Looking Beyond

Chapter 2: Clock Watching

     Brea sat herself at her desk in the office, trying to find ways to keep herself busy while waiting for Trevor. She settled on digging out her sketch pad to get out a few ideas she had for a project she and Dan were starting for a client. It wasn't easy, but she had managed to draw out a few of the ideas she had bouncing around in her head. She'd show them to Dan on Monday. She tucked the sketch pad into her desk drawer and looked at the clock – it was six-thirty already. She resisted the urge to fire off a text to Trevor. He had told her that he'd go to dinner with her, and she believed him.

* * *

     By six forty-five, Brea stopped looking at both the clock and the front door. Dan had been in and out of the house, bringing in groceries, and Jacob had returned from wherever it was that he had gone. Brea never paid too much attention to Jacob. They were nice to each other, seeing as how they were housemates, but neither took an effort to befriend or get to know the other.

     "Yo! Brea? Why are you still here? I thought you and Sav were going out to eat with Trev and E at seven."

     Brea looked at the clock. Eight-thirty. She sighed. "We were. I'm just waiting for Trevor."

     "Oh..." Dan was cut off by the ring of Brea's phone.

     "Maybe that's him." She said hopefully before frowning. "It's just Sav, probably wanting to know what's going on..."

     "Brea, it's your birthday – go out and have fun with them. I'll tell Trevor to meet you guys when he gets here." Dan offered sympathetically.

     Brea gave a half-smile. "Thanks Dan, but I'm not really in the mood to celebrate. I think I'm just gonna go upstairs and get into a shirt that's more 'me' and get this hair up."

     Dan felt bad for Brea. "For what it's worth, I got you something." He handed her an envelope.

     "You didn't need to Dan." She looked at the envelope labeled 'Brea' in Dan's messy scrawl, then back at Dan. "Thank you." She read the generic 'Happy Birthday' message on the card, amused at the small picture Dan had drawn at the bottom. Tucked inside of the card was a gift card to Starbucks. "Thank you Dan." She gave her housemate/coworker/friend a hug.

     "Let me know if you change your mind about going out."

     "I will." Brea went upstairs to her room to change and pull her hair up. Once she was in a more comfortable shirt and had her hair out of her face, Brea retreated to her bed and tried to read. She decided that she needed to turn her phone off in order to be left alone. She didn't feel like talking to anyone, let alone Savannah and Erik.

     Several minutes passed and Brea had read and reread the same paragraph in her book more times than she could count. 'Reading isn't going to be productive...' She thought to herself as she pulled out her journal. 'I might as well get all of these feelings out of my head and onto paper.'