Heart of Stone

Ryan

Eloise stopped home to change out of her dress and remove last night's makeup before heading out again. There were things she needed to do today, people that were waiting for her. She had to put last night's events behind her. She pulled out her phone as she made herself a coffee, firing off a few quick texts, her long nails sparkling with gold accents.

She didn't often get her nails done, but when there was the occasional formal event, she liked to look the part. It made her feel good about herself to indulge in her feminine side once in a while. After all, she spent most of her time working with her hands, which prevented her from doing anything with her appearance one would consider 'girly'.

She had told Alexander last night that she lived in an apartment, which was true, but the only reason she did was because most of the property was a garden. The one kind thing he had done, although to him it may have just been charity, was set up a bank account for her with enough money that she'd never wanted for anything the last 5 years. He never added to it and no one from his family ever asked what she did with it, but she had only used a small portion of it to purchase this property and start a business. For that she was grateful, and she'd left the rest untouched. She told not a soul about it, because she knew her family members would come calling if they knew she'd been sitting on a veritable fortune.

Sighing heavily, she took a large sip of her coffee and grabbed her keys, heading out the door again. Making sure to lock it behind her, she jumped into her suburban and left home. Her phone began dinging as she drove and the vehicle read her texts out loud to her. She often drove to her cousin, Violet's house, and picked her up so they could grocery shop together. The relationship was important to her because it was one of the only positive ones she'd had in her life growing up. Not that her family disliked her, but they were all...interesting, to say the least. Violet's mother had been in and out of hospitals all her life. She was severely bipolar and chronically ill. Violet herself had recently had a stint in an in-patient program as well.

The family tried to keep these things very quiet, and they were displayed under the guise of vacations and get aways, but that was far from the truth. Eloise's own mother had spent her fair share of time in hospitals, and her father always paid for the best treatments possible. Unfortunately, with mental and physical conditions being prevalent in her family, it was like putting a bandaid on a scrape that just wouldn't heal. Eloise herself had spent a couple of weeks in an out-patient program as a teenager, but her father had soon realized she didn't belong there the way other women in her family had. She had always felt set apart, and among her own family members she often felt like she was on the outside looking in. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, she could never be quite sure. What she was sure of, however, was that she liked her alone time away from her family. Violet was different, they understood each other in a way no one else did.

After about 10 minutes of driving, Eloise pulled into the circular white stone drive of her cousin's house. They lived in a modern country style house on an acre of land with a beautiful well-maintained lawn. Violet must have been waiting for her at the window because she stepped out the oak front doors just as soon as Eloise put the car in park.

There were those who said Eloise and Violet looked like twins sometimes. It was true, they had very similar facial features and hair texture. The only major differences being Violet's eyes were blue and her hair was a dark brown, where Eloise had brown eyes and lighter hair. They even often wore similar clothing, but not today. Today Violet was wearing a long floral summer dress to Eloise's white tank top and black thigh length yoga shorts.

Violet opened the door and slid into the passenger seat.

"So, tell me about this wild night. What happened? Did you meet Alexander?" She asked immediately.