The Last Bus, a very short story, feedback welcome

[Harper84]

Marta had missed the last bus so many times that the driver started waiting. Not long, thirty seconds, engine idling at the empty stop while she ran the length of Hartley Road with her coat flying open. Neither of them ever mentioned it

Then came the Tuesday she did not run. The driver waited his thirty seconds, then a minute, then two, watching the dark street in the mirror. When he finally pulled away he drove slower than the schedule allowed, checking every stop as if she might appear at the wrong one out of sheer stubbornness

She was at the depot the next morning with a box of supermarket doughnuts and a new job in another town. I did not know how to say goodbye to a bus, she said. He took a doughnut and said, you just did, and that was the whole ceremony, and somehow it was enough

[Compiled Wolf]

The last line lands really well. You just did is doing so much work in three words

[Fox]

Agreed, though I would cut sheer stubbornness, the sentence is stronger without explaining her character

[Hollow Tiger]

Disagree, stubbornness is the only direct characterisation she gets and it earns the doughnut scene

[ClusterCanopy]

Is thirty seconds realistic for a bus schedule? Tiny thing but it pulled me out slightly

[Bussin]

Drivers bend schedules for regulars all the time, source: my mum drove buses for twenty years

[Shane88]

I want to know why she stopped running that Tuesday. Is leaving it unexplained the point?

[Pipeline Courier]

For me yes, the story is about the driver's small panic, not her reasons

[Louise74]

Would read a whole collection of these bus stop pieces, is this part of something bigger?