Chapter 2 : LEAVING HIS PAST

Next day morning, 8.00 am,*alarm rings*, Darius already went to his school. Ryan woke up at the alarm and saw clothes scattered all around the place. He picked them up, washed them, cleaned the whole house. After quite a few hours of labour, the room seemed a little sweet home. He served himself a puffy omelete, with 2 piece of bread and butter, a glass of simple coffee. Sipping on his coffee he thought what type of job should he be finding?

Nothing to do much as he dropped out from school. He tended his swollen ankle with a pack of ice. Although it was still quite swollen, but better than before.

“Sorry, I’ll be late tonight, eat something, and I’ll bring some food at night, take care”, a text appeared in his phone.

Staying at home for almost all day was quite boring ,so he thought he should walk out to get some fresh air. “I’m going out for fresh air, I’ll be back before dinnertime”, he texted back.

At night various kinds of shops were opened at the end of the alley. He just roamed around unknowingly the way to back home. He didn’t knew the locality quite much as he arrived just yesterday.

He walked to the road. A large number of shops of various types appeared in front of him. At the left there was a flower shop with so many flower, a soothing fragrance coming from was as mesmerizing as they look. A young girl was cutting and putting the flowers to make bouquet for a wedding ceremony with. A bookshop right next to the flower shop was there although there weren’t many people in there.

If anything could lift his mood up it would be books, specially novels. Whether in distress or happy, books were always the reason of his euphoria. He had tons of books at that man’s house specially for him to read.

“I should have took my books as well” , he mumbled.

He could read all day long. In his early childhood, he was fond of story books ,he almost read every novel in his middle school library. But after he transferred to a relatively poor school, where one could say library doesn’t exists. At that right moment, he found a bookstore, he can read it without any worries haunting him like a year ago. He entered there, there were barely people there, in these days not many people came here as it was in earlier years,

“Are you new here?”

“Uh….”Ryan was startled as the man approached him.

“Hello , I’m the owner of this book store”. That man replied.

“Yeah I’m new here, Do you have any recommendation for thriller novel.”

“ Yeah, there’s that bookshelf, you can find it there. Ryan found a lot of books which caught his eyes. He started checking out those and chose a book “ Eye of the evil” written by K. Miller. It was a story about a killer who had two different eye colours, but his eyes were full of rage, resent, one could see a burning hell in his eyes. How that killer killed all of his prey with his own designed equipment and the reasons behind murders, were caught in Ryan’s eyes. So he decided to buy this book

He went on the road at the corner of that street he saw a café. It also had different types of desserts. There were peanut butter cookie lush, cheesecake trifle, oreo-chocolate mousse pie, black forest skillet brownie, S’mores Lasagna, cinnamon apple pancakes with vanilla maple syrup and more, also a variety of coffee like latte, espresso, mocha, americano and also vanilla bean latte, caramel apple macchiato etc. He ordered only black forest skillet brownie and caramel apple macchiato.

“Here’s your order sir, enjoy”, the food was gorgeous.

Ryan took a bite from the brownie, he got a unique sour-sweet flavored cherries with bitter dark chocolate perfectly balanced with brown sugar. And the macchiato had rich and sweet apple juice with toasty dark caramel and caramel ribbon crunch as toppings. Overall it was a delicious treat for dessert lovers like him.

While paying bill, he noticed there were not much staff at the café , there was only one person making and serving. The other person is cashier and manager. He asked the manager, “ Does your café not going well, you have very few staffs here, but I can see there are much customer”.

“We don’t have much staff for this shift, girls shouldn’t be working till this late and very few boys works at café, so”, the manager replied.

“Umm, can I be a part-timer here, I-I can do this shift, if you don’t mind”

“Uhh, okay you can give me your resume and then you will be working as a server, is that fine with you”

“Yeah, absolutely”

“So your shift will be from 7 pm to 12 am, Monday to Friday, you need to come here at 6.30 pm sharp”

“ I will”

“Then tomorrow take your resume and you’ll be joining from this Monday, is that okay with you”, he instructed him gently.

“yes sir”, Ryan smiled.

“So come that day at 5 pm, you need to learn some basic attics, then you’ll be all set.”

“Okay, I’ll be here” he was about to leave but, “…umm, do you mind if I ask you something”

“No, ask anything”, manager smiled.

“Do you know anyone or any shop in this area if they are hiring anyone or not. It would be a great help if I can find some more jobs.”

“Why, is the pay here so low”

“N-o no, I didn’t mean that, I just want to save up some more money, so I can live on my own, alone”.

The manager noticed a slight frown on Ryan’s face. He said, “ Hmm, one of my friend owns a car washing center, you can contact him, wait I can give you his card”, he ruffled the drawers.

“Thanks a lot”, his face brightened.

“Hmm, where have I put it,… ahh, here”, the manager mumbled, “I found it, here contact him”.

Ryan left the café happily. He just got here yesterday and found himself a part time job. He needed to save up so that he could rent a room of his own as soon as possible. He didn’t had any parental support as well. As he couldn’t study at this moment, all he could do was work.

“I’ll probably be late tonight, there’s some food for dinner I made. Have them if you’re hungry”, Ryan texted his friend.

Walking alone at night like that, he never imagined it to be true. He reached a bridge edge over a small river, leaning at the edge. A shivering cool breeze brushed past him. Though the wind was harsh cold he felt somehow relaxed. Leaning over he heard the flowing sound of the river. That sound went through his heart in the silence of the midnight. A stream of tear rolled down his cheek as his heart felt a long-lost peaceful freedom. At least that demon will not hunt him again.

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