"So this is the end.”

“Says who?” 

“I don’t know, maybe the graduation cap still sitting on your head?” Jenny sipped her milkshake and looked up through her long brown hair at her best, and just about only, friend Ella. She had convinced Ella to have dinner with her after graduation before they got swept up in other family matters.

Ella adjusted the cap on her head and sat up straight, “My hat doesn’t speak for me. I speak for me, and I say, that this isn’t the end.”

Jenny smiled at her antics and reached across the table to steal a few of her friend’s fries. “What are you going to do, start over as a freshman? Repeat the 4 worst years ever?”

“No, of course not, high school has ended, and thank God for that.” 

“Amen,” Jenny agreed.

“But this isn’t the end. This is the start,” Ella assured.

“Start of what? Small town cycle that never ends? Work, marriage, kids, more work, a slow death in the retirement community across the street from Phil’s auto parts?” 

Ella deflated a little but retained her confident demeanor, “Well, when you put it like that,” she replied sarcastically.

“I’m sorry, it’s just, doesn’t any part of you hope for more than that?” She leaned forward to get Ella’s attention. “Don’t you ever get some of those.. Oh, what do they call them?”

“Intrusive thoughts?” Ella guessed.

Jenny rolled the words around her mind, then shook her head in thought. “No,” she declared and stood up from the booth, to head towards the trash can. “More like day dreams. About just running away from all this?” Ella stood up with her and collected the wrappers from their table. 

“Run where? You don't know anyone out of town.” Ella playfully hip checked Jenny, knocking her into the table next to them where an elderly woman was seated. 

“Ella!” Jenny scolded. She turned to the lady, “I’m so sorry, my friend here doesn’t seem to realize there are other people in the restaurant.”

The lady smiled kindly at them both. “That’s quite alright dear, I remember what it was like to be your age.” 

Jenny smiled in return and turned back to Ella continuing towards the door. “Anyways, I know, I don’t know anyone out of town, but I’d meet people.”

“Ok, still, where would you go? Your family is here, your job is here, and more importantly, I’m here,” Ella replied boldly and Jenny couldn’t help but laugh at that. “And if you leave I’ll have no one to push into tables, or to not invite to parties.”

“Yeah I know. I know you’re right. Speaking of, you’re going to be late to your mother’s dinner.” 

“Alright, I’m going, get home safe babe.” After a quick hug Ella hopped across the street on her way to her house to get ready.

“You too,” Jenny called out and continued on her way home. She couldn’t stop thinking about what her best friend had said to her. Did she really not think that Jenny was capable of leaving town?

Consumed in her thoughts the walk home had passed by quickly, and before she knew it Jenny was walking up her driveway and shaking her head at the ridiculous graduation banner hanging on the front of her small home. Her parents had been a whole mess of emotions when it came to her graduation. Upset that their only baby was growing up, proud of her accomplishments, but mostly just excited for her to have finished highschool.

“Jenny!” Her mother cooed as she stepped through the front door. “Haven’t we said just how proud we are of you!”

Jenny hugged her briefly and walked into the kitchen adjacent to the front door to find her father making her favorite dinner, and even though she had just eaten with Ella, there was a grumble in her stomach. “Yeah, mom, just about 400 times, today alone. Before the ceremony, after the ceremony… and don’t think I didn’t hear you shout it while I was on stage.” Jenny rolled her eyes, but smiled nonetheless. Being the only child meant being the only focus of her parents' praise and as embarrassing as it could be, especially in public, she would be lying if she said she didn’t love them for it. 

“That was all your mother,” her father said without turning around from the stove. 

Jenny reached up to kiss him on the cheek. “Hey dad, that smells wonderful.”

He turned from the stove and left the food simmering on a low heat, sitting down at the kitchen table with Jenny and her mom joining him. “It won’t be done for a while. How was Ella?”

“Just as you’d expect, glad to be done with school, not worried about the future in the least.”

“That sounds like Ella,” her mother responded. “But there’s nothing to worry about anyway. I mean you both have good jobs right now and have been accepted to the local college, so you can live at home.” 

Jenny nodded but turned her head as an attempt to hide the uncomfortable look on her face. Obviously the attempt was unsuccessful because her father gave her a look of his own.

“What’s up with the look Jenny?” Her dad asked.

 Jenny took a breath, despite the discouragement of Ella, she still hoped she might get a better reaction from her parents. “Well it’s not that I’m not super excited about living here for another lifetime. But I was thinking, I don’t know, that maybe I should do some exploring or something first.”

“You know, that’s a really good idea, we could go on a family road trip! We could bring Ella if you want?” Her father replied.

Jenny laughed disheartenedly, “Actually I was thinking, I don’t know, by myself?”

Her parents turned to each other for a moment and Jenny could tell they were thinking about what she had said, almost like having a silent conversation. 

“By yourself?” her mom asked. “Why?”

“I don’t know, I just feel like I could learn so much.”

“You’re gonna learn so much here. Plus what about strangers?” 

As their only child, Jenny always knew her parents were overprotective of her, so she had been expecting some backlash. “What about strangers?” Jenny asked.

“Well you won’t know anyone. And you’d be alone. And there are lots of bad bad people out there,” Jenny’s mother pleaded.

“You don’t think I can take care of myself.” It wasn’t a question.

“It’s not that your mother and I don’t think that you can take care of yourself. We’re just worried about you. And what are you going to do about your summer job? And what about Ella? And how are you going to keep yourself safe? You know you hear all those things on the news-”

“-Yeah, I know, I know, you’re right.”

“All those terrible people out there, kidnappings and stuff-” her dad reiterated 

“You’re right!” Jenny interrupted standing up from the table. She loved her parents but it was always 2 on 1 when it came to disagreements and she really didn’t want to argue about it. “It was just an idea! You know what? I think I’m going to go for a walk.” 

Before her parents could drill her more, Jenny had walked out her front door and down the road not paying much mind to where she was headed, just wanting to take a break from the suffocating presence of her parents and what was apparently where she was going to be living for the rest of her life. But she didn’t make it very far before an older woman she had bumped into at the dinner called out to her.

“Hello dear! Would you mind helping me with this?” The lady pointed to a trunk of a car parked outside a small house she knew was often being rented out temporarily. The trunk was filled with a couple bags of groceries that Jenny figured she could carry in one trip.

“Uh, yeah sure.” Jenny replied, grabbing a few bags in each hand and heading towards the front door. “Where do you want me to set them down?” She asked as the older lady walked in after closing the trunk of the car.

“You can set them on the counter. My name is Rose by the way,” the lady, Rose, said to Jenny with an endearing smile.

“I’m Jenny.” she smiled in return, setting the bags on the counter as Rose had asked.

“Thank you for your help hun. I don’t really have anyone around.”

“Of course, it’s really no trouble at all.” Having set down the bags Jenny stood almost awkwardly in the small kitchen, unsure as to whether she should stay or leave now that the task had been completed. But something about Rose had intrigued her, since seeing her in the diner earlier that day. 

“I don’t know if you’re busy but I was just about to put on the kettle if you’d like to stick around for some tea? I don’t have all that much company.” Rose walked about the kitchen turning on the stove and setting a kettle on top.

Jenny considered this for a moment before nodding and sitting down at the kitchen table in the middle of the room. After the disagreement with her parents, she was willing to take any distraction that came her way. “I’d love some tea.”

Rose smiled kindly and sat at the table across from her. “I’m really terribly sorry to intrude on you, but I did happen to overhear you talking to your friend earlier today at the diner. And really, I wasn’t trying to listen, but you were talking about the future? I assume you were a part of the graduation that happened today?”

“Oh, yeah, we were. I was hoping that I might not be the only one feeling a bit of wanderlust, but apparently I am. It doesn’t matter, I don't think I actually ever could leave here anyway.” 

“Oh and why is that?” Rose probed.

“I don’t know, my parents need me here, and I have a job this summer, and besides, even if I could, I don’t know where I’d go.” 

Rose stood from her seat and pulled the singing kettle off of the heat of the stove, then proceeded to prepare the mugs. “Anywhere. You could go anywhere. This town here is so small. The real world is so huge.” 

“That’s just it. The world is huge and that is terrifying. You see it on the news, all of the horrible people doing horrible things.” Jenny couldn’t help but cringe as the same argument her parents had made came out of her own mouth.

“Yeah, people are like that sometimes. Those news stations, they’ll tell you all of these terrible things, but they are just trying to scare you into their linear path. But I know a secret.” She carefully turned and carried the two full mugs over to the kitchen table and handed one to Jenny before sitting down again.

“And what is that?” Jenny asked before sipping her tea.

“I’ve lived for quite a long time now, and I’ve seen quite a lot of this big ol’ world. I’ve sat in more train cars than I can count. Met more people that I could ever possibly remember, and sure there were some bad ones out there. There is always gonna be some selfish jerk living in their own world, those are the ones they like to show on the news. But if I’ve learned anything in all my years is that the world is so much softer, and so much kinder, and so much better than anything anyone could ever tell you. And just beyond the fear and doubt, it’s all waiting out there. I said the world is huge and it is.But, it’s the people that make it small. It’s not my place to say, honestly. But all the ones who tell you that you shouldn’t just haven’t felt the itch.”

Jenny couldn’t help but stare back at Rose. How is it that someone she had just met today could be confirming things she had been wondering about for ages. It seemed as though for once, someone was speaking her language. Jenny realized that despite the rejection of her friends and family all she ever needed was one person to understand from her point of view. What were the odds that the first day she had dared to ponder out loud to her loved ones her desire to travel, she would bump into someone who with a few words could wash away their discouragements?

“You’re right.” Jenny replied, surprising Rose. It wasn’t the first time Jenny had said that today but it was the first time she had meant it. She stood from her seat and Rose stood with her, and she surprised Rose once again with a hug. “Thank you so much, it was incredibly wonderful to meet you. I think I have to go buy a train ticket now.”