Hidden

Part Two: Chapter One - Allie

Chapter One:

Allie

Millburn isn't a very small town but you couldn't really call it large either. It's one of those places where everyone knows everyone at least through gossip and your teachers didn't have to warn you about calling your parents because you knew you would likely see them out of the classroom in the next week or so. We have a bus that can take you around town if you don't mind the stale smell of fading fabric and gasoline, which being as I don't yet have a car, I don't. It's better than sweating in the sun or freezing in the snow and it gets me to work and class on time for the most part.

I work at the local coffee house, which actually sells more tea than coffee. Most teenagers talk about hating their jobs but I actually love mine. It's probably because I work with Mara who has been my neighbor and confidante for as long as I can remember and despite our age difference we are actually really good friends. Growing up I spent a lot of time in her garden hiding from the other kids my age; children can be so mean. Unlike adults, children see everything as black or white, this or that, now or never; and so when a baby girl is left on a door step it is never due to circumstance, but because she is obviously strange and unwanted.

Eventually we all started to grow up and bigger, better things became more interesting than I was. I was no longer the outcast, the one the other children were weary to play with, though I was never part of the inner circle. I was fine with that; I enjoyed my time on the outskirts of popularity. To be honest, I never really connected with any of the other kids my age anyways. Their thoughts seemed so silly to me and while they complained about going to classes and getting summer jobs I thrived at the thought of knowledge and independence because while I loved my mother and Mara, my best and only real friend Elyse and my job at the coffee shop, I was leaving this place and going to the first art program to accept me.

I still don't know where that will be. I have sent applications to every institute and program I could find and while I haven't gotten many responses, the few that I did get back were denials. I should have joined more groups, played more sports, participated in more extra-curricular's. There's nothing I can do about that now, so I wait for an envelope on days that I am home and on days that I am not I wait for a phone call from my mother who will break my heart or save my life. Today I will wait for a call.

The coffee shop I work at is a small place which always seems a bit over crowded. When the couches and chairs are full, people will stand with their steaming cups and pluck the old dingy books from the complimentary book shelf, usually for just a quick glance before they place it back on between the other unwanted novels. In the world of e-readers people seem to have disregarded their once loved stories and have dropped them off one or two at a time while ordering their lattes. After so many years, we have quite a collection.

It's not a long ride from my school to the shop and I'm a bit surprised when I leave the inner workings of my mind and realize that the bus is slowing for me to exit. I return my sketch pad to its familiar place in my bag before hoisting it over my shoulder and standing. Mr. Murray looks back at me through the mirror over his head and smiles. I smile back and thank him for the ride before descending the stairs. He is a nice man who has driven the bus for as long as I can remember. When I was young and the kids would make fun of me, I would get to sit up at the front with him where we would talk about anything but school and he always had a treat in his lunch bag he was willing to share. I want to ask him if he has made up with his wife yet and if everything will be okay, but I don't because he never told me and while he knows the rest of the town knows about his infidelity, I have been the topic of discussion before and choose not to.

The shop seems a little less busy than usual and I can't help but be relieved. It's not that its hard work, it's very easy actually; it's just that I can't seem to slow my thoughts the last few days. I feel like there's constantly something I'm forgetting or something I can't think of and it leaves me so distracted. I pull the wooden door open and the familiar creak fills the space around me, telling of its old age. We've talked about getting a new one but neither of us seems too enthusiastic about it. I like the small hominess of the shop and would hate to have another all glass door sporting a boring logo, like the shops around us. We have character, or so I tell myself.