Rebecca was standing in the kitchen and chopping vegetables for dinner, when she heard someone knock at the door. She felt surprised, as she didn't expect any visitors and left everything in the kitchen, slowly making her way to open the door. She gasped, when she noticed her best friend outside, her face wet with tears, which were flowing down her cheeks. She had no doubts that she had to be coming home from the meeting with the difficult client, and she immediately started to wonder what happened to leave Toni in such a state.
"It was him." was everything her friend managed to sob out before losing it completely.
Rebecca wrapped her arms around her, led her to the couch and sitting down, pulled her close. Already in the middle of the way home, Toni knew that there was absolutely no way she would make it home. It was getting more and more difficult to control her emotions with every passing second and because her friend lived nearby, and always managed to make her feel better, she didn't hesitate to turn her car in the direction of her apartment. And there she was now, sitting on the couch in Rebecca's arms, crying her heart out.
It was something, what used to happen very often after she arrived in DC. There were a lot of reasons behind her family's moving from Boston, but all of them were pretty much results of one meaningful cause, which also made her experience a rather big depression. Rebecca was the only one, who even tried to get to know her, when she joined her class in the middle of term and she didn't have doubts that it must have been caused by the fact that she was an outsider herself. It didn't matter why, though; what was truly important for both of them was that they grew very close and soon their bond was more similar to that of very close sisters, than to what friends usually shared. They were both helping each other a lot during all the years, that they knew each other and Toni didn't have any doubts that Rebecca played a very big part in getting her out of this terrible state, which she was in when they first met.
"How could I not realise it? How could I not recognise this voice?! How could I…" remarked Toni, when she regained her composure enough to speak, but was soon interrupted.
"Can you start at the beginning, Toni? I think I'm a little lost…" stated the red-head, watching her friend with a questioning look in her eyes.
"Remember the guy, who called today and complained, that we were supposed to meet with him yesterday but nobody showed up and who I went to meet with…"
"Of course I do. What did he do to you to leave you in such a state?"
"He didn't do anything… At least anything besides being himself… Being HIM." Toni's eyes filled with tears once again and she hid her face in her hands. "How could I not realise it?!"
"I think I still don't know who do you…" she started, but the look on her friend's face, one that she saw there a lot of times, especially back in high school, made the realisation what she was speaking about dawn on her. "As in this HIM?" she asked, just to be certain they were thinking about one person. "Your ex-boyfriend from Boston? The guy, who you…"
"Yes! The very one!" whined the brunette. "What am I supposed to do now? How am I supposed to keep my promise and work for him, when just a short hour in his company has such an effect on me?!"
"Oh, believe me! I can't name a person, who would be more professional than you and if there is anyone, who can face it – it's you. You're able to overcome any obstacle; isn't it the reason why you always take the most difficult orders and deal with the most demanding customers?"
"It's different when you deal with a stranger, Becky! This time it's simply too much, I can't do it…"
"I hate to say that, but I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice… With Clay in the hospital and the rest having a lot of order themselves, there is nobody who can take care of it instead of you…"
"Don't you think that I know that?! I would rather not irritate him even more than he was because of Sarah's mistake, by making him wait for someone to miraculously find time in their schedule… He would have my head because of it!"
"Then you have to find a way to keep your emotions at bay, be the professional that I know and deal with this order. I am certain that you can do it, Toni."
"It's good to know that at least you have faith in it…" sighed the brunette, offering her friend a small smile. "Do you know what is the worst about it all?"
"You weren't able to control yourself and you've made him a huge scene, the moment you recognised him?" asked Rebecca, making her friend chuckle.
"I'm still attracted to him! He broke my heart and ruined my whole life, and yet, I can't even bring myself to hate him! Instead, I can't help getting lost in this blue eyes, which are haunting me for almost twenty years now or thinking how despite getting older, he actually got more attractive than I remember him as a teenager!"
Rebecca had a very difficult time trying to prevent the huge grin, from making its way onto her face as she watched her friend carefully. She could see how much Toni was affected by this unexpected reunion, just one glance was enough for her not to have any doubts about that. She knew her friend, though, and she wasn't surprised that her reaction seemed to be a confirmation to what she had started to believe, but never had enough courage to voice. No matter how much she tried to convince herself that she absolutely hated him and forget about him, at least a tiny part of Toni never truly moved on. She heard quite a lot about this guy and observed all of her friend's following relationships, and she couldn't help thinking that all of them were destined to fall apart because neither of those guy would be able to meet Toni's expectations, when one of them was being Him.
"It's not funny!" whined the brunette and Becky realised that she must have failed miserably with keeping her face straight.
"Toni… Don't you think that it might be a sign from the fate? I mean, what are the odds that two people, who originally met in a completely other part of the country and parted ways, having no idea where the life led the other one, would find themselves not only living in the same city but in a situation, which is mirroring the one from their past?"
"I beg you to stop it! It's not this fairytale, where the plain girls gets to have her happily ever after with a prince and I learnt it the hard way eighteen years ago! It's difficult enough that after all those years, I need to face being in his company again, I don't need my best friend making it an even bigger mess than it already is!"
"Fine, I won't say a word about it again." she stated, knowing there was no way to convince her friend to take such a possibility into consideration.
Still, it definitely wasn't going to prevent her from hoping that while her friend seemed hopeless in finding happiness with any different man than this Bostonian, the fate decided to give the two of them a second chance. Yet, she was worried that it could be a huge failure if Toni didn't open her mind to it. But perhaps the solution to this problem was another person, and she could only hope that the guy would be more willing to see that.