"I heard you are in college!"
Tinsley started the conversation, not liking the silence.
Yes! I work per time here. Saving some money you know. Tuition fees are very costly."
Kyle replied. He was almost over with his college degree and Tin only could wonder how it was like to be studying in a college.
"So how is it like to study in a college??"
She asked, wondering if it were the same as how the books and movies described.
"You never went in one??"
Kyle implored. He had never known anything about her enough. All he knew was that she was new to the city and lived somewhere near the diner.
She painted and sold some of it at weekends in the city centre. He saw her there, standing with her paintings.
He had not dared to approach her then because he was with his college friends and they had been teasing him for having a crush on a married redhead woman from his workplace.
Tin shook her head in a big no. She was not ashamed to state the truth that she had not.
"You still could enrol in one, you know...you are still young."
Kyle offered and there was a possibility...a void in her heart where she indeed wanted to go to a college and study but the situations at present were not so adaptable for that idea.
"It's costly to get in one!"
"You could apply for a scholarship or take a student loan?"
Kyle suggested and neither of the options seemed too possible for her. She was not intelligent enough to land a scholarship or had enough money to get a student loan and repay it later.
"Neither of it seems to be visible for me at present."
"Well, you know four years of college, you could literally put it to be wastage of a bunch of money which you could have used somewhere else."
He said and it made sense a bit but yet Tinsley could not come to accept that four years of a college education could be a wastage of money.
It empowered the individual and not having one college degree herself, she could tell how much important it was to have one unlike for entrepreneurs.
They took a turn and she was almost there. She turned around to bid farewell to Kyle but then when her eyes landed on the broken lock...she was shocked.
"Fuck!! It must have been the burglar!"
Kyle stated and they both got inside. Her house was a mess. The money that she had saved for this month's rent underneath her mattress was gone.
She was at least glad about one fact that ever since the burglary news, she had been carrying her savings around with her which was as risky as getting robbed at the street.
No wonder why she took upon Kyle's offer to walk her by. The rest of the things were untouched. Her paintings were scattered and some were even ruined.
"You okay?"
He asked her when she came out of the bedroom. She nodded her head, not having much to say.
"I have called 911 ok...stay put!"
He said and she just stared around the condition, the mess her house was in. When she had left, it was neat and cleaned.
Kyle could see that she was shaken by the incident and so he came forward, standing on the partition of the living room and the kitchen.
"Hey?? Everything is fine! I m here!"
He consoled her, touching her shoulder, trying to get her back to her senses. And all of a sudden, she just threw herself onto his arms, trying to hideaway.
He hugged her back, running his hand over her back, trying to calm her down. She eased into the hug...oh how long had it been going without a hug!
The next day, Madi called coming to know about the entire burglary incident. They were glad that it had happened when she was at work.
Tinsley apologised to Lana for not being able to pay this month's rent and Lana only asked her to be safer and that she did not give two fucks about that money.
The old woman, Jessica, dropped by, apologising for not knowing about the burglary when it had happened.
She had fallen asleep long ago before it actually happened. Tin understood that the old lady slept earlier before nine in the evening. She could never blame her.
They talked over a cup of tea. Tinsley took her first day off from work for the past four months about to get in five.
"It really must feel so lonely to be all by yourself!"
Jessica remarked, sipping on her cup of tea. Tin had nothing to say. Most of the time, her mind would be so occupied to even feel the loneliness.
"Number one remedy for not ending up alone is always to have a child of your own..."
And it made Tin choke on her tea. She had never thought the conversation would take a turn into this.
"I have made that mistake, of not having it in the right age and look at me...almost sixty without anyone to call mine..."
Jessica recalled her days...those youthful ones where she did not even once think that she would someday end up alone like this, juggling between work and life.
"People would say that it's not necessary but it is not really true, you feel it when you are single, with no one to mourn your near-death...you have not left anyone in this earth to call yours...life becomes an utter failure."
The old woman shed a few tears and Tin came forward to pull her in for a hug and tell her that she would be there for her.
Jessica rubbed her tears away and excused herself for crying over her miserable life.
Later, in the evening when steadying her house all alone, those words kept hitting her mind.
She looked around and finally, she felt it...how lonely she was. She had nobody to call hers either.
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