Comfort of Strangers

1. Grocery List

"Here, hold this." Says Olivia, handing me her bag as we board the plane. "You think this might be a bit too much?" I ask her, sizing up the bag in my hand. "Yeah it'll be fine, I've brought bags bigger than that to the carry on."

Today is the day that my friend and I leave our shitty small town and travel nine hours all the way to London for a gap year before college or at least, before we get our shit figured out. We've had this planned since our sophomore year of high school and finally saved up enough at the end of our senior year. Part of me felt that I'd never actually graduate, so being here now with my best friend feels slightly unreal.

The plane we boarded was relatively large with three seats per individual row. Olivia and I were lucky enough to get a seat next to each other without having to be by anyone else, her switching seats with me so that I could have the window seat and she could have more space.

"I don't know about you, but I took like five Dramamine before we got to the airport and I plan on sleeping the entire trip" Says Olivia, adjusting her neck pillow. I just laugh, and before I know it, I'm out too.

Throughout the entire flight, I only woke up twice. Both times, Olivia was still sleeping, and I had only woken up because of minor turbulence. The second time I woke up, there was only thirty more minutes left so I chose to stay up until Olivia was up. I ended up having to wake her up myself, which she wasn't too grateful for, and we grabbed our luggage and left the airport.

—

It's 1:00 in London and traffic is already started up as we're searching for a bus to take. When we find our bus, we scan our tickets and sit in the nearest seat. "I hope our apartment looks at least a little bit like it did on the website. If we walk in to see a homeless British dude eating crumpets off the floor or some shit we're going to have a problem." Olivia says while looking at pictures on her phone. "I'm sure it'll be fine, the website had good reviews and you went back and fourth on it for months before you finally made your decision." I reassure her.

Fifteen minutes go by, and we're at the apartment complex. Everything looked fine and we quickly started making a list of everything we needed for the apartment and decided that we'd get as much as we could today and everything else throughout the rest of the week. Olivia was stuck with furniture and bedding while I would be getting groceries.

I walk to the grocery store that's located down the road from my apartment and when I enter, I can see all of the subtle differences between the products in London versus the ones in America. Browsing through the different aisles, so many different weird things catch my eye. "Marmite?" I mumble to myself, stopping to look at the jar full of brown paste. "Aha, it's pretty good. You just take a little bit and spread it on a slice of toast. Not many Americans like it, though." Someone says from behind me.

I turn around and look at the guy who had commented, completely unaware that there had been anyone else in the aisle with me. I'm taken aback a bit by the man. He's decently tall, but that's not what I notice first. The first thing I notice is his hair, it's outgrown and crazy yet somehow it works with him. I can tell that his natural hair is a dark brown color but he's bleached it, the darker parts revealing themselves as his hair grew. He has glasses on and bright blue eyes. Something about him is goofy and attractive and I don't really know how to place it. I give him a shy smile, and my awkwardness doesn't seem to bother him because he stays and tries to start up a conversation with me.

"If you don't mind me asking, where are you from?" He says to me, while grabbing a box of crackers and placing them into his cart.

"Arkansas."

"Ah, what brought you all the way here?"

"My friend and I always wanted to go to London and we chose to actually do it together this year."

He smiles at me before turning away to scribble something on a small yellow sheet of paper. Turning back around, he extends his arm and hands me that same piece of paper which happened to be his.. shopping list, with a phone number written at the end.

"There's my number, if you ever need someone to show you all the sights." He says to me, his eyes lingering before giving a gentle wave and walking off to the next aisle.

The rest of the shopping trip after that was a bit of a blur and all I could really think about was going home to tell Olivia the strange encounter that I'd had. Normally I'd be the one to give a stranger my number, or rather, Olivia would be the one giving out my number after ignoring my countless protests. But I hadn't even been in London for a day and already I've had a conversation with someone that I don't even know.

—

An hour or two pass by after I get home with the groceries and Olivia is back with a fold out couch and a simple metal bed frame along with a mattress. Our apartment is on the third story out of the five, so in order to get everything up here she had to hoist it into a luggage cart.

"You'll never guess what happened today." I say to her as I help her carry the boxes from the door to our apartment.

"What, did a hot guy ask for your hand in marriage?" She jokes

"No, but a hot guy did give me his number" I say, flashing her the yellow piece of paper.

"No way! Looks like he also forgot to get bread. You gonna text him?"

"I don't know, what if he was just trying to be nice and didn't know another way out of the conversation?"

Olivia rolls her eyes.

"He could have just not said anything to you at all, but he did. And the he gave you his number! Text him before I do!" She lectures, and so I do.

Text:

Emma: Hey, is this the guy I met from the store? I'm sorry, I never got your name.

Dan: Thats me, the name is Dan Smith.