𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞

9.

Time clicked away slowly as Arabella awaited Liza's arrival to the restaurant, the guilt had been eating away at her skin all fucking day. Despite the horrendous day that she'd had, she couldn't bring herself to cancel on Liza because she had made her a promise. On any other day, Arabella would've been looking forward to going out for dinner, but today was clearly different. She had a secret weighing on her conscious, a secret that screamed 'I inappropriately touched my patient'. She was absolutely mortified with herself, but this couldn't prevent her from living her daily life, it was just a small setback in her progress.

Arabella found herself becoming more and more impatient as the time went on, she understood that Liza worked difficult hours and long days, but this was the worst night for her to be late. Liza's late arrival only gave Arabella more room to sit and bask in self pity. She felt herself sigh loudly as she took another large gulp of her drink that was slightly more alcoholic than she usually wanted, alcohol would distract her from her priorities but clearly she had already done that herself. After today, she was feeling particularly stressed, so the hefty drink was mandatory.

Within seconds of taking a large sip of her drink, she watched as Liza walks through the doors, hearing the bells that were attached to the top of the door begin to jingle at her arrival. Liza smiled as she entered the building, automatically noticing Arabella who sat impatiently at the table. Liza made her way towards the table, plopping her purse down in the empty seat next to her. It seemed like both Liza and Arabella hadn't had the best of days, Liza looked ready to fall asleep, meanwhile Arabella still looked as if she was about to throw up from self hatred.

"You look tired, we could've rescheduled you know?" Arabella mentions once Liza had made herself comfortable. Despite her own personal problems, she did feel particularly bad that Liza had came straight from a long day at the hospital. Clearly this day wasn't being too kind to either of them, at least they could relate in that sense.

Liza shook her head immediately, she didn't want Arabella to think that it was a chore to have a simple dinner with her. "No, it's okay! I wanted to catch up with you, we've both been extremely busy" Liza shrugs it off, mostly feeling happy that she was no longer on her feet. She immediately grazed the dinner menu, in hopes of finding something appetizing for her first meal of the day at nearly six-thirty at night.

"I don't know about you, but I need a shot.." Arabella sighs, grazing the drink menu despite having looked at it nearly six times already. She was so angry with herself that she decided to drown out her own insecurities with alcohol, an unhealthy coping mechanism to her own wrongdoings. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Liza's eyes narrow at her in concern, Liza was so observant that Arabella knew damn well that she couldn't get away with not telling her what happened today.

"You're taking shots on a Wednesday night? Tell me what happened" Liza responds quickly and full of assertion. Considering Liza knew Arabella like the back of her hand, she knew that Arabella was not much of a drinker. The last time that Arabella had gotten drunk was when Lucas Owens had threatened her and decided not to cooperate, and this time wasn't much different.