Chapter 2

It had been a week since I had received the leaflet that would change my life. I had all the paperwork arranged and had closed the deal with the former owner of Raisin Ranch*. My dad had objected loudly to the absurd idea at first, but my mom had convinced him it would be good for me to meet new people and experience new things. She had stated it would be selfish of them to keep me around to reassure them I was still alive and I agreed with her. Together my mom and I persuaded him to let me go on adventure, provided that I called my parents at least once every three days. High on dopamine I had gone to the hairdresser's and gotten myself a natural looking, brown wig. It looked pretty similar to how my own hair used to look, save for the fact the wig had been made out of horse hair. It had felt good to be a little bit normal again. I looked out of the plane window again, still as thrilled as the first time I did so. I had never dared to imagine flying would be this awesome. I decided that if reincarnation existed, I was gonna be bird.

With merely a suitcase, a bagpack and a collection of official papers, I arrived at the airport. It was incredibly crowded, but the large crowd only got me more excited. Before catching a cab, I visited the souvenir shop quickly and got myself a tiny plane figurine. Under normal circumstances, I would never buy souvenirs. I didn't like them, I would always end up losing them and they weren't worth the money. But my diagnosis had changed things quite a bit and I changed my mind. I needed something tangible to remind me of the adventures I had gone on and the things I had experienced.

"Where is it you want to go, missy?" The driver asked.

"The harbor. As quickly as possible, please." He nodded and abruptly pushed in the gas pedal. According to my schedule it would take half an hour in the least to get to the harbor. But with this driver, it only took half the time. When we arrived at the harbor, I give an applause and he lifted his cap, honoured.

The harbor wasn't any less crowded than the airport had been, but it didn't hinder me at all. I ran aboard, convinced a random guy to go with me to the bow of the ship and hold me like the dude in the Titanic. Why he agreed to it, I don't know, but I enjoyed every second of it as I breathed in the salty air while the wind blew through my hair. I was about to close my eyes when I realised I had forgotten something. I quickly pecked the guy's cheek as a token of thanks and stormed off; I had left my suitcase on the pier. Luckily, it was still there when I arrived. And luckily, the ship hadn't left while I was fetching my luggage.

Slightly disorientated, nauseous and dizzy, I got off the ship. My tummy grumbled and it had the right to. Due to seasickness, my lunch drifted somewhere in the big wide ocean now. Poor lunch. I sighed and dragged myself to the diner near by. Compared to the earlier places I had been that day, the diner was very peaceful and even quiet. Apart from the man behind the counter, there were only two persons present. A pretty girl with long blonde hair and a green dress eating a fish dish sat in the upper right corner, and a young man with a cowboy hat with a don't-come-near-me aura eating porridge in the opposite corner. I was heading for the counter when the dizziness caught me off-guard. My vision got blurred and the world started to spin around me and with shaky knees, I took a few more steps. I must have been looking pretty drunk before I collapsed.

"…collapsed…"

"…call …doctor..?"

I vaguely registered voiced around me. My head hurt. And not just my head, my everything hurt. It felt as if I had been knocked down by a truck. A very big truck. I let out a low growl as I attempted to get up, but someone pushed me back on my back. I cracked my eyes open and found myself looking at two friendly-looking brown ones.

"She's up!" Their blonde owner happily exclaimed. I attempted to get up again, confused. This time the blonde didn't push me down. The man who had been behind the counter earlier had been speaking on the phone when the blonde called, while the man with the cowboy hat, whom I had officially named 'Cowboy', had been flipping through a thick book. I assumed it was a phone book. The dinner's owner hung up the phone and gave the cowboy a nod.

"Would you mind bringing her home, Vaughn?" He inquired. The Cowboy raised an eyebrow.

"Raisin Ranch. She appears to be the new rancher." The Cowboy merely nodded before walking over to me and scooping me off the floor. I would have objected if I felt any better than I did right then. Instead, I just enjoyed the warmth of his chest and his strong arms holding me.

I must have drifted to sleep somewhere on the way to the ranch, because when I woke up, I found myself in a soft bed, buried underneath numerous sheets. Although it felt as if my head had been filled with cotton, I still felt better than I did at the dinner. I turned around so I would be lying on my left side and saw the Cowboy sitting on a chair next to my bed. He had taken the hat off, though. That would make him the silvery haired guy now.

"You feeling any better?" he inquired.

"Right as rain," I mumbled and he nodded.

"Good. I made you some noodles." He stood up and disappeared out of my sight, but returned a few seconds later with a damping bowl with noodles. Meanwhile I managed it to be sitting upstraight and he handed me a damping bowl and a pair of chopsticks before sitting back down on the chair next to my bed.

"You might wanna see a doctor." I simply nodded while nibbling the noodles. They tasted somewhat funny. A silence filled the room while I finished my second lunch of the day.

"In a village nearby, Mineral Town, is a very good doctor. I'm pretty certain he'll be able to fix you up," the hat-less cowboy, or silvery haired guy, suggested.

"You got his number?" I asked. I wasn't interested at that very moment, but it would have to come in handy later. I watched him stand up and rummage through drawers and cabinets. Eventually he found both a pen and a tiny piece of paper. He tried to flatten the sorry bit of paper a bit before penning the number down on it and handed it to me. I swallowed.

"Thank you. For the number and… helping me out."

"No problem." A short awkward silence followed. He folded his hands in his lap and leaned back on the chair.

"What's your name actually?"

"Chelsea. Yours?"

"Vaughn."

"Nice meeting you, Vaughn," I smiled. I could have been mistaken, but right then I could have sworn I saw something similar appear on his face.

*Raisin Ranch is a pun. You'll see if you add an apostrophe behind Raisin.
It doesn't add much to the story, but I like the name. It reminds me of the saying 'to raise someones spirits'.

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