Vagrant

Chapter One

She knew to not listen to whatever therapist advised during a session. But between spending the summer with her grandparents and revisiting her old town where she went to high school in, sounded like more appealing than the former. With the paychecks and very little tips she made mixing drinks, it was enough for her to hop on a train.

The town she used to grow up in seemed all the same to her, aside from the new highway at the heart of town that wasn’t there before, and one mall that was so big that it needed a flyover to get to the other. During the train ride earlier, she jotted down her thoughts on her journal, one that she had to do to collect everything in place. Her therapist was supposed to video call her at the end of the day and yet there she was, sitting at the ramen joint in front of her old high school, flipping through a menu and her phone to find someplace to stay. She breathed into the laminated piece of paper gripped at her dainty hands, knowing that the only thing she could afford with her budget would be a motel down the street.

Inside the small ramen joint, came through a group of students gushing over the recent show they’d watched over the weekend and boys. The ramen joint didn’t have a name specifically, containing of only six tables followed by one stand in the front for the cooking since it came with a built-in ramen holder in it. That didn’t matter because most people knew this place because of the wrinkly old man as the owner, who always beamed at the sight of customers, showing his full teeth. He said that he didn’t want to renovate the place as this place held such novelty already for the students that came by. That was enough for him, since the food in cafeteria often tasted bland and flavorless, so this place was like heaven on its own.

“Here you go. What was it that you wanted to drink again?”

“Coconut water, please.”

The steaming hot bowl wafted up to her nose, she rummaged through her purse and tied her hair into a bun with the scrunchie she found. Mixing the reddish and orangey broth together with the chopsticks in her hand as the noodles twirled around it before slurping into her mouth. The warm and slightly spicy dish soothed her throat, she’d missed this. Before this, she’d go to this place to skip a class or ditch with her inner friends. She’d climb and jump over the fence, running across the road alongside her friends with a grin etched across their faces. Whenever there was a class she’d like to avoid, she knew she could just hide out here. Most students would also come here to smoke, since the school wasn’t exactly smoke-friendly, in fact, one student had to be expelled for getting caught doing it on school grounds.

She could hear the students looking over her shoulders. They talked about this one Chemistry teacher, Mr. Baldwin, to which she agreed with and was actually surprised that the teacher was still teaching in the school. Now that she was older, and savored the first taste of life, she knew that staying in a job for so long actually a real commitment. Not a lot of people would want to go about the rest of the life stuck to a customer-related desk jobs.

Chewing down on her lower lip, her fingers drew closer to sweeping strands of hair behind one ear. The coconut water was served before her, earning a  toothy wide grin from the old man known to be referred as “Flirty”. One of her former peers, mostly the jocks, were the ones to give the nickname. Guessed it stuck or no one really bothered to change it up.

Her noodles were almost half finished, she moved onto the taste the cold coconut flavor oozing down her throat. The podcaster blasted in her ears was saying about a fun segment meaning that it was nearing the end of an episode. Martia’s persuasion finally caught up to her, stitching the greatest idea that’s listening to a podcast while doing anything, into her brain. That girl sure could use some of that people skills to an advantage someday.

As she was slurping down the last bits of coconut, she turned her head slightly to the side, poking her fingers into the depth of her purse. With a bit of force, she opened up the side  of her small leather wallet, to fetch for coins inside. She pulled out a couple of bills and rested them all on the table before rising on her feet to depart.