Formal Introduction
The next day Fidella sat on the couch watching TV while Breena played with her toys at her feet. Then Yasmin came through the front door and pulled Fidella up.
"Girl we are going to the mall, now!"
"Now?" Fidella asked. She was still very reluctant to leave the house.
"Yeah, Jade is coming too. Let's go!"
"Um…well I…"
Jade came into their house. "Hey you guys."
Fianna came in. "Oh joy, someone else I have to report for breaking and entering. Let me go call the police," she said sarcastically.
"Oh well, you know, Yasmin here just came to my house while I was asleep and I'm like 'woman, what the fuck?' and she dragged me by my ankles out of the bed…" Jade turned to Fidella. "So are you coming?"
Fidella sighed. "Yeah I guess."
Yasmin put her hand on her shoulder. "Don't look so down, it'll be fun girl."
Fidella tried to smile and try not to look too afraid. "Yeah…sure."
They left Fianna's house and got in Jade's car. "Hey, Della, why are you at Fianna's house?" Jade asked.
Fidella went with the lie she told Fianna. "I just…need some time away from Eithan."
"You're gonna break up with him?"
"Of course not! I just…I just can't mooch off of him for the rest of my life, I need to be independent."
"Does he even know you're at Fianna's because when Gabs and I went there he acted like he didn't know where you were," Yasmin said.
"Oh, um, I told him, he probably just forgot, that's all." Fidella figured she was making herself pretty obvious but Yasmin and Jade didn't try to talk her into telling the truth like Fianna did.
Meanwhile at the mall the guy Fidella met the other day was at the music store with his best friends Koby and Dylan.
"Dude where did you go the other night, you just abandoned me," Dylan said.
"That sounded gay," Koby pointed out.
"You get what I mean!"
"Sorry about that Dyl. I picked up this girl…"
"Oh you picked up a girl? Did you have fun?"
"What? No! Not like that, I took her to her sister's house…"
"You did not!" Koby exclaimed once again getting the wrong idea.
"It wasn't like that either! God, do you guys think about anything else but sex?"
Koby and Dylan were laughing at the whole situation. "Sorry dude, but how are we supposed to take that?" Dylan asked trying to catch his breath.
"What did this chick look like?" Koby asked.
"She was the most beautiful thing in the world. She had really long hair, a nice figure, and those eyes, those eyes, they were like the eyes of an angel!"
"You mean like that girl over there?" Koby asked pointing to Fidella and her friends who were just a few yards away.
His mouth dropped. "Yeah her! Gee, what are the odds of meeting her again?"
Dylan put his hand on his shoulder. "Well then go talk to her dude. Work some of your smooth magic."
He removed Dylan's hand. "No way! I probably came off as some kind of weirdo."
"Why would you say that?" Koby asked.
"Koby, if a random guy came up to you in the street and offered you a ride home, what would you do?"
Dylan laughed.
"I'd be pretty disturbed if a guy came up to me in the street and offered me a ride home," Koby said. He broke out laughing with Dylan.
"You guys are so wrong…"
Fidella and the girls were walking to DSW. Fidella was starting to feel more comfortable since she hadn't seen Eithan and she was actually starting to enjoy herself.
"You guys wanna know something weird?" she asked.
"What?"
"A few days ago, when I was walking to Fianna's, I ran into this guy."
"Ooh, a guy!" Jade said.
"What, did he ask you out?" Yasmin asked.
"No, he probably wanted to though. But he drove me to her house."
"You let a random guy on the street drive you to your sister's house? He could have been a rapist, or a serial killer, or…"
"Quit sounding like Fianna, he was kinda nice."
"You wanna cheat on Eithan?" Jade exclaimed.
"No! Never!" Fidella would never dream of cheating on Eithan, what if he were to find out. "All I said was he was nice. And anyway, the whole situation was strange. He kept offering to carry my stuff and what not, I kinda felt like he was pestering me."
"Ooh you've got a stalker girl!" Yasmin said giggling.
"Whatever."
"Hey, if you ever meet him again, can you check if he's got some friends?" Jade asked. They gave her a strange look and she just shrugged.
"What did he look like Della?" Yasmin asked.
"Well, he was pretty tall, he had nice dark hair, thick eyebrows, and some gorgeous eyes," Fidella explained.
"Oh you mean like that guy over there?" Yasmin asked pointing to the some guys they were about to pass.
"Yeah! That's him. Gosh that's weird."
"He's cute," Jade said. They stared at her again. "I'm not talking about him, his friend with the buzz cut."
"You should talk to him," Yasmin said.
"I know but what if he already has a girlfriend, that would be so embarrassing," Jade said.
"Not you! Della."
"I couldn't do that, I'm with Eithan," Fidella said.
"True."
"But if you change your mind can you ask him to introduce me to his cute friend?" Jade asked.
Fidella rolled her eyes. "No."
Later that day Fidella was headed to Macy's where she was supposed to be meeting Yasmin and Jade. She'd just been at Claire's checking out something she saw there a few weeks ago but it was gone by now. She was answering a text from Jade, telling her where in the store they'd be and wasn't paying attention to where she was going when she ran into someone.
"Whoa, what the…" she looked up and saw the guy who'd driven her to Fianna's. She was speechless with surprise.
"I'm so sorry," he said. He held out his hand and she took it then he helped her up.
"No, it was my fault." She put her phone back into her pocket. She looked at him still surprised at seeing him again. After a few seconds she figured he thought he was practically mute so she found her voice. "Well…I guess I should go. I'm um, supposed to e meeting my friends at Macy's."
"Do you mind if I walk you?" he asked.
Once again she was surprised but shouldn't have been this time. "Yeah, um, sure you can."
They started walking to Macy's. "You know, I never got your name," he said.
"It's Fidella."
He nodded. "Fidella," he said to himself. "That's really pretty."
"Thanks. My sister and I kind of get complimented a lot for having…strange names."
"What's her name?"
"Fianna."
He nodded again. "Personally I like Fidella better."
She blushed. "What's your name?"
"Braden."
"I like that." They both laughed.
"You know, I saw you earlier with your friends," Braden said.
"You did?" she said.
"Yeah, you walked right past us."
"Oh yeah, I saw you too, but I didn't think you saw me."
"Must have stopped looking, but how could I miss you?" He noticed she was wearing the cross around her neck again. "That's a nice necklace you've got there."
She involuntarily touched it. "Thanks. My mother gave it to me; the chain just broke the other day so I had to replace it." She thought afterwards, why am I telling him all this?
"I can't believe we saw each other again, and at the most random place."
Fidella chuckled slightly. "Yeah, what are the odds?"
All of a sudden he slipped his hand in hers. This also surprised her and she contemplated pulling it back but held his hand back.
Fidella Manos, what are you doing, she thought. You can't possibly get close to this guy! Then you'll fall in love with him, and then when Eithan finds you and him together he'll unleash his fury on both of you! Stop it!
She ignored her conscience; in fact she pretty much didn't hear what it was saying. She just focused on the electricity that went through her as Braden held her hand.
"You know, since you mentioned it, someone like you with the name Fidella and all, probably gets a bunch of compliments all the time."
This made her blush. "That's far from the truth."
"I wouldn't think so after meeting you."
She blushed more and could've sworn her face looked like a tomato by now. "You really think so?"
"Why do you always sound so surprised?" he asked with a chuckle.
"I don't know, I guess, like I said before, I don't really get complimented like this a lot."
They were nearing Macy's now, they just had to go down the escalator and go a little ways right.
Braden was really starting to like her. She acted a bit nicer and less stressed out than the last time he'd seen her. Aside from how beautiful she was, she had an interesting personality. He wanted to ask her out, but maybe she didn't like him like that, after all, they didn't know each other all that well. But he somehow knew he just couldn't ignore this, it might be the start of something.
He stopped walking at the end of the escalator. "Hey, Fidella, do you want to maybe go out sometime?"
Fidella was, once again very surprised. Someone actually wanted to go out with her, for real reasons this time other than to hurt her. It amazed her because Eithan had always told her she was worthless and unattractive, and that no one would ever want to go with her and even he didn't, so she soon believed it. But then there was the possibility that if she actually went out with him, Eithan would catch them together and unleash his fury. She just couldn't go out with him for those reasons.
"Braden I…" She sighed regretting what she was about to say. "I can't go out with you." She looked down. If she weren't with Eithan she surely would have said yes.
"Why not?"
She swallowed her tears. "I just...can't. It's not you, I really like you. I just can't go out with you." She looked up at him and saw his innocent brown eyes looking back at her with hurt feelings and immediately felt terrible. "I'm sorry."
"Can we at least go to lunch? Not as a date or anything but just as friends?"
She smiled. "I'd like that."
They went to the food court and got burritos and punch from the Mexican restaurant. In the time that they were there she started to like him more. She'd been very reluctant around guys since all through her experience with Eithan but Braden was different. She found him easy to talk to. She found herself more comfortable around him than she'd felt around anyone in a long time. He was really nice, sweet and compassionate, and he listened to what she had to say. Clearly he was very interested in her. The more time she spent with him, the more she regretted saying no to the actual date he offered to her.
She checked her watch and found they'd been sitting there for close to an hour. "I guess I should be going. My friends are probably looking for me."
"Yeah, my friends are probably looking for me too," he said. Then he cracked a smile which she found extremely gorgeous. "I'll walk you to Macy's again."
She smiled as well. "Okay."
He walked her to Macy's this time not holding her hand even though he desperately wanted to.
"Well, here we are," he said when they got there.
"Yeah." She didn't want to leave him. "Will I see you again?"
He gave a knowing smile. "We miraculously saw each other today, who says we won't see each other again some other time?"
She looked down for a moment then smiled back at him. "Well, bye Braden."
"Bye Fidella."
She walked into Macy's to find Jade and Yasmin. She found them in the back looking at dresses.
"There she is," Yasmin said pointing.
"Girl where were you? We were waiting for over an hour!" Jade exclaimed.
"Sorry you guys, I guess I kind of got distracted."
"No worries Della," Yasmin said. "You guys wanna go to Footlocker?" The others nodded and they went to Footlocker.
