Ann sat cross-legged under the huge oak tree in her backyard. Her white sweater hugged her in the cool autumn air. The guitar sitting in her lap strummed lazily as her mind drifted back to three years ago, on this day - her birthday.
It had been a day of joy, and a day of sorrow; a day of togetherness, and yet a day of departure. On her eighteenth birthday, her grandmother - the dearest person to Ann's very soul - had passed away. In response, she also had left, but she told no one where she was going.
For about a year, she had travelled here and there, taking work in convenience stores and such, working her way South. A few of her summers she had spent with an aunt in Texas, and Ann loved the people there. She ended up there about a fourth of the way through the second year, and bought a small two-story house on the edge of the town where she had spent her childhood summers.
Apart from a few rude neighbors when she first moved in, Ann had settled in very quickly. It only took a short time for them to accept and adopt her as one of their own, and she was more than happy living here. Occasionally she did think of her family and friends, but she was still ashamed of the way she had left so quickly, and so had never tried to contact them. The memory she missed the most was that of her best friend, Cody. He had been there through thick and thin for her, and she had tried her best to be there for him. It still made her chuckle to herself when she thought of all the times he had come asking her for advice about one of his girlfriends. He wasn't a player though, he had only had two girlfriends in the three years she had known him.
In her heart she believed she had loved him, that she did love him, but when she left like she had, she blew any chance that she would have ever had with him. She strummed down really hard on a wrong chord, startling herself out of her daydream. Standing up, she shook her head. The past is the past.
Brushing the grass and dirt of the backside of her jeans, she patted the trunk of her "thinking tree" before going inside. She had a meeting planned with Jenna at two, and she had to hurry if she was going to make it on time. Setting the guitar gently on it's stand, she jumped the stairs two at a time and ducked into the master bedroom. She wanted to wear something nice because Jenna had said she wanted Ann to meet someone. Ann knew that meant that Jenna had brought yet another family friend - a male family friend - to try to set Ann up on a blind date. Despite the fact that Ann was not on a hunt for a husband, or even a boyfriend, she wanted to look nice when meeting someone new.
Choosing a dark green off-the-shoulder top, denim jeans, and her brown cowboy boots, she grabbed her brown leather purse and took off at a fast walk. She had not bothered to buy a car when she had arrived, preferring to keep in shape this way instead of paying for a gym or pool membership. Besides, she could say hello to more people this way. Finally she reached the cafe, and saw Jenna sitting at their usual table. The two friends hugged in greeting, and Ann looked around. "So where's your friend?" she teased.
"Inside, ordering," Jenna replied. Both of them always got the same thing for lunch every Tuesday, so the waitresses knew them by name.
"Well, are you going to give me a little information on what I should be looking out for?" Ann finally asked.
"There's not really much to tell on his personality. Funny, kind, the usual thing. Doesn't have a girlfriend." Jenna wiggled her eyebrows.
