Afterlife - Stephanie Hudson Page 0,16

Frank about her driving to see if he could talk some sense into her. Thanks to her speeding she had dropped me off with five minutes to spare. I walked over to the escalators and up to the food court. I remembered my way from last week’s shopping trip and knew exactly which coffee house I was meeting RJ at, so I had time to find a seat before she got there or so I thought.

I just turned in the doors to find a bright pink haired girl sat in the corner. She wore all black like the last time I had seen her except for a very long multi-coloured scarf that although wrapped around her neck a few times still made its way to her feet. Her hair was cut short and spiked into pink points, a style that suited her very thin but friendly face. She waved and stood up just in case the erratic waving hadn't caught my attention. I couldn't help smiling at this as I walked over to the booth she occupied.

“Hey Keira, how's things?”

“Yeah good thanks but you can call me Kaz, everyone else does.”

“Cool, so what have you been up to? Have you settled in yet?” I don't know why but it felt like she was easing me in with this question instead of bombarding me with what she really wanted to know, which of course, was everything!

“Yeah just about, I didn't really have that much stuff to unpack as most of it is still in England with my parents.”

I read her face as I said this, she must have thought my parents had died or something equally as horrible, otherwise why else had I moved here. It was funny the way the darkest of reasons entered our minds first. It was as if they were put there by something evil controlling our thoughts, whispering morbid possibilities into our head.

“That sucks, are they going to send the rest of your stuff over?”

“Nah, but my mum said she would send anything I needed over to me, so that was the main reason behind the shopping trip last week, I was in desperate need of a warm jacket.” She smiled at this last statement.

“Yeah it gets pretty cold out here, just wait until winter and you'll be sleeping in it!” We both laughed. She was so easy to talk to I don't know what I had been worrying about.

This wasn't the only reason for most of my stuff being left behind. They had been fully prepared to send everything I owned over but it just reminded me of my old life, clothes I would never wear again, brighter, shorter and more noticeable, which wasn't who I was any more. I had told them to throw them out but my mother wouldn't. She was still holding on to the hopes that her baby would return back to her happy bubbly self. Which I knew was never going to happen. Broken pieces never fixed themselves and this was yet another reason to add to the very long list of reasons why I moved here.

A waitress came over to take our order but didn't look too happy at the task. She was quite old and haggard looking with white hair with some grey in patches. There were deep dark circles that lined her eyes along with the most wrinkled skin I think I had ever seen. The uniform didn't help her appearance, a pasty green shirt that looked like the same colour that they painted hospital walls. She looked ill and the colour brought out the green tinge in her skin.

“What do you want?” A rude harsh voice came from a pair of thin tight lips that looked like she was sucking a lemon. RJ's bubbly voice answered first.

“Cappuccino.” She turned to me but didn't meet my eyes.

“And you?” Was all she said, which sounded more like an order than a question.

“Hot chocolate please.” I always felt like a child ordering this but I didn't like coffee and I doubted that they had English tea.

“Oh and can I have a double chip muffin?” RJ's voice was the complete opposite to the waitress' whose name tag revealed her to be called Meg. She just gave a vague nod and walked away towards the counter to start the order.

“Wow she was happy, must love her job.” I said with a sarcastic tone.

“Yeah” she giggled “don't mind her, she's never happy and she's been working here for years. I think she

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