A/N: I like reviews, they make me happy :D Enjoy!
Angela burst out laughing, clutching her wine glass as it spilled around the edge of it. Her legs curled up underneath her. The image of comfortableness. Her smile radiated around the room and the laughter lines indented into her skin. The sound of freedom and contentment was being spilled from her mouth and into the air, which engulfed Bella like a restricted rope that made her long for it to be freed. She wanted to savour the sound, capture it, and somehow absorb it into her bones. She wanted to steal the laughter for a while, pretend it was her voice. Her voice bursting. She could not even remember what her laugh sounded like. The laugh forgotten. The memory faded. It had disappeared. Maybe it had been sucked down, deep within her and refused to resurface. Or had her laugh been pulled out and moved to someone else? And somewhere, deep inside her, wanting to feel nothing was a spark. A pulse that burned with the desire to be rid of the numbness that contained and strangled her relentlessly. She was drained. Life had been drained and the soul grew weary.
Bella watched Angela giggle to herself before gasping for breath and clutching her stomach. She had forgotten what was so amusing. The moment passed and she took a sip of her wine. Tasting the flavour of sweetness that lingered on her tongue. The colour red reflecting her awkwardness and embarrassment of not being capable of a basic human reaction. To laugh. It was unusual for Bella to feel awkward around one of her closest friends, and yet it was a reminder that she could never be the social butterfly. The one who breezed through her days with ease. A harsh and piercing reminder to her heart of all that had transpired and all that had been done. Everything she had lost, and the little she had gained in return. Angela was everything Bella should and could have been. If life had not been so vindictive. Maybe she would have been laughing just as hard. Or the type to just smirk, the corners of the mouth twisting up and stretching.
"Oh Bella, it was the funniest thing I've seen for ages" Angela gasped interrupting Bella's internal yet tortured thoughts. She wiped a delicate finger under her eye to catch a tear that had welled up with her laughs.
"What?" she replied absent-mindedly as Angela focused on Bella's face.
"What's wrong Bella, you seem distracted"
She was. She felt sidetracked and unfocused. Confused and being nagged by the feeling that she was drifting. She had never experienced these feelings of uncertainty and doubt. The panic bubbled underneath her skin that tingled with nerves and yet she refused for it to show on her face. For her feelings to be displayed to the world like an open book. Even Angela.
"It's nothing" she replied quietly and Angela regarded her with a look that said she did not believe her. Angela was not one to back down. Maybe that's why they had a sort of friendship. One that had lasted longer and had more substance.
"Honey, you can tell me. You know that"
Bella nodded and sipped her wine again, hoping to distract her friend from the topic.
"Did something happen?"
And Bella wanted to tell. Oh god, did she want too. To pretend for a while that she was a normal young woman gossiping with her best friend about the handsome man who had approached her out of the blue. To fantasize about meeting him again and how they will be the boy-meets-girl story. To imagine their fairytale wedding, and the adorable babies they would have. But it all sounded so trivial. It would never happen. They would never talk like that. Bella didn't know how. The words were captured in her throat. Swirling round her head and screaming to be released from her tongue. But her lips remained shut, and the stitches were not released. The lips sewn together to hold secrets.
Angela sighed, used to the silence she received daily. She didn't like to pry, or push, or appear to Bella that she was being nosy. She just wished Bella would open up more and not be so reclusive and aloof. It obviously was not doing her any good. Locking it all away. She doubted Bella even had a journal or somewhere to release all her locked up thoughts.
"Ok...but you know if you want to talk about it. You can"
Bella nodded. Grateful for Angela's sensitivity and the warmth she attempted to project.
"It's just…someone I met…and it's made me think. That's all" she said quietly, staring outside the window.
Angela leaned forward in her seat and sipped her nearly empty wine glass. She was intrigued. Bella never talked about meeting other people outside the book shop, or ones that had any impact on her. "What you thinking about?"
"Nothing important" she lied.
Ever since her second meeting with Edward and her flare up, it had lingered in her thoughts. A nagging memory that kept being replayed over and over in her head. Even though it made her cringe, the reminder of her shouting, it never went away. She thought of him. The way he looked when she snapped at him. He hadn't been expecting it and yet he dealt with it well. It was like he knew what to do. He hadn't come into the shop yet. Maybe he hadn't found it or he had forgotten about her. Either way she found herself glancing at the front door when rearranging books. Even Marcus could see she was preoccupied with the smiles he gave her when he caught her looking. But he never came and she wondered if he would at all. She did not know why she was so bothered by this thought. Perhaps it was because he was the second person in her life who had attempted to engage with her properly apart from Angela. A persistent figure in the background. She often thought she would see him again in the park. But it had been over the week and she hadn't. She felt uneasy. Like something was missing. She didn't understand why he was having such an effect and she didn't like it. This lack of control over her train of thought. So she pushed him away. To the back of her mind that she hoped his image would fade. That she would forget his features and what his voice sounded like.
"Well this someone must have made quite an impression on you" Angela said cheerily before setting her wine class down on the table in front of her. Bella downed the last of her drink and relished in the burn that slid down her throat.
"Yeah…I guess they did" Bella said quietly and glanced out the window again.
"Hey missy! Don't go all airhead on me"
Bella sighed and focused her attention back on her friend again.
"Let's forget about the mysterious man and –"
Bella's eyes widened. "I never said it was a man!"
Angela laughed. "Please, only men turn our lives upside down, and by the looks of it this one seems to have already succeeded."
Bella froze. She knew all about men affecting lives. It wasn't Angela's fault for the comment because she didn't know enough. Bella never revealed the true extent, not even half of it. So she shrugged it off.
"Anyways, we are going to open another bottle of wine and you're going to listen to me moan about my awful day at the office and tell me I need to suck it up. Then you can tell me about the disasters at the book shop!"
"There are never any disasters –"
Angela picked up the empty wine glasses and shook them at her teasingly.
"Exactly! Not with you around. You're like superwoman; I don't know what Marcus would do without you"
"The books would be out of order?"
Angela disappeared and Bella could hear her clanging around for a new bottle. She eventually came back waving a new one her hand and Bella shook her head.
"Let's live a little. We need to see a smile off you!"
Bella bite her lip and let Angela fill a glass for her. She wondered if she would ever smile properly again. And she couldn't stop the image of a smirking Edward appearing in her mind before it disappeared again.
