As Dreamed by Tegan [ Part 2 ]

Tegan stood in front of her closet back in nothing but her t-shirt and underwear after going back to sleep for another hour. Both sliding doors were pushed to one side so that she was staring at her clothes that hung by hangers. There wasn’t much to choose from. Many of the black hangers hung empty, this reminded her of the pile that still stood in front of her bookshelf, she glared at it. She grabbed the shirt that was nearest to her, bright green with grey stripes and a hood. She yanked it off the hanger and let it fall to the floor, one choice down. She grabbed both closet doors and slid them to the other side exposing her dresser. She opened the second drawer, grabbed a pair of white socks, yellow underwear and a pink bra and dropped them on top of her shirt. She sat on the floor and opened the bottom drawer to her dresser and stared at the contents or the lack of contents. Her jeans drawer was empty. She turned to the dirty clothes mountain and sighed. All of her jeans were dirty. She shrugged and grabbed the darkest pair she could find from the mound and dropped them on top of rest of the clothes she was going to wear.

Tegan stood and yanked off her under wear and tossed with the rest of the dirty clothes and slid on her clean pair, then stripped off her t-shirt and shimmied into her bra. She shoved her legs one by one into her dirty pants, buttoned and zipped them then pulled her shirt over her head. She stood in front of her dresser. There sitting on top was her jewelry box. She opened it and pulled the top section out and grabbed out all her black and grey jelly bracelets and rummaged around in search of a few green. Once she found all the ones she wanted, she slid them onto her wrist looping two together to form a link of sorts like she always did. She found her old, dirty, black, vintage chucks and shoved her feet into them and fell back onto the floor to tie them then hopped back up. She opened her door and walked to the bathroom passing the living room as she did so. She was expecting to see at least one of her roommates but no one was there. She thought that was odd but continued into the bathroom. She glanced into the mirror then did a double take.

“Ugh! What is with this hair?” she thought out loud.

Her hair had a wild mind of it’s own. The bright blonde and deep black strands stood up in places and laid perfectly straight and flat in others. Tegan brought her hands up to mess it all around. Today’s look was going to be bed head, in other words her usual.

She left the bathroom and grabbed her heavy tan messenger bag out of her room. She smirked slightly as she looked over the doodles and friends signatures that had collected over the years on the bag. She missed a lot of them but those thoughts could be saved for later, now wasn’t the time to get nostalgic. Today was the day she went out and looked for a job. She quickly walked to the kitchen opened the fridge and grabbed the jug of Sunny D out and twisted the cap off and looked over her shoulder to make sure neither of her roommates were suddenly watching her. When she was sure there wasn’t anyone to witness her, she brought the mouth of the jug to her lips and chugged a few mouthfuls. She returned the cap and put it back in the fridge and wiped her Sunny D mustache on the back of her hand. She opened a cabinet and grabbed out the box of strawberry Nutrigrain bars and took one out and stowed it away in her bag she put the box back and shut the cabinet. She walked across the kitchen and living room to the door and grabbed the knob and opened it. She walked out onto the landing and shut it behind her and walked down the stairs hurriedly not realizing that she forgot to lock the apartment. Unnoticed by anyone the lock clicked on it’s own as she opened the next door to leave the building.

Tegan walked down the street toward the closest group of stores. They were in a strip mall of sorts. There was a coffee shop, a small book store, a new age shop, and a place that gave lessons on painting and ceramics and sold art. She thought it was probably one of the coolest areas she’d ever happened upon. If she could get a job at one of these shops, she might die from happiness. She walked into the first which was the coffee shop. There weren’t many costumers inside. A lady with funky spiked blonde hair stood behind the counter. She wore a bright pink shirt with a dark green apron over it. Tegan walked up to her and ordered the first thing she saw on the menu, a medium vanilla chia tea. The lady smiled at her and as she made her drink Tegan asked her if they were hiring the lady told her that they were always looking for an extra pair of hands. Tegan looked around the back of the counter. It seemed like the lady was the only one there. She wondered if it was only her that worked there. The lady gave her an application and Tegan paid for her tea and left smiling to herself. Next she walked to the book store. The smell of books hit her nose as soon as she opened the door. Books stood everywhere, shoved on shelves, stacked on tables and even in stacks on the floor that ranged from knee height to waist height. She walked to the counter were a boy about her age stood in ripped jeans and a black long sleeved t-shirt the sleeves pushed up past his elbows. His hair, long, dark brown, was pulled back into a hair tie. He wasn’t paying attention to who was walking in and out of the shop because he seemed to be very engrossed in the book he had open in front of him. His eyes were whizzing back and forth across the page. She walked up in front of the counter quietly.

“Excuse me?” She asked in a normal tone. He jumped and knocked over the stool he was sitting on and his book fell to the ground. Tegan giggled as he picked the stool and his book back up blushing, trying to hide it.
“You scared me,” he said.
“I noticed,” she said back to him and he forced a small embarrassed laugh.
“How can I help you?”
“I was wondering if I could have an application. This place seems pretty cool, plus I need money to pay my rent. Can you help me out?”
“Why would you want to work here? It’s boring and the pay is lousy.”
“ You work here, don’t you?”
“Fair point. I’ll get you one.” He turned away from her and opened a drawer and look out a pad of papers and ripped two sheets off of it. As he was turned Tegan couldn’t help but check out his butt. It was a nice firm butt. She wanted to reach out and touch it but at the last minute she thought better of it. He turned and handed her the application.
“You can fill it out here and turn it in today or take it and bring it back, which ever you want to do. I’ll make sure the boss sees it. I might even put in a good word for you, you’re pretty quiet, no one would even need to know you were here.” Tegan giggled at his lame joke. “I’m Bryan, but the way.”
“Tegan,” she answered back.
“Nice to meet you Tegan”
“You too.” She took the application and walked toward the door. She could feel his eyes on her back as she walked out the door.

Tegan didn’t feel like going into the other two shops so she walked back down to the coffee place and filled out the two applications she got and turned them both back in then left to go back to the empty apartment. She took her time walking not wanting to be there alone. She let her thoughts float aimlessly as she went, thinking about what it might be like to work with Bryan and wondered what his lips might feel like against her neck. She shook the last thought out of her head and kept walking.