Chapter 1

I had been sitting at a table in my favorite restaurant for who knows how long before the waitress walked up to me and said, “Are you going to eat your burger, Sweetie?”

I looked down at my cheeseburger, picked it up, and was disgusted with myself that I had only taken one bite out of it and let it get cold. I put it down and shook my head and whispered, “Sorry. I guess I lost my appetite.”

I started to take my wallet out and the waitress said, “Don’t worry yourself none. This and your next meal is on the house. you’ve helped us all out plenty. It’s the least we can do. You can stay here as long as you’d like.”

A few minutes or seconds later I thought, “This was not how life was supposed to be.”

“Oh really? How was it supposed to be? Wait let me guess. Hmmm. Oh, I’ve got it. You were supposed to have ordered a different meal, no that’s silly. Do you have an unrequited love for that waitress? No. Your girlfriend dumped you, and you were forced to move back in with your parents,” said a pleasantly sweet voice.

I was taken aback. Had I really spoken out loud? I was about to say something to that person about listening in on someone’s private thoughts. I dropped my hand on the counter and looked to my left. I stopped my complaint when I saw who had spoken. Seated next to me was a really cute young blonde. Her hair had some curl to it near the end but it was mostly kind of straight if that makes sense, and it went halfway down her neck. At my apparent anger then sudden change in attitude she seemed to be shocked at first then she shifted her face to have the cutest yet silliest smile I had ever seen.

I stammered out, “Uh ... Yeah, something like that. Not the moving in with the parents’ thing, but the uh...”

I had just lost my train of thought. This young lady gave off a wonderful vibe I couldn’t help but get lost in her eyes, that wonderful scent in the air that I was guessing came from her, and her seemingly genuine interest in my feelings.

She looked sad as she gently put her hand on mine. As soon as she did that I felt a wonderful tingling sensation run through my hand.

She frowned then said, “That means you were dumped, that’s so sad. These things can be hard. I should know. It took me a while to get over my first boyfriend. I find that it helps to talk about it. Or other things. Any topic is good really.” She took a sip of her pop. “Oh, I’m Annie by the way. So when did this happen?”

I took a deep breath, “About four months ago.”

Her eyes went wide for a brief moment, “Wow. She must have been something special.”

I chuckled, “Well, that’s not really what got me like this. I got over that rather quickly. I guess that’s part of the problem though.”

“What, why’s that?” Annie asked.

I looked at this girl intending to tell her I wanted to be alone but suddenly I felt this need to talk to her, “The short version is that she was ticked off that I wasn’t more broken up about the split and for most of the past four months she’s been making life at work a living h ... it’s been very miserable.”

“Wow, that’s harsh. So ... wait does that mean you were dating a coworker?” I nodded to Annie’s question. “That’s one reason I make it a rule never to date a coworker.” She took another sip of her pop. “Oh, sorry. So what happened next?”

I took a moment to reply, again fighting the urge to tell her. But then I just started talking again, “She finally had enough and talked the boss into firing me. I guess that’s one of the perks of dating the boss’s son.”

We talked for about half an hour after that. Suddenly Annie perked up and said, “I’ve got a great idea. How would you like to go out on the town and just hang out? Would you like to go out with me?”

I debated for maybe one or two seconds. I had been having fun with this girl so far. And she had been helping me to feel better. So I said, “Sure.”

She smiled that wide cute smile, grabbed my hand, and pulled me along. We went to a lot of different places. Some I hadn’t seen before but then we went to this place that had lots of games and television sets and stuff.

“You’re just trying to get me distracted and spend a lot of my energy aren’t you?” I asked.

“Oh of course. How else do you expect me to be able to jump you later on and have my way with you?” She laughed. “I’m kidding. I find physical activity can help to work out mental frustrations.” Annie looked off into the distance and then started to pull me in another direction. Annie sat me down at a table and signaled for a waitress.

As we waited for the waitress Annie said, “See that on tv? It’s about the aliens that came to earth several generations ago. Did you know that the ones that chose to stay ended up raising families with the earthlings?”

“Yeah, I did. I’ve always found it fascinating. I think it’s cool how there’s even some theories or speculations that some of the descendants even have special abilities. I used to even pretend that I had been one of them. Wow.” I said.

Annie scrunched her eyebrows together and quietly said, “I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve never really had any myself.”