~The Way~

Everything about this felt strange, we had only ever called one place home and quite frankly, this was feeling the complete opposite to what we were aiming for. It was supposed to feel uplifting, freeing-as if the weight of the world had been taken off our shoulders. But now it was anticlimatic, and terribly empty, it was a nice apartment, two bedroom one bathroom, it had all the amenities we required, and the removalists (for an extra hundred dollars) had agreed to unpack and arrange everything as well. That was money well spent in my opinion. Caitrina put her hands behind her head and sighed deeply, staring at the ceiling, I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and she looked back at me, a tentative smile tugging at the side of her mouth. There was nothing more to say really, that door of our lives had now officially been closed, and neither of us intended on opening it any time soon. I grabbed my purse off the counter and tapped her shoulder. "I don't know about you but I intend on eating sometime BEFORE tomorrow." She laughed and followed me out the door, shutting it firmly behind her. We didn't really know our way around here particularly well, but some fast food joint was bound to be open. It was cold outside so I wrapped my jumper a little tighter around my body and folded my arms around my chest as we walked the streets, it was dimly lit by street lamps and lights from inside stores and houses, from here you could clearly see the lights of the city as well, trams rattled past us as we continued walking in a profound silence. The only noise the wind rustling leaves on the trees that lined the nature strip, the monotonous hum of cars on the road and scuffle of our feet on the pavement. "Del?" Caitrina says softly, I turn to her. "Yeah?" I reply, wondering where this was going, she hadn't said a word since we started moving out. "Are you sure this was the right option?" 

"Well, everything about where we were was just wrong, every single aspect of it. This is a new start for us, so yeah, it was." She nods, processing what I'd said. I see a small kebab store thats still open on the opposite side of the street and pull on Caitrina's sleeve, dragging her across the street. We ran into the store, immediately a blast of warmth hit us. The que wasn't overly long, after all it was 10:30pm. Caitrina proceeded to talk and I hear her voice dully placing out the order as I stared out the window, seeing two guys, that looked around about our age walk up our street.... "Who's the neighbours?" I ask Caitrina as they faded into the distance, she looked back confused. "What?" She questioned. The guy behind the counter gestured towards the direction in which they had walked. "Them?" He asks raising an eyebrow quizically. I nod. "That's Hassan and Billy, trust me, not people you want to get to know. You're not living in that apartment three doors down that Grove are you?" He asks, Caitrina and I nod, looking rather worried as to where he was going with this. "Well, hate to say this but say hello to your new neighbours." We both looked at each other stunned, wondering what he possibly could've meant by this as he shoved our kebabs over the counter. "Have a nice night." He says as we exit the store, the bitter wind out there a a cold splash of reality-we really didn't know anything about this town did we?