There was a girl, but then again, there's always a girl in this kind of story. True love is what makes the world turn after all, even in the worst of times. I'm a big believer in true love. My friends say that I fall in love every single day and that I like the idea of being in love more than the actual thing itself, but what do they know? If I make a connection with someone, who am I to deny that emotion?

Sorry. I'm making this complicated. Let me start again.

There was a girl on the bus, and she had been glancing at me for most of the trip. We had first made eye contact at the bus terminal, and I smiled and tilted my head in a silent greeting. She smiled back, setting my pulse racing as I considered the options for striking up a conversation.

The problem was--

I cleared my throat, feeling the irritation from the coffee I had inhaled instead of swallowing earlier, but it was so hard not to cough. Not for the first time since the coffee had sprayed out of my nostrils and mouth earlier, I found myself wishing I had not used all the lozenges in my bag earlier in the day. They would have at least offered some relief from what now felt like congested sinuses. Except instead of snot, it was coffee up there, swelling everything to the point of irritation.. Thirty minutes later, my throat still hadn't recovered and dammit, there was that tickle again--

I buried my mouth into my arm as the coughs erupted. It was a series of sharp, dry barking sounds that seemed to pull all of the air out of me, leaving me lightheaded and gasping for air in the middle of the bus.

You would have thought I had set off a bomb or something. I giggled nervously at how fast the other passengers had pulled away from me, practically climbing over themselves to get away from my cloud of possible infection.

My eye fell automatically on the girl, but her look of interest had faded and had been replaced instead with one of pity, disgust and a look that I knew so well: fear.

"Get your corona infected ass out of here!" a Chinese grandmother spat at me. She wore a facemask made from a fabric that was ironically strewn with daisies, her eyes glaring over the line of the mask.

She wasn't the only one. The tall fair-skinned Rastafarian who had been keeping a respectful four-feet away, glared at me from where he had fled to almost at the back of the bus. He had pulled up his cheap blue surgical mask that he wore under his chin and was no doubt plotting my murder by eviseration or a good old-fashioned slamming my head into the metal floor until I stopped breathing.

The other six passengers were spread out through the bus, some of us standing with as much distance between us as possible while still riding public transit. The Physical Distancing rules had made it hard on everyone, especially on a bus where commuters were now limited to ten riders at a time and then spaced out. It was a system that not everyone was comfortable with but still accepted. The greatest sin these days was to sneeze or cough on the bus.

So, yeah, that's me, the object of everyone's hate and murder fantasies, feeling my stomach drop in full realization of what was about to happen..

In my defence, my hands weren't even snotty, but there are times when you argue your case, and then there are times when you get off the damn bus. The driver pulled the bus over immediately, even though it wasn't an official stop. It was time for me to get off.

"Move it," the Chinese grandmother hissed at me as I made my way forward trying not to touch anything, and nearly falling as a result. The front door hissed open. .

The driver shrugged and raised his eyebrow by way of half-hearted apology. Sorry-not-sorry, it's your problem now buddy.

I stumbled off the bus, feeling the tickle in my throat again while I glumly accepted my fate and watched the bus trundle away.

"Did that driver actually just kick you off the bus?"

I turned to see a young woman on a bicycle watching me. It took me a second to recognize her as one of my neighbours. I didn't know her name, but I knew the face since we were passing acquaintances. We knew each other well enough to have nodded in the elevator or the laundry room on occasion. I had even held the lobby door open for her to manhandle her bike through a couple of times, so we were practically old friends who didn't know each other's names.

I cleared my throat a little self-consciously and shrugged in defeat, trying not to focus on how pretty she was. I had noticed before, of course, but the opportunity to start a conversation without seeming like a complete creep never arrived.

Damn she was pretty.

Did I say that?

"I committed a mortal sin," I confided. "I coughed."

Bike girl did a double-take, from me to the distant bus and back again.

"That must have been one hell of a cough."

"Well you know: coronavirus and all that mess. Can't be too careful, right? If I hadn't been the one getting kicked off, I'd be all for it."

"That's very generous of you."

"Damn skippy. Next time I see them, I'm going to glare at them so hard."

"You don't have it, do you?" Bike-Girl asked cautiously. "The virus."

"I choked on my coffee earlier," I sighed. "Now I can't seem to stop clearing my damn throat."

Bike girl nodded thoughtfully, then said: "If you did have the virus, then they're kinda stuck in there with it, all the way home."

"I almost feel sorry for them," I said wistfully. "But then again, they did kick me off the bus, so..."

"Well, it's only six blocks to our building. That's where you're heading, right? I'll walk with you if you promise not to cough on me."

"Cool," I said, extending my hand, then quickly dipping it back in my pocket. . "Oh sorry," I reminded myself. "Social distancing."

"You got it," Bike girl said. "Let's do the Trevor Noah thing." She placed her right hand over her heart and bowed. "I'm Emily."

I mimicked her and bowed as well. "I'm Joe."

Emily grinned and wheeled her bike down the sidewalk. Damn, she was cute. I caught myself after a moment of hesitation when I watched her from behind, then ran to catch up.

"Well, it only took the end of the world for us to actually introduce ourselves" I said.

"And here I was thinking it was because you got thrown off a bus," Emily said with a smile.

"Today was my last day at work," I admitted. "They're making us work from home now."

"Lucky you get to do that," Emily said. "They just shut down my theatre for the next three months. No more shows. All of a sudden I'm out of a job."

"So you're an actress?"

"Actor," she corrected me. "Actress is sexist and limiting, but I'll forgive you this time."

We stopped at the traffic light and stood in companionable silence, simply watching the traffic go by. I glanced at her and she smiled at me. There was a moment where we smiled at each other, and then she looked away, her face flushed red.

"You really think it's the end of the world?" Emily asked after a moment.

"I think it's the end of a world at least," I said. "Nothing is going to be the same after this you know. We can all feel that something big is coming, and it's freaking a lot of people out. Hell, to be honest with you, it's freaking me the fuck out. All the small things that we take for granted, even something as basic as shaking hands, those were ways to connect with people, you know? Now, even that's been taken from us, but for a lot of people, it was the only physical human contact they'd have for days on end. Even something as simple as dating is going to change. You meet someone cute that you're really into, but now there's that layer of paranoia, and the knowledge that you're going into isolation and you really don't know that that means, you know? And for the people who aren't single... I wonder how many divorces we're going to be looking at after this is over. If that's not world-ending, I don't know what is."

"And here I was about to make a lame joke about REM and that song," Emily admitted.

"Sorry," I said, "I like that song. I usually save this kind of introspection for when I know a person better. You can feel free to freak out now."

"It's cool. Really. At least you can be honest about it. That's refreshing, people actually saying what they're thinking."

"Well, I might never see you again after this, so it doesn't really count."

Emily paused, watching the light, and I could see the question forming. I could feel the possibility in our mutual attraction, the invitation that might change everything.

"I might see you in three months..."

Three months? Where the hell had that come from?

I blinked rapidly and realized that the light had changed. I tried on my most charming grin but could feel the adrenaline that had surged through my veins turning to something sour, something that would sit in the pit of my stomach and give me indigestion.

"What do you mean three months?"

Emily smiled, and it was infectious, quieting the ball of anxiety in my stomach. Instead of anxious, I felt the flutter of butterflies and that familiar light-headedness. I felt so in love.

"My parents have a cabin up north. They're picking me up tomorrow so we can go and self-isolate somewhere with trees. Closest neighbour is like maybe a mile away."

"Oh," I said, and the disappointment was real and palpable. Fuck! "I guess that means you get to miss my apocalypse cinnamon rolls if you're going to be gone for three whole months?"

Emily's jaw dropped in amazement. "Oh my god, you bake?"

"Only a little, but I plan to do lots of baking. Perfect time to learn right?"

"You're just giving me more reasons to like you, Joe."

I looked at her slyly. "Aha, so you admit it; you do like me."

"I've kind of had a little teeny-tiny crush on you for the past year," Emily admitted, face red. "The fact that you can bake just made it so much better."

"Yeah, I've kind of been crushing on you too," I confessed. "It just never seemed to be the right moment, you know?"

"Why couldn't we have done this a week ago?" Emily groaned. "Now I'm leaving tomorrow."

"It wasn't the end of the world last week," I pointed out.

We approached the apartment building slowly, and I glanced at her, feeling that flutter of emotion every time I looked at her face. It was a nice feeling, comfortable, and I was sure I had never met a girl like Emily before.

We exchanged numbers and email addresses, trying to fill that void before we were forced to say goodbye. I hardly remember what we even spoke about, but it had that cloud hanging over it of inevitability interrupted. She lived on the 14th floor, and I lived on the 9th, so of course I got off the elevator first, trying to not make it too awkward.

"I'm really glad we finally meet, Joe," Emily said as I backed out of the elevator.

"This isn't really goodbye—" I pointed out.

Emily didn't let me finish. She stepped forward and kissed me hard on the lips, the smell of her perfume and sweat powerfully intoxicating, filling my entire world, her mouth soft and sweet. So perfect.

An eternity later, I found myself standing at my apartment door, keys in hand, reliving the memory of that kiss over and over. Such a perfect moment with a perfect woman--

Something thumped against the inside of the door, and I stepped back as someone struggled to open the lock.

The door was yanked open and the blood-covered naked woman standing inside yelped when she saw me standing there, waiting for her.

"Goddammit Sophie!"

Sophie didn't stand a chance against me. She had been beaten bloody and left tied up with no food beside the bed all day and it was a miracle she was able to stand after the hell I had put her through. Her formerly pretty face was swollen, almost all bruises at this point, but that's what you get from a broken jaw and what looked to be a shattered eye socket. She had put up a hell of a fight, but in the end hadn't been a match for me.

I punched her hard in the face and pushed her back inside the apartment, that familiar rage sweeping over me, filling my entire being, as I knocked her to the floor and then grabbed her by her dirty blonde hair as I slammed the front door shut.

How dare she interrupt my perfect moment?

How.

Dare.

She!

When I had finished slamming her face into the ground, there was a puddle of blood slowly spreading out over the floor in my apartment. Blood had spattered my arms and most of my chest, and I was definitely going to have to throw this shirt out in the morning. There was likely to be blood everywhere and a shower would be the only way to get it all, but that was a small price. I looked down at the bloody mess on the floor, the woman who had once called herself Sophie, my one true love, was now dead.

Just like all the others.

I looked at the seven different bodies in different states of decomposition along the wall, the smell ripe and earthy and real. Each woman from a different day, each death as bloody as the last. Each name was inconsequential and lost to memory. All of them had been my one true love. They had all believed in following their hearts, especially in the middle of this fucking pandemic, and they had just wanted someone to love them. I had done that, giving them all of my love and then all of my pain, every single bit of it... and it had been too much for them. So they had to fucking die.

Just like Emily was going to have to die.

I hoped I would get to kiss her again before I beat her fucking brains out and slit her throat. I was looking forward to that--

I sneezed then, one, two, three times.

I coughed, a dry hacking cough, and felt my forehead, feeling the heat of a sudden fever. I really liked Emily. She could be the "one," but I would have to wait until she got back from her trees.

Three months.

First, I would have to beat the shit out of this goddamn coronavirus.

<<<< THE END >>>>

Huge thanks to @BrittanieCharmintine for her help and guidance. It's good to meet new friends here on Wattpad.

If you liked what you read here, check out my new novel HOW NOT TO VAMPIRE, linked in my profile.