myself any time to think of what I’m going to say I walk up to the door and knock. At first, there’s no response but as I smack my knuckles against the hard wood once more, I hear the familiar voice of my aunt from inside the room. I wait patiently as the door swings open, revealing my Aunt Clara in all her glory. Even though she’s technically my dad’s sister, you would never be able to tell based on just looking at them. The soft, roundness of her face contrasts all of the harsh details of my dad’s and makes her one of the friendliest looking people I’ve ever met.
After explaining to her how exactly I’m standing in her house, and the brief summary of what I have been through the past few days, she excuses herself from the room to call my parents. I have to admit that when she leaves the room that first time, my mind begins to panic. I had been through so much and had conquered what felt like the impossible that I hadn’t considered the fact that she might not want me to stay with her. Yet, when she comes back, a smile covering face, some of the tension within me seeps away.
“What did they say when you talked to them on the phone? Are they gonna force me to go back to New Mexico?” I questioned her nervously.
“Your mom was asleep I think but your dad said that he ‘doesn’t care as long as she’s not out on the streets,’” she says, doing an accent that sounds nothing like him, but I laugh anyway.
“Well at least mom’s getting her beauty rest, right?” I joke, trying to not let that fact that my mother didn’t care, or didn’t notice, get to me. But Aunt Clara doesn’t laugh and instead her face softens and I can see the hint of worry cross her expression. Before I can assure her I’m fine, her eyes shift past me toward her living room and she smiles, her eyes brightening when she gets an idea.
“Come on” she nods with her head, “lets have a movie night, have our own fun late night.” I beam back at her and, after getting popcorn, she plops down next to me on the couch and we nestle together like our own little flock of penguins. Barren, who at this point has just become an extension of me, rests his little head contently on my thigh.
Red Bank, New Jersey
This piece won THIRD PLACE in our 2026 Voice & Verse Writing Contest, prose ages 15-18 category.
Judge’s Note: The author’s storytelling is vivid and immersive, with an authentic narrative voice that carries the reader through the journey. The connections formed with Barren and Aunt Clara add emotional warmth and make the ending especially impactful.
Bridge Ink 