Chapter 1
Traveling alone trough Europe was never on her childhood dreams, she was supposed to travel around with her husband, staying in five stars hotels, and dining on prize winning restaurants around the world. Nevertheless she’s on a train with her backpack and sleeping on hostels where she shares the room with a least four more people a night.
Even though she always though that at 25 she would be married with a sucessful man, and already thinking about the first kids, it seems that life showed her a different path.
Sitting on a train travelling from Amsterdam to Berlin, she thought about the her first time in Europe and all the surprises that London brought her.
Arriving to London was a moment that she would never forget. After finishing her first year in Yale, she was feeling lost, finally accepting that she would never be the woman that her parents wish for, leaving her with a personality to uncover. That’s how she was able to convince her mother to pay for 2 months in Europe.
The moment in which she entered Europe she started to feeling free, she knew no one, she hadn’t told a soul where she was going, and that was what she needed, to be in a different place with no responsibilities, with no moral obligations to behave in any specific way, she was finally free.
As soon as she got her bag, she went searching for the subway with the idea that she wanted to explore the city. Her mother had convinced her she should stay with a friend of hers from her single days that was now living in London. That’s how she found herself looking to the tube map for fifteen minutes and trying to discover the freaking Angel station, and what she needed to do to get there.
When she finally arrived to the station, and following the instructions that her mother had gave to her, she quickly found the house where she was staying for the next two months, that’s when the fear of what she was doing started to settle. Trying to free herself from the compose but insecure teen that she was to become a confident woman who would finally be ok with herself, was something that more than anything left her thinking that she would probably lose everything again, and staying at some friend of her mother’s was probably be a quicker way to lose her.
But now there was no turning back, so, she rang the bell and waited to see who this woman would be. A couple of moments later she started to listen to some weird noises, as if something was falling to the floor, and someone cursing, at the same time that she started to think that she was on the wrong place a tall and Asian looking woman , with short hair and some big red framed glasses opened the door:
“Hi, you must be Quinn! Did you find this place easily? Come in, and sorry about the mess, I’m kind of clumsy, and when I was trying to get quickly to the door I just tripped and threw all those books to the floor while trying not to fall myself. Sorry, I’m kind of rambling, but you’ll have to get used to that. It’s other of my things” she told her while winking.
“Hello” she said while thinking how on earth her mother is friends with someone that seems so happy and kind of a hippie, “it was easy to get here and thanks for having me”
“That’s no problem darling, I live alone, so it’s always good to have company for a couple of weeks, I normally have my nephews here but this year they don’t seem to want to come, although I’m still trying to convince them. But let me just show you the house, it’s not big, but it’s rather central. So, as you can see this is the living room and kitchen, and on the end of that corridor you have the bathroom, my room on the right and the room where you’re staying on the left.”
“It’s lovely” and she was being serious, even being a really simple house, everywhere she looked she saw books, it almost seemed like she had entered a library. It seemed that at least she would have something to talk about with this woman besides the inevitable small talk.
“Well, it’s home, I’ve been living here for the last 20 years, since I left America, but sweetie, make yourself comfortable, put your bags on the room, unpack, rest a bit, and as soon as you’re ready I’ll make something for us to eat, and we can talk a bit and get to know each other, seems ok for you?”
“Yes, that’s perfect, give me just half hour and I’ll help you cook”
“Don’t worry, take you time, and today the cooking is for me”