he sat there. She was alone on a train full of people. Sitting there fidgeting with her backpack and enveloped in her own thoughts, she caught the looks of everyone who walked past her. Something about her seemed different. She most definitely didn’t fit in on the train, but the most peculiar thing about her is that she didn’t care. Despite her fatigue, she smirked as though she found out a huge secret. She looked pretty in a rough way and seemed to have not slept in a very long time. The red in her cheeks hinted at recent endeavors with tears and her slouched demeanor only accented the dark circles under her eyes. Everyone around her had their own ideas about how she got here, about how she ended up in car 4 of the overnighter from Paris to Copenhagen, but no one could guess what her problem really was.

Charlie had always been independent. She never relied on anyone, even her parents, for anything. She felt like she had it all figured out and walked around with a haughty and prideful gait about her. Her friends all looked to her as the responsible one; Charlie was the one with all of the answers. She had opportunities and liberties none of her friends had due to her parents heavy work schedule. She had been grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, and planning for her since age 10 and knew no other mode. She was always the most rational of her peers and tended to be a little but uptight. With these attributes came a sense of entitlement that she wore on her sleeve. Although many respected her and found her to be a lovely young lady with her head screwed on right, she would look back at her 16 year old self in years knowing she was in the wrong. A sense of overconfidence rushed through her body when she was presented with the opportunity to travel abroad for the summer on her own and explore the world for herself. She planned and planned and had the notion that nothing could go wrong.
“Guys, Where is my phone?” she exclaimed in the lobby of a rundown hostel in Paris.
“You had it in the taxi, Charlie” the disappointed look in Jojo’s eyes said it all as she stared at Charlie in disbelief.
“Oh no!” Charlie started empting her things all over the counter on which the three girls were trying to check into their home for the night.
“Could you have left it in the cab?” They had all been thinking it, including the front desk worker, but Janet was the only one to say it.
“Oh no. There is no way. How could I be so stupid?” Charlie sat up on her knees and looked down at all her things all over the floor of the lobby with a pout and sorrow in her eyes. “My parents are going to kill me.”
“It happens Charlie, your parents will understand.” Jojo bent down and started helping Charlie pick up her things and shove them into her huge backpack.

Twenty-four hours later, Charlie sat in the Lobby of a different hotel sobbing over a pay phone pleading with her mom to go home.
“I can’t do this without a phone mommy. I can’t just rome around cities I'm unfamiliar with without a phone. It scared me.”
Her face found itself in a structural pattern of tensing up and relaxing.
“Are you sure Mommy? Thank you so much Mom. I love you so much.” Charlie almost seemed surprised by the words coming out of her mouth. Tears streaming down her face, sniffling ever 3 seconds or so, Charlie slowly brought her quivering arm up to face and wiped the salty drops from her cheeks. She had never felt so low in her entire life. Although everything would be okay, it was the end of the world for Charlie because she needed help from her mommy.

The next morning, Charlie left her friends who she had been backpacking with prior on the trip and headed towards the train station. Although she was ready to head back to her safe haven in Denmark, where her family lived and where she felt comfortable, the train was not.
She sat down in a cafe in he train station, sighed, and tried to get comfortable. Two hours passed, and there was two hours left until Charlie's train was supposed to come. She felt anxious with no phone to cling to and no connection with her parents at all.
"Bonjour" a figure stood over her.
"Bonjour! Es-que vous parle anglais?" she looked up at the friendliest blue eyes she had ever seen.
"Yes, I speak English" a smile spread across his face.
"Have a seat!" Charlie removed her boot from the chair across from her for the tall and handsome dandy haired man.
"What is your name?" Charlie could not believe she was so welcoming to this complete stranger.
"Thomas Renault. And yourself?"
"Charlie" she was blushing.
"Where are you from Charlie?"
"America, Where are you from?"
"Well Charlie from America, I was born in Argentina, but I currently reside in the South of France. What brings a beautiful young girl like you to Paris?"
"I was backpacking"
"WAS backpacking? It looks like your still backpacking to me"
"Well I lost my phone in a taxi and now I have to head back to where my family lives."
"Why do you have to end an adventure because you lost a sentimentally invaluable piece of technology?"
Charlie was taken back and a little convicted. "Well, I don't know I just figured it wasn’t safe without it"
"Did people not backpack around Europe back before cell phones were more prevalent in the pockets of people just like yourself?"
"Well, I guess when you -"
"I mean you spent all of the money to come here from America to come and explore this beautiful and historical continent and you’re going to let that be cut short all because you left your little plastic security blanket in a sleepy Parisian Taxi?"
Charlie looked down.
"Its okay" Thomas softened, " I just pinned you as someone who took adventures and didn’t worry about menial objects like cell phones. In fact, that’s why I approached you. You were not sitting here on a phone or ipad, but just sitting here reading and letting your surroundings envelop you. Not enough people do that anymore and look as content with is as you
before i walked up."
"Well I didn’t really think about it like that." she smiled at Thomas
"Just think how much more extraordinary all human interaction would be if we weren’t so glued to technology, I mean look at this lovely conversation and this lovely eye contact we are sharing" He took a sip of his coffee.
About 25 minutes passed and Thomas checked his watch.
“Oh its time for me to go. It was lovely talking to you Charlie.”

After he left Charlie thought and thought about the conversation she had just had with this infatuating stranger. She thought to herself “Why have I been spending so much time on my phone, worrying about social media, pictures and everyone back home when I could have been really taking in Europe?
She checked her watch. It was time; she picked up her backpack and boarded her train already planning her next trip in her head.