"Have a nice night!"

Ella Moore looked at the change in her hand, grazing each coin over once with her thumb to be sure she had gotten the right amount before stuffing it into her purse. "Thanks, you too!" She flashed the cashier a smile before gathering her bags, most of which were filled with ingredients for what she planned to make for dinner that night.

Before she left the store, she made sure her hat was covering her ears so she wouldn't get too cold on the rest of her way home. Little strands of her curly blonde hair popped of out the edges of her hat but she did her best to ignore that and continue on her way. As usual, Ella was quite out of it on her walk home, her mind was always wondering during the day. She had it made, all things considered. She managed a nice store that gave her fairly generous pay, at least generous enough to support herself and her cat with money to spare. Despite this, she felt a tiny bit missing from her life. Her father had moved away, in attempt to get out of the city, and soon after most of her friends did the same. Ella had originally hoped to go to college and be a teacher, but something had held her back from that and here she was, still where she was and still working a less than fulfilling job. She had friendly neighbors in the apartment complex, of course, but that didn't stop her from missing her old friends. It was a strange feeling, but sometimes she thought that her life would be even a little better if she just had someone to have dinner with once in a while.

In that moment, Ella felt her foot catch on something and she plummeted to the ground. She scrambled back onto her knees and looked back to seeing it hadn't been something she'd tripped over but someone. "I'm so sorry!" Ella had always been clumsy so this wasn't something new to her, but she still felt bad for the man. It was freezing out and he looked like he didn't have anywhere warm to stay and to top it off she had gone and woken him up. She stared back at him for a moment, speechless, before gathering her groceries (most of which thankfully hadn't fallen out of the bags). Now, there was something about this particular homeless man that seemed familiar to Ella, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She felt as if she knew him from somewhere and wanted to place a name on him.

Once her groceries were gathered, she began to dig through her purse, still sitting on the ground beside him. "Here," She held out a twenty dollar bill to him, "Do I know you? I'm, ah, Ella. You've got a familiar face, you know? I'm almost positive I've seen it before, obviously not lately, seeing as I can't think of your name..."