Chapter Four – Opening Up

As usual, brunch chat centred around the trials and tribulations of one or all of her best friends relationships. Usually, she was first in line to give the odd well thought out opinion as well as her advice for a "happy and stable" marriage. True, Samantha Jones and Carrie Bradshaw were not married to their guys but they may as well be. That was Charlotte's opinion anyway.

Today however, she stayed quiet, merely nodding, shaking her head and making the right noises if they were needed. She was grateful for her girlfriends' preoccupation today, even though her contribution to the conversation was minor.

Renowned by those who knew her as a tough nut, sitting beside her friend Charlotte, Miranda Hobbes could sense that something was up. However, intuition, as well as experience, dictated that she should keep her mouth shut until the others she could catch Charlotte on her own. She resolved not to wait too long though, and to talk to her friend today. Miranda hated to think of her friends going through problems alone.

Today, she didn't have to wait very long. Within half an hour, Samantha had rushed off to meet her younger long term lover, Smith, after a heated phone call. Samantha managed, somehow, to keep her first and only monogamous relationship as exciting, fiery and stressful (her friend's opinion's, not hers) as her life had been when she was a single woman. Soon after had Sam flounced out of the café looking very pleased for herself, Carrie decided to depart also.

"I'm going to meet Big" she beamed.

Their relationship may have changed tenfold, but most of the time she still referred to her partner as "Mr Big" much to the amusement of her girl-friends. Both Miranda and Charlotte looked in mock disapproval of Carrie's decision as Carrie looked sheepish.

Miranda groaned "oh, go away already! Go meet Mr Perfect!

Although she had a lot more respect for Big these days, there was in spite of everything a tiny fraction of her that was still justifiably a little bit wary of him for her best friend's sake. Most of the time though, her mocking jibes and sarcastic banter were made in jest and luckily, Carrie knew this all too well.

"Bye ladies, enjoy the rest of your day" said Carrie as she turned on her Jimmy Choo clad heel and practically skipped out of the door, waving at them as she went. As Charlotte waved back to her smiling friend, part of her wished that she too could be that content and carefree. But right now she thought she would never be that type of person and the uncertainty of what was going on with her body terrified her.

All of a sudden with Samantha and Carrie gone, Charlotte felt very vulnerable. She could see Miranda eying her with a look of concern on her face, so she decided to leave too. It's not that she didn't want to talk to Miranda, she just didn't know how to in this situation. They were best friends and even though Charlotte had matured considerably in the past few years, deep down she still harboured a slight resentment at the fact that Miranda had Brady, without even trying , or at the time, wanting to get pregnant. She would never ever bring it up but it was still in the back of her mind.

"Well" Charlotte started as she began to gather her purse and her coat together "I better be going home now"

As she rose to stand, Miranda gently took Charlotte's hand, leaving her no choice but to stay in her seat.

"Talk to me Charlotte, I can tell something's not right here" Miranda said gently.

Charlotte wanted to deny her feelings to Miranda, which was what she had intended to do as her coping strategy for today's brunch. She had gone through this scenario in her head one hundred times on her way here and knew exactly what to say and do; stand her ground and answer no questions. But now the situation had arisen, looking into Miranda's concerned face, a single tear ran down Charlotte's cheek. Miranda squeezed Charlotte's hand then found her a Kleenex, before pulling her jacket.

"Let's walk and talk" said Miranda as she grabbed her purse in readiness of leaving. After a brief pause, Charlotte agreed and they left the café arm in arm. As they stepped into the cold November air, Charlotte knew it made sense to talk. This was something she couldn't keep inside forever, now was as good a time as any to open up.