If I Fell

Aldershot

Who was she....

She never got too close as if not to let Paul see her, which was weird because everyone wanted Paul's eyes on them. She didn't and for reasons unknown I didn't like the meaning of it. The farmer in me sensed danger, a fox in the undergrowth. The female in me, the mother in me, identifying trouble.

Plain but still considered beautiful. Her mouth should have been sweet with her cherub lips but she wore an ugly scowl and a furrowed forehead to match, twisting her from beauty to beast.  Tartness in a red dress, cut too short both top and bottom. Cleavage barely concealed, all on display; no keeping secrets to what her assets were. Red lips, blonde locks and towering heels.

She raised my hackles like no one had ever done before.

"Aldershot" Stella whispered over my shoulder as I stood holding Paul's hand trying to clear my head of the vision in red. I felt like a rabbit caught in her beady 20-20 vision, her prey. Or was I just the bump in the road to the real prey. Was I the annoying barrier that protected him, from her clutches.

"That there, is the witch of Aldershot" Stella swung around in front of me with a glass of bubbly making a funny remark then whispering in my ear so Aldershot couldn't read her lips. "She has greedy eyes for dad that one and I don't like her"

Paul was deep in conversation with a politician trying to garner government funds for a music program for the underprivileged that he had already, as I discovered moments prior, placed a huge sum into.

He was still very conscious of me beside him even with full attention on the politician. Paul intermittently squeezing my hand, a thumb rubbing along my knuckles.

His subtle distracting touch, maddening and soothing all at once. Maddening because now I'd had a taste of Paul I wanted more.. and soothing because he had me. I was wrapped up in his embrace without an arm even around me.

I ran my own fingers up the inside of his forearm making him quiver against my skin. A squeeze of my hand in his had him tangling our fingers again and again.

Giddy as a damn school girl with the school jock I was. My Beatle, my beautiful Paul so close, so tantisingly within reach. I couldn't stop grinning.

I wasn't paying much attention to my surroundings when I, very reluctantly, broke away from the Paul and walked, with the two girls, toward the restrooms. My feet floating me across the room, happy now as I was fully able to spend more time with Paul. No matter how many people surrounded us he made me feel I was the only important one. That I mattered.

I was tired, jetlagged and the stillness in the bathrooms without people passing all around, brought it all to the fore like a heavy weight. I wished for sleep, even a minute of slumber, would be wonderful. Just to pep me up, a cat nap. I sank down on the overstuffed red leather sofa that sat just inside the doorway and rest my feet. The girls finished up before me and were outside waiting no doubt.
I closed my eyes.

"Why don't you go home grandma?" Her, Aldershot, was hovering over me, slits of eyes firing laser beams into me.

"Sorry not a grandma yet" I stood and was pushed back down by a finger jabbing in my chest then it swirled nastily in the air within an inch of my face.

"He's mine, you bitch. Where did you even crawl from" Aldershot snapped, a heel of her stiletto went down on my foot... thankfully falling between my toes, scraping skin painfully but at least it wasn't a direct hit on them. My hair was then dragged on, she had me by the roots. I rose closing the gap between us to lessen the incredible  pain.

Madder than I thought I could ever be. Even madder than I was when the boy at Hailey's school pushed her off the top of the slide breaking her arm.

I hit back.