No Such Thing As Broken

Chapter 2: There are people out there

Dinner was nice, nothing fancy but nice nonetheless. The restaurant was more of a sit down and order kind of place instead of an order at the counter and they'll bring it to you. These kinds of places tended to have a higher price point than the latter which was the most common style for this kind of food. The food didn't quite fit the style of the service, thought this place had almost no one in it so perhaps the people knew and stayed away. It wouldn't be surprising, the collage kids had gotten multiple establishments closed down before. It really wasn't that hard, someone printed out flyers it spread it by word of mouth to avoid one place or another. Occasionally you were given a reason, most of the time not though. Susan had only actively avoided a place twice before, one was a chain place that was trying to buy out a local store. They had gotten that placed closed down in a week. The other was a restaurant that attempted to underpay an undocumented immigrant. The worker was a friends of a football player and no one went to the establishment until the guy got paid.

But Susan hadn't heard about a boycott recently, though she did tend to be out of the loop for a lot of things. Perhaps it was just the place that no one liked, no reason for it. The walls were painted a strange green, a slightly upsetting color to eat around but the architecture was kind and meant for family. Large, open areas with seats that can be moved and arranged to account for more people if necessary. The place they ended up at was fairly pricey for what they ordered but nothing outrageous so the girls kept their mouths shut. Well, Susan and Jaki did.

"I can't believe this!" May cried as she looked over the receipt in her hand. Her voice had gone back to its sharp and painful tone. Susan had a theory that she made it that loud so the people in charge would hear. "This is outrageous! What is even on this salad that makes it so expensive?"

There were large tables and booths, colored a strange shade of red that Susan just couldn't quite place, either way it did not go with the green. Luckily Jaki and May sat across from her, blocking the color from her view and with the wooden wall that separated the booths on her right side, Susan could avoid looking at the restaurant almost entirely. Jaki shushed the girl and looked over the curling paper. "It's not too bad. We are paying for the chips, drinks, and bread in this meal combo so it does add up." the two sat so close to each other. They were basically attached at the hips and hadn't moved since they sat down. Susan could never understand how two people could stand being that close to each other at all moments of the day. She could barely stand a hug on a good day. Hand holding was about the limit for her thank you very much. She just liked being near people she cared, contact was a bit much.

Then again, she liked having a lot of personal space and wasn't the biggest fan of being touched by anyone really. That was entirely "a her" thing. Nothing to do with anything other than she wasn't really a touchy person. She never wondered why, she just didn't like it. Don't get her wrong though, there were exceptions. They were just really hard to come across.

However watching them interact certainly was an interesting experience. Clearly May had a bit of a mouth and Jaki a personality, but they balanced each other out in a way. Susan wouldn't say that they were perfect for each other, but it was cute while it lasted. She just wasn't sure how long it would last. They clearly liked each other and cared about the others opinion, but really the two couldn't be more different. May was a summer child, dressing in color and having a little sass to her words. Jaki carried herself more as a punk rocker. Not giving a dame to the world but caring in a sisterly sort of way. She was going places, May would, not. Nothing against the girl, but, she just didn't seem that motivated to do anything and clearly had some problems with people.

"I mean, the food was pretty good." Jaki said as she tore into the leftover bread. Susan had eaten most of the stuff with her cream soup, but there was still a small loaf left. Which Jaki had promptly taken for her own. Luckily, Susan still had one loaf left. "What do I owe?" she asked, mimicking the older girl's movement and tearing into the bread. She loved sourdough, she had only ever had the real stuff once and nothing ever stood up to it. But it was still good.