When up-and-coming model Isabelle meets talented but jaded photographer Milo, sparks fly despite their age difference. Their romance becomes the talk of the New York City fashion scene, fueling rumors and speculation about their scandalous affair. A...
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Isabelle gathered her things, clutching them tightly to her chest in the subway, but she could have been anywhere. She was somewhere else completely in her head. The chemicals, the reality of it, the way his eyes looks at her. All of it, put her into some sort of trance all the way home.
When she finally stepped foot into the apartment, she stripped, taking a shower and changing into a comfortable sweatshirt and shorts. She didn't have a dog, but she wished she would, so she could have an excuse to go on a walk, further perpetuating her daydream.
Luckily, she had friends that had dogs. And that was probably the next best thing. She fumbled her phone, until she found her friend's name, Alexis, pressing dial.
They would do this time to time, but especially when one of them had some good gossip to share. And if this wasn't that, then what was it.
"Hello," Alexis' voice answered on the other end of the line, and Isabelle hesitated. Maybe this was something she wanted to keep all to herself for once, maybe.."hello?"
"Hey Alexis, it's me." Isabelle came out of her daydream.
"I know, I know... what's up?"
"Does pooch want a walk?"
"Pooch?" Isabelle could hear Alexis throwing something across the room on the other end of the line. "Yes. So could I, actually?"
"Meet in 30? I'll come to you?" Isabelle said promptly.
"Perf. See you then." They both hung up.
Sometimes Isabelle regretted the fact, that she felt she didn't have any real, meaningful friendships. Thought that would depend on what she considered real or meaningful. She had things like this, people to call at different times. But oftentimes, she felt a deep loneliness.
So that when someone like Milo came along, making her feel not alone if only for a moment, it was completely engrossing.
She had no idea why she so often felt like an outsider, and even worse, no idea how to fix that.
Sometimes, it gave her an edge. A way to look at things differently, feel differently, but mostly it caused her to question things. For better and for worse.
That one night, that one moment of softness, openness, vulnerability, made here realize how tired she was of carrying the weight of her life on her shoulders all alone. How everything felt so much more difficult, then when it did when she walked with him. Together it felt...she couldn't explain it, but it was lighter.
When Isabelle knocked on Alexis' door, only a few blocks away, she felt the power of the dog knocking against it, eager to greet her.
"Hi pooch!" Isabelle exclaimed, as the door opened and the black dog practically jumped on her, while Alexis did her bet to wrangle him.
"I'm so sorry about him, he prayed goes to bad boy school, I don't know what else I can do! Hi babe," Alexis hugged her, and they both stepped outside.
"Bad boy school?" Isabelle asked.
"Yeah. You know, no braking no jumping etc...ever since he jumped on our neighbour," Alexis made a grimace, I thought this could be a good thing."
"Which way?" Isabelle asked, looking form right and left, feeling the strange small town feeling of the Brooklyn streets that she actually enjoyed.
"Up to you," Alexis was busy fixing the dog leash as Pooch excitedly tried to go both way at once.
Isabelle mentioned to the right.
As they started walking, she tried to come up with a good way to tell her what she all at once wanted to keep to herself and also felt she couldn't contain any longer.
So instead she just spit it out.
"I slept with someone," sounded a lot more urgent than I met someone.
Alexis stopped in the middle of a sidewalk, eyes widened, "Izzy!?" She did a little celebratory dance, and then they both kept walking. "Well, was he cute, at least?"
"Cute would be...an understatement," 'Izzy' as often called by her friends said. "He is something a lot more than cute." She didn't know if gorgeous, or handsome wild sound too mature or old school but that's kind of how she saw him. And she didn't mind. She had a strange urge to shout it to the world and keep it all to herself, all at the same time.
The dog, as if reacting to the news, got all excited and started pulling in all directions again.
"Gus," Alexis muttered under her breath, "be good."
Isabelle could feel the tiredness from the night before permeate her brain. But shed rather be tired having experienced something, than not at all.
Isabelle left out the part where Milo was a photographer, her photographer, for a prospective job. And beyond that, a name in the industry. She didn't want to seem...gauche.
They caught up on the other happenings in their life. Walking to bodega, they bought ginger ales, and sat on a park bench in the sun, watching the eclectic mix of hipsters, hobos, and upper class millennials.
As she listened to her talk, preferring oftentimes to listen more than she herself talked, Isabelle was bemused by Alexis' constant stories of the revolving set of male characters in her life. She quietly thought to herself that maybe the reason this felt so big, was because she was often closed off. Maybe for good reason, sometimes not, but these thing didn't happen to her very often. And when they did, she didn't take them lightly.
