Misguided

Kait walked in into the area, starving. The red head wasn't really starving, but she was rather very hungry.

Ordering a bit Sloppy Joe with a tall glass of water, Kait devoured it. Occasionally wiping her mouth, Kait wondered why at that moment, the sandwich tasted so good.

Five minutes later, it was gone. Kait stared at the clean plate, and wished she had another.

Ashleen walked into the small cafe bored of wandering around. She supposed she should possibly bother to eat something. She hadn't eaten since the evening before when she had moodily picked at the dinner her father and forced in front of her.

She hadn't been hungry then, and she was only passingly so now. She was only getting food now because it was something to do.

"Give me anything deep friend, and capable of giving me a heart attack," she muttered to the employee. If she was going to be eating anything, she needed her comfort food. She needed something that reminded her of home... home with out reminding her of him.

She smiled and took her plate of French fries... or whatever they'd call them in this part of the world. She was to lazy to remember which country had a penchant for calling them which thing, and looked around the room.

She had been going to sit on her own, stare moodily off in the distance, and slowly make her way through the snack, so when someone asked later she could say she ate, when she spied a girl her own age, staring at her plate with longing.

She plopped her own food down on the table, and unceramonously flopped into the chair across from her.

"Eat them," she ordered without any pleasantries, as she began to nibble at a small fry from the corner of the plate.

Looking up, Kait saw a brown hair chick. Raising her eyebrows, Kait leaned back in her chair. "I don't recall letting anyone boss me around, but I am not complaining in this case." Shrugging, Kait ate a french fry.

"Why did you get these if you don't want to eat them? These are well made."

Ashleen raise her eyebrows at the girl's response, snorting softly, "I'm sorry, would you like me to try again?"

"Please, please eat my food," she rolled her eyes and took another fry, having finally finished the first one.

She shrugged, "I've had better; besides, there's too many, and you were looking at your plate like you were waiting for something else to appear. I made it happen - I do believe you should be thanking me."

"If you want to waste your breath," Kait smoothly replied, adding ketchup to the fries. Adding one in her already full mouth, Kait drummed her fingers against the plastic table.

"You don't hear me complaining."

"I had a sloppy joe that was really good, I was kind of hopeful another one will appear in front of me." Sheepishly grinning, Kait added a french fry to her now empty mouth.

Ashleen gave the girl a bleak little smirk, "Well why not waste it? Its not like I'm using my breath for anything better. Breath? Pfft, who wants to do that?"

She rolled her eyes, the smirk suggesting that she was joking, but the words spoke eerily close to home to some part of her brain. The rest of her brain was truly terrified by this line of thought, and promptly shoved it away.

"Well sorry, I only have french fries," she shrugged her shoulder, and pulled one foot up onto her chair, wrapping an arm around that knee, hugging it into her chest. "Never was into sloppy joes much."

Laughing, Kait swallowed her french fries. "You can use your breath wisely by telling me about you. Cuz I am tired of hearing myself talk, I have been doing that too much recently."

"Me neither, but... I had a sudden craving for them." Drinking her water without ice, Kait looked at the girl. "I am Kaitlen, Kaitlen Grayson. Only call me Kaitlen if you don't like me though. If you do, call me Kait."

"Oh, the story of Ash is just sooo thrilling," she quipped bitterly, rolling her eyes and spinning a french fry in her hand rather than force herself to eat it, "I was born in America, raised and lived there for fourteen blissful years, and one rather dismal, and then moved to Russia, went to durmstrang, kept my head above water for a bit, then chose to walk down a stupid alley, almost got raped and my life fell to crap."

She stated all this in a matter of fact tone, not looking for sympathy or anything of the kind, merely stating what the girl had asked in the way Ash presently saw it.

"Hmm, Grayson? I seem to be running into the lot of you these days," she muttered almost under her breath, "Call me Ash... Ashleen I suppose if your feeling like wasting your breath as well."

Listening, Kait thought, Well, I'm not the only one that has a sucky life then. "Sorry to hear that," Kait told her, without any obvious pity. "What is America like? I want to go there someday..."

"Met my sister?" Kait asked, smirking. "Wild one, isn't she. But then, I shouldn't talk." Pausing, Kait ate the last french fry. "Ash, that's a cool name. You drink?" Kait asked suddenly, curious.

"America is," she frowned for a moment, trying to find a word that described what she felt for her home, for it would always be her home. It was the place where she...

Where she did everything. It was where her mother had lived, grew, talked, walked... died. It was where she and Tre were actually....

Something.

Here, now, they were...

"America is... unbelievable; its... its like everywhere else I suppose, and yet... so not..."

She shrugged her shoulders and finally bit into the French fry she was eating.

"Yes, Grayson was certainly... something," Ash smirked slightly at the memory of the girl, "Nice to meet someone who can keep up."

"Drink," she raised her eyes in surprise, although in all honesty, most people in her situation, most people as downtrodden as she felt would have turned to it long ago.

"Alcohol makes you messy," the young girl murmured, her fathers voice ringing in her ears, drilling this one fact into her head, the one fact she always remembered without a single hesitation.

"Understandable..." Kait trailed off, thinking. "That's how I mostly feel when people ask me what Greece is like, or when I was in England, what was Russia like.

"Iris is no stranger to weird things," Kait mumbled fondly, smirking.

"Messy." Kait repeated, frowning. She was meeting more and more people who didn't like drinking, or alcohol. She couldn't understand it.

"I suppose that's just the way we speak about home," she responded after a moments thought. America was, after all, home for so long. In moments, particularly moments like these when she felt so lost, and... and unwanted, it felt like the only place she was supposed to be.

The girl looked at the other, and shrugged, "Its just what I've been told... in my line of... work, messy can be... well dangerous; I've grown up being told to avoid messy."

She threw the french fry she was eating back and pushed out her chair.

"Finish those, their on me; I'll see you around, okay?"

With a quick nod, she stood up and disappeared from the store.

"But messy makes life fun, adventurous, and never boring," Kait pointed out, placing her feet on the table. "Or at least, one of the qualities."

"Alright," Kait told her, shrugging. As she watched her retreating figure, Kait wondered what exactly was her line of work.