He turned his back to her while pouring some milk into a bowl as though he was going to feed a cat. He then placed the bowl onto the table in front of her, where also had been placed a big plate full of cookies.

"Here is the thing. " He sat opposite her and stretched a hand to bathe a cookie into the milk. "I was home-sick. No, not that kind of homesick when you miss your home. I was at home, on the sofa, and I was getting sick because of that. Got it?"

"Yes, I think." She answered, not touching the sweets yet. Albeit her belly had been roaring  for food since forever she didn't feel like eating. No food would go through, it would come back before reaching the stomach and she knew that. Unfortunately the "how to look confident when you are actually peeing in your pants" course was missing from the shelf, she had to buy one fast and straight.

"So when I realized I was home-sick I tried to reverse the situation by reading newspaper. And when I saw that French name listed there on the front page..."

You couldn't think of anyone else to invite besides me.

"...So, what you think?" Octavian asked.

"You said that we were going to hell."

"Hell is relative. You may not but I hate french people."

🚪👒🚪

The day was cloudy, with rain but no wind, yet they had no time to notice peculiarities about the weather in any way. Except when they had to cover their heads with their coats or the little rain would give them a bath. Which by the way, it did.

They drove west from Maple Ridge for 10 minutes. Then they took the Sky Train at Coquitlam Station because Octavian said he hated to drive Dowtown. Helen passed her blue card to take the train, and she was excited although it was not the first time she'd take such transport and nothing she did or said expressed a thing. The SkyTrain was a super long track held up by massive concrete pillars so cars could easily pass under. It was a popular and excellent way of traveling, and didn't run so fast like normal trains, the ones with smoke. As about the trip with Octavian was good or not until that moment, that was also relative. Helen would still keep herself alert at every suspicious movement coming from him. This included random sideways glances and the glass pot containing food that he suddenly opened in the train.

"What is this?!" Helen asked.

"Rice." He said. "with corn and other stuff to make it healthy." He took a fork and a bottle of water from a backpack, and started eating as thought nothing was wrong. The only one staring was Helen, matter of factly, so the abnormal person must be her. It wasn't her fault, she had never seen someone having a meal inside a train, and Octavian had just eaten breakfast (in her house, we may add), cookies with loads of carbo and sugar. The rice he was eating now must be cold and tasting badly, there were some pieces of meat mixed with tomato sauce and corn... ugh!

The more she stared the more she felt hungry. "Are we almost there?" - she didn't remember what those stations were and what they meant.

"Almost. Most people stop here but we will go further... I need to buy a computer, would you mind stopping at Pacific Center mall? There are clothing stores for you to check if you'd like. And food." - he added, smiling and closing his glass pot, now empty and dirty.