Straphangers The city rides on silence and friction. One crowded bus, two yearning women, and a young man too bold for boundaries. Between rumbling asphalt and swaying handrails, he stirs up more than tension. A cool girl with a paperback watches her chance slip away, while a buttonedup woman in glasses opens up in ways the public wasn’t ready for. A jester laughs, a clerk panics, and a phone records it all—until the brakes hiss, and someone runs toward something she never thought she wanted. All aboard