40
She might not have noticed if not for the wisp of white hair she thought she saw coming from the back window of the taxi. If it was him, he would have to catch up to her in Ciudad Victoria. And if it wasn’t him, so be it. She had waited a full half hour at the bus station before going up to the ticket counter.
The driver was pulling over onto the shoulder of the road for another passenger, and he took the opportunity to turn and smile at Socorro. He had been smiling at her since she boarded the bus alone, the only woman to do so. On the road, he would glance at her in the mirror from time to time, hoping to catch her looking back. Of all the things she needed right now. To have pulled herself away from one man who couldn’t see a future with her and now to be pursued by a man whose job it was to be somewhere else every day.
After lying in bed most of the night, she decided that even if he did wake up, there was little for them to say that wasn’t by now obvious. So maybe he had done her a great favor by not pretending to feel something that he wouldn’t be able to continue as time went on. But the bigger favor was helping her decide to collect her things and leave. Because this right now was the first time she could say that she had been on her own, without Rogelio or her mother or Celestino. And really, when the bus arrived in Ciudad Victoria, she didn’t have to buy a ticket for the next one headed to Matamoros. She could travel south to San Luis Potosí or farther to Querétaro or, if she wanted, go along the coast to Tampico. She could go anywhere she wanted, she didn’t have to be looking back to see if some man was coming for her, she didn’t have to.