English G

The 4:15 bus was already three minutes late, and Mia knew that if it did not come soon she would miss her sister's first goal of the season. Priya had asked her to be there. Priya never asked for anything, which was exactly why it mattered. Mia stood at the shelter and watched the road. A woman beside her sighed and checked her phone. An old man fed the last of a paper bag of chips to a pigeon that had clearly done this before. The rain had stopped, but the sky still hung low and grey, the colour of a screen that had frozen mid-load. When the bus finally rounded the corner, Mia's relief lasted about four seconds. The driver pulled in, opened the doors, and announced that a burst water main ahead meant the route was closing early. Everyone would have to get off at the depot, two stops short of the sports ground. There were groans. The woman with the phone said something under her breath that Mia's mother would not have allowed at home. Mia did the maths in her head. Two stops. Fifteen minutes on foot, maybe twelve if she cut through the park, and the match started in ten. She would be late. Priya would look up at the stands during the warm-up, the way she always did, and find the seat empty. She could hear her own excuses forming, smooth and reasonable: the bus, the water main, nobody's fault. They were even true. But true was not the same as good enough, and Mia had spent a lot of this year hiding behind reasons that were true. At the depot she did not wait for the crowd to shuffle off. She was first down the steps, and then she was running, her bag thumping against her back, her breath loud in her own ears. She cut through the park where the grass was still wet and soaked her socks to the ankle. She did not slow down. A man walking a dog stepped aside and said something she did not catch. The sports ground came into view, floodlights already burning against the grey. She reached the fence as the whistle blew for kick-off. She was sweating, her side ached, and she had missed the warm-up entirely, so Priya had already looked up and found the seat empty. But Mia was here now, pressed against the cold metal fence, close enough to see her sister's number on the back of the blue shirt. When Priya glanced toward the stands again, confused, Mia shouted her name until her throat hurt, and waved both arms over her head, and did not stop until Priya turned, and saw, and lifted one gloved hand in reply.