The Twilight Twenty-Five

thetwilight25[dot]com

Prompt: #16 – Italian Restaurant

Pen Name: loss4words

Pairing/Main Character(s): Rosalie

Rating: M for language

Photo prompts can be viewed here:

thetwilight25[dot]com/round-six/prompts

Prompt 16: Italian Restaurant

He watched her - the girl with the bird, that is. He felt this pull to her. He'd seen her everyday in the same place for the last two and a half weeks.

It happened by accident. He'd caught a taxi that had taken a wrong turn. He needed to get over to East 5th, but instead, the cabbie had taken a left and he'd ended up over on Turlington - eight city blocks away from where he needed to be. And yeah, he hadn't been paying attention, so he didn't notice until the cab was stopped. He had a deadline.

He angrily threw the money at the cabbie, although he shouldn't have had to pay for the shit ride, and began hiking it back in the direction that he'd come from. Three blocks later, he had a blister. Damn new shoes.

He looked around for a place to sit, but there wasn't one, at least not nearby. He pulled up a map on his phone and began to walk west a little bit, even though it was out of his way, but he was already late, so there was no point in rushing or even attempting to make it on time.

As he walked to his new destination, he tapped out a quick text to say he couldn't make it, and they'd have to reschedule for later in the week.

A few minutes later he found himself at the opening of a park. It was slow this time of day, so there were only a few people scattered around the large fountain that greeted the park dwellers.

There were grassy areas where some lazed about on blankets reading books or having picnics, but he didn't want that. He needed a place to sit, so he quickly moved to a bench just ten feet from the fountain.

He sat down quickly, peeling his sock from his foot to check out the mess he was sure he had on the back of his heel. It wasn't yet bleeding, but it had already blistered and ripped open. There was nothing much else to do but to remove the other sock and shoe. He grumbled to himself. He must look a fool. Three thousand dollar suit, briefcase, and barefoot. Fuck it. He wasn't putting those bastard shoes back on. He'd hail another cab, or call for his sister to pick him up.

He must have been loud enough to hear in his grumblings, because when he looked up, a girl with a bird was watching him. She quickly looked away, but not fast enough for his curiosity to not get the best of him.

She sat on the edge that surrounded the fountain, where a few others were also spaced out. Beside her, was a small, antique birdcage with the door hanging open. A small, but plump bird sat inside, and the woman looked at it expectantly. He could see her lips moving as she spoke to the bird, but he could not hear a word she said.

He sat there for a length of time, not realizing that it was beginning to get dark. The entire time, he watched the woman. For a while he pretended to be working on his phone, then, pulled out files from his briefcase to appear focused. The last thing he was focused on was work. The only thing on his mind, was the girl with the bird.

But why?

When the sky began to grow dark in the evening sky, he watched her unwrap something from around her finger, and place it in her pocket. She shut the door of the birdcage, picked it up, and walked through the entrance of the park, not once giving him a glance. Some young idiot said something to her on her way out and in return, she gave him an icy glare. The boy blanched.

He could see she had an icy exterior, but inside, he thought there was a flame that melted her down to sweetness. He wanted to find out how to see more of it.

So it was now his thing. The park. Everyday. Even if it was completely out of the way of work and home. And she was always there, with the bird and the birdcage.

After the first couple of days, he moved to a different bench to get a better glimpse of her. He knew she was gorgeous, but all he had ever seen was her profile. Her hair would sometimes look white, if the sun was bright and the sky cloudless, but there were other days that it appeared more of a honey color. It was long, and on windy days, whisped around her head like cornsilk in the summer breeze.

He didn't care if she noticed him after the beginning of the second week, so it was then, that he finally sat the closest to her. She kept her head down, focusing on the bird, but every once in a while, she looked up. She knew he was there, felt his presence, but went back to the bird.

Things changed that first day of the second week. Whereas before, he had not been able to see what she was doing, he now had a perfect view.

Upon her arrival, because he now arrived before she did, she sat down, opened the door to the birdcage, and waited. After several minutes of nothing, she sighed, her shoulders lifting and falling in defeat, and then reached into the right pocket of the charcoal grey hoodie she wore everyday. From it, she pulled a red thread - one you'd use to mend a button fallen off a coat. With the string, she wrapped it several times on her index finger, and with the tail, laid it upon the concrete fountain bench.

It was the first time he'd seen the bird move so much, but he watched as it hopped down from its perch inside, and flitted its wings to get outside. Bouncing over to the string without much effort from its wings, it plucked up the string in its beak, then bounced back inside of the cage.

He was confused by what he was watching, and further confused by the woman's reaction. While he still didn't have a decent view of her face, he could still see the defeat by the bird's reaction in the way she carried her body.

And finally, he could no longer take it. The more he watched her, the more he itched to have some type of real interaction with her. Four days since he'd first sat across from her, he finally decided to sit at the fountain. Not directly beside her, but to her left by just a few feet. But this angle is not satisfactory, as he cannot see any of her actions.

She speaks to the bird every once in a while, but it is soft words, and he is unable to make out what she is saying. He finally stands, having summoned the courage, and goes to stand in front of her. She scowls, looking up at him with the sun in her eyes, so he crouches down, and she follows his figure.

This is the first time he sees it, the scar that takes up residence on her high cheekbone on the left side of her face. It does nothing to hide her beauty. If anything, it magnetizes it by announcing the fact that she is a survivor of some kind.

He opens his mouth to speak, but she begins telling him what is going on without needing any kind of prompt from him.

"This stupid bird flew into my apartment two months ago and hurt itself, so I mended its wing. I even had it checked out by a veterinarian. There is no reason that this bird cannot fly. It can fly. But it refuses too. I do not know what to do." She says it quickly, and he has to pay deep attention to the way her lips move, as her thick French accent curls her words in ways that he's not used to.

He points to the string, noticing that she has the other end of it, the end the bird doesn't hold, is wrapped several times around her index finger, and in a soft tone, asks, "Why do you have that wrapped around your finger? What is the string for?"

"Oh, the girl at the clinic told me to do it. She said it would help the bird decide when it was ready to fly. It isn't working," she explains.

He points to her the thread around her finger. "May I?"

She keeps her hand in place, but gives him a small nod.

With gentle hands, he unwraps the thread from her finger, but before he puts it down, he asks, "Are you ready for the bird to fly away?"

She looks in his eyes then, because how could he know that she had been asking herself the same thing nearly every day? She quickly looks away before she can allow this stranger to see any emotion in her eyes, and looks at the bird. The bird wants to be free. She knows it. She looks back at him, and nods. She watches his hand as he places the thread on the bench, then looks at the bird. It gives a small chirp and twists its head. Seconds later, it flees the cage and takes to the sky.

The woman gasps. "How did you know to do that?"

He shrugs. The bird was here because you needed it to be. You let it go because you were ready, so it was ready."

"But it was a wild bird. It should have tried to flee at its first chance!" she exclaimed.

Again, he shrugged. "Bird with an old soul?"

At that she laughed, and he swore it was the best thing he'd ever heard.

"I think I owe you a drink after that. Especially since you've been trying to help me with my problem for almost three weeks now." She announced.

He blushed a little. "You noticed."

As they headed for the park exit, she whispered, "I notice all things. How is your heel, by the way?"

This time it was his turn to laugh.

They crossed the busy street and he opened the door to a little Italian restaurant where she had led him to for a drink. Never in his life would he have thought to say no.

She climbed onto a barstool, and after he was situated, she offered him her hand. "My name is Rosalie. It is a pleasure to meet your acquaintance."

"I'm Emmett. And the pleasure belongs to me."