• Rose In The Dark • (GxG)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Omniscient

The past has its adorations, but also its trepidation.

It carries a melancholy question of what could have been, as well as a stressing notion of what should have been and what was. It's what brings the wholesomeness to nostalgia and the danger to reminiscence. Because if thought too long about, the past has a distinct ability to haunt, and to destroy.

Annoyed, Noah slowed the absentminded bouncing of her knee as she shifted to another portion of her work that didn't include reading. Apparently, that alone wasn't enough to allow her mind's escape away from thoughts of her father, of her failed marriage, of her dead best friend, and of her first love. It was all seeming keen on attacking her at any given chance, wondering which specific memory would be the one to finally have her crack. To make her explode...

On her left and sitting on the desk, her phone buzzed for the third time today, and her fiance's picture flashed across the screen with her contact name.

Simply staring down at it for a moment in thought, Noah bit her lip before hovering her hand over the device, her eyes closing as her thumb pressed the power off button with reluctance. She didn't want to, but she knew why her lover was calling, and she didn't feel like being checked up on five times a day.

She was perfectly fine.

Just after she was attempting to focus for the third time now, a knock hit her office door that made her pinch the bridge of her nose with an internal groan.

"What," she uttered loud enough for the person on the other side, sounding like a version of herself that she'd hardly seen in two years.

Deciding to just open the door instead of announcing herself beforehand, Blair entered Noah's office without her long black judge's robe. Her grayed blonde hair was tied back into a professional bun as she wore green dress pants and a matching silk blouse, her reading glasses on top of her head.

"You're more chipper than usual today," she quipped before taking an unwelcome seat, her gaze beginning to subtly analyze her ex-lover. "Why the frown?"

"I'm not in the mood Anderson," the woman's head shook with her words as she adjusted a stack of papers. "What do you want now?"

"Don't do that," Blair eyed her with a sly smirk. "I don't always come to you because I want something."

"Today must be bullshit Noah day," she blinked at the woman across her desk before cutting her eyes. "Either that or I have 'lie to me' and 'piss me off' written on my forehead," a sigh left her. "Look, if you don't want anything then please get out, I'm busy-"

"Now you know I can't do that."

Wanting to groan as she sat back in her chair, Noah bit her lip for a sense of reserve before exhaling a patient breath. "Why, Blair."

A moment passed before Blair spoke, though the look she gave had already let Noah know what she was going to say. "I've given you some time and space, but just know that I've been wanting to check on you since the day I heard-" Shifting in her seat, Noah looked away from her gaze then. Blair's head soon tilted. "Noah... Come on, how've you been holding up??... Are you alright?"

She waved a hand. "I'm fine but that doesn't matter-"

"How doesn't that matter?"

"It doesn't matter to you," Noah quickly reiterated in response, her eyes finding Blair's and causing Blair's mouth to press shut. "I don't need you checking in on me, at all. We're not close, we're not friends, we're not even associates. Anything to do with me, especially that's personal, has nothing to do with you."