It was a rainy Tuesday when Henry missed his usual train and had to take the bus instead. The city felt heavier under the drizzle, and the bus smelled faintly of wet coats and old newspapers. He slumped into a seat near the back, headphones ready to shut out the world.
Then he noticed her. A girl in a bright yellow raincoat, sketching furiously in a notebook balanced on her knees. Every few moments, she glanced up, then returned to her drawing with a smile that seemed immune to the gray weather.
The bus jolted, and her pencil slipped, rolling down the aisle. Henry picked it up and handed it back. She laughed. “Thanks. I was losing the whole city without it.”
“Losing the whole city without a pencil?”
She turned the notebook toward him. Inside were scenes of the very streets they were passing—shop windows glowing in the rain, umbrellas like blooming flowers, tired faces softened into something beautiful by her pencil strokes.
As the ride continued, they talked. She told him she was an artist chasing inspiration. He admitted he’d been stuck in a job that drained him, forgetting the things that once lit him up. By the time the bus reached his stop, he felt something shift inside him, as though her drawings had sketched a doorway back into his own forgotten passions.
He almost didn’t get off, but she smiled and said, “Sometimes the right bus takes you places you never expected.”
He stepped onto the wet pavement, heart racing, knowing his life had just changed—even if he never saw her again.
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