Selfish Appetite [5 Seconds of Summer]

[2]

"Life is made of ever so many partings welded together."

- -

Sloan

At 8:09 in the morning, I am welcomed by the filled-to-the-brim city bus.

I ignore the stare a woman is giving me, because I accidentally nudged her with my bag briefly, when I entered the bus and was shoved to the middle of it.

She insists on trying to make me look at her, and when she realizes she won't be taking her crap out on me today, she huffs and walks to the back of the bus. 

I smirk to myself and change the song, adjusting my left earbud as it keeps falling from my ear. 

I feel eyes on me and try to decide whether or not I should engage. One interaction with a stranger on the bus was enough for me today. 

My head shoots up without my consent, and my eyes find his.

The man is standing across from me, holding tightly on a bar so that he doesn't fall face-flat, as the driver takes turns ungracefully, without caring about the fact that he's carrying a hundred souls with him. 

I eye him in question and he finally averts his eyes. He gets off on the next stop, and I look at his shoulders as he walks away. As the bus takes off, I see him hugging someone, before entering the small coffee shop in the corner.

I used to come here, but it's too close to where Ian lives, so I have crossed it off my go-to places. 

It's too bad too, because the coffee is exceptional. 

*

Fallen leaves shuffle and crunch underneath my boots as I walk home from class. The pavement is still glistening from last night's rain, and I try to stay focused enough so that I don't slip.

I look around my neighborhood, a nostalgic filter covering my eyes. Some days, it's exceptionally hard to leave the past where it belongs. Some days, when I open my eyes, I see my garden from back home, where my grandma's is.

I see the white picket fence and the red mailbox, where the urban-life aesthetics now stand before me. No picket fences, no lawn gnomes, no sheds or gazebos.
Everyone decorates their house in their own, unique style and sense. It is refreshing, but I find myself missing my old house, because I miss my parents. I miss our life. 

Maybe I miss a part of my self, too. 

"Honey, I'm home." I yell at no one in particular, since my grandma was probably not in.

At this hour on Thursdays, she's usually over at Flo's house, playing cards and drinking an "innocent" glass, of whatever alcohol her friend has put out for them that day. 

I met Flo when I was fourteen.

I had just moved here, and she visited my grandma every day, to offer her support after we lost my dad. I didn't like her at first. She was unfiltered, insensitive, raw. She never read the room. She had the most inappropriate humor, definitely not to be shared with a teen.

Now, she's one of my favorite people.

"Oh, Sloan, come, come. In the living room." my grandma's voice startles me.

I walk towards the sound of her voice and find her, and might I add, not alone.

I try to contain my smirk when I see Anthony here, a man she met at bridge-night at Flo's, five years ago. She has been seeing him ever since. He is a widower, and the sweetest man I've ever met.

He's been helping her with the garden, they've been going to restaurants, to the theatre.

It is safe to assume that she has a better love life than me- and rightfully so, she deserves it. She deserves all the love that comes her way.