Vagabond

Un

        “We must take adventures in order to know where we truly belong.”

                                                  -Anonymous

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        Ingrid Bellamy made her way through security at the Chicago O’Hare airport. For one of the first times in her life, she was in a hurry. A massive hurry, for that matter. Grabbing her inspected tote from one of the gray bins and dashing off into the direction of the gates, she wished she had an extra five minutes. Almost to her gate, which was in the very back left corner, there was a digital screen displaying the boarding flights. Where was flight A-305 to  Paris?  Ah-ha.

        A look of relief and disappointment swept across her porcelain, make-up free face. Much to her dismay, her flight had been delayed. By one entire hour. All this time she had been rushing for nothing. After taking a moment to absorb this, she scanned the area for a vacant seat. Sure enough, there was one right by the window. Or gigantic wall of glass, whatever you wanted to call it. Sitting down felt so nice, like she had just finished running a 5K. Of course, she was far from it.

        Ingrid spent most of her time in her tiny, one bedroom watching the latest episodes of Breaking Bad  on Netflix and studying for her ridiculously hard college exams. She attended the University of Chicago as a full-time student and worked part-time at a small, vintage coffee shop down the block. It was definitely nothing extravagant, but that never phased her. She hadn’t exactly grown up in a particularly wealthy family, so she appreciated everything that she worked hard for. Her dad had always taught her that you didn’t need a lot of money to be happy.

        She couldn’t have agreed more. To this day, she remembered how her dad would always find ways to keep their old house from falling apart. He would patch up holes in the ceiling so the rainwater wouldn’t leak through and climb on the roof by himself just to fix the gutters. Oh, how she missed her dad. She’d lost him about two years ago to prostate cancer. It was weird not having him around; especially since she didn’t know where her mother was. Her mother had supposedly “run away” several years ago before her dad had been diagnosed. Although Ingrid didn’t have a clue as to where she was, she remained hopeful.

        Ever since her dad had passed away, she felt like 98% of her time was spent in solitude. She didn’t really have many friends; sure, the occasional group she would study with for their literature final, but those weren’t really friends, right? She hadn’t gone out on many dates, either. Well, there had been one when she was feeling quite desperate. Some hipster looking guy in his mid-twenties; nothing out of the ordinary in her Chicago neighborhood. He turned out to be a complete douche who was cheating on his girlfriend with her. She had found out when a petite red-head, his so-called “girlfriend”, came up to her at work and insisted that she back off. That’s when she had told her she hadn’t had any idea whatsoever that he’d had a girlfriend. Of course, who was she going to believe? Her lover of five months, or some random college kid she didn’t even know? The answer was clear.

        But none of this really mattered now. She was off to Paris, the city of love (how cliche), to study abroad. It was her last year in college, and something she’d wanted to do for the longest time, but had never had enough money to, was travel. After putting together some money from her dad’s will and her meager savings from work, she was signed up. Studying abroad did  mean she would be traveling with people from her university, but there weren’t too many. She spotted several people she knew from previous classes. The majority of the other students were from other schools across the state who had partnered up with her school for this program. It would be a good idea to go and introduce herself, but she didn’t feel like it. There would be plenty of time for that. Six months, to be exact. This would be fun.