You Can Run To Me

Fifteen

Deep breath. Close your eyes. Let yourself relax. This isn't going to go anything but well. So just breathe. And when you open your eyes, everything will become a fairytale, where there are princes and magic and happy endings. The lights seem to soften, beckoning you to open your eyes and let the fantasy unfurl. Just don't trip.

Natalie let herself look.

The breath she had just inhaled puffed softly back out in a quiet gasp of awe. The ballroom was truly magical. The thrum of the conversations unfolding throughout the space filled her ears, and beneath it the smooth melody produced by a string quartet that was artistically placed below an aimless staircase, which was currently populated by elegantly dressed plutocrats. Every corner of the vast chamber had been decorated sedulously in a precise color scheme of fashionable golds and whites. Ancient yet pristine chandeliers hung with convincing candles that flickered but dropped no scalding wax on the unsuspecting lawyers and dignitaries below. Everything was subtle, velveteen gold streamers hung from the ornamental stairs at the back of the room, so far away from Natalie and her companions.

There were so many colors in the crowd. The men, of course, favored tuxedos of demure blacks and greys (with some exceptions, of course), and thus it was inevitably the women who brought the room into vibrant life, each competing to be the most outstanding, the most breath-taking. Natalie felt plain in comparison. She was at least a decade younger than the vast majority of people here, and that youthfulness didn't really feel like an advantage to her.

Sylvia tugged on her hand, "Come on, we're holding everyone up."

Natalie pasted a smile onto her face.

"Much better," said Daniella on her other side, one of her reluctant room-mates. "You look awful with that blank face of yours. My make-up actually makes you bearable to look at."

Natalie winced slightly. The girls she was sharing a room with had a propensity for making caustic comments like that, and after just a few days of it, Nat was on the verge of strangling one of them in their sleep. But tonight was special, and she wasn't going to let a couple of shallow airheads ruin it for her. Maybe she could put a pillow over their mouths when they were passed out drunk. Not that she would ever do that, of course...

She had gotten down the stairs alright (thankfully they weren't all that steep) and it hadn't been too windy or wet (as you generally expect inside a building) so neither her simplistically curled hair nor her relatively demure make-up had been ruined so far. Only at least five hours to go. What could possibly go wrong?

The instant they were through the hall's huge entrance, Daniella and Lianne disappeared in a flurry of peacock blues and voracious scarlet, much to Natalie's relief, though Sylvia felt a little disappointed. Nat could just about see them weaving through the crowd, bee-lining towards two young guys who were presumably their boyfriends. Natalie wasn't positive, but she thought she might remember them from law. The sort who rarely came to class, and when they did they mostly just sat and talked or threw paper at their friends and their enemies alike. She wasn't surprised that Dani and Lianne had immediately gravitated towards those wash-outs.

There was a drinks table at the side of the hall, in front of one of the tall windows on that side that offered an almost unparalleled view of the sprawling city that never slept. It certainly didn't sleep on a night like New Year's Eve. Every window was lit and every screen shone bright, creating a beautiful vista, but blocking out the majestic one above. Natalie and Sylvia soon stood in front of that window, picking up their first free free drink of the night. The second free was for the lack of alcohol. The waiter smiled a little too broadly as he handed them their sweet cocktails, and Natalie couldn't help but feel a little wary of him.