Ashes, Ashes

Knotted and Frayed

Emma sulked. She couldn't help herself - her lips seemed to go straight to her signature pout, her elbows always ending up leaning on the table so that she could prop up her hands. Just like all of her job searches, she wasn't having any success with a single thing she was doing. To think she'd thought she knew how to have fun when she went out into the night!

Yes, her sequined dress had gathered many a prolonged glance from passerby, but no one had stopped to actually talk to her, let alone flirt and buy her a drink. The one thing she thought was obviously going to happen had not happened.

The only reason she'd wanted to leave her flat was to escape from all the bad things in her life, but she managed to wander right into the center of something else that she absolutely loathed. No one was paying attention to her, and she was just as alone as she was sitting with her cello back on Baker Street. This entire thing was an absolute waste of time.

What had changed? Had she really changed so much after going through the psych ward (as well as everything that gotten her to the psych ward in the first place)? Yes, maybe she was more exhausted and felt drained all the time, but had that taken away from how pretty she was? Certainly not. And she absolutely refused to think it had anything to do with Maddie.

(That was mostly due to the fact she didn't want to ever think about Maddie and Irene again despite "being over her.")

She'd looked at herself several times over in the mirror before she left. It simply felt like the right thing to do - she'd gained it as a habit from the moment she started focusing as much on her looks as she could possibly manage. She couldn't remember seeing anything that made her look less attractive. Was there something about her that just kept pushing people away?

All of the negative thoughts that popped into her head began to accumulate until she couldn't fully process what she was actually attempting to think about. Instead, everything meshed together into all sorts of madness. She was getting absolutely nothing done by sittting there. Time was being siphoned away from her, and there was little she could do to stop it.

She desperately wanted to believe there would still be someone out there who was going to come to her and care about her and stay with her if only for a little while. All she wanted was for a single person to come up to her and offer to buy her a drink. If that happened, then she would be pleased. Then she could go.

Just when Emma thought all hope was lost and she would get up and sulk as she stormed out of the bar, a man walked up to her. She closed her eyes slightly, feeling somewhat irritated by the fact she had to speak but also excited over the prospect of actually speaking to someone even if ended up shattering to pieces.

"Hello," he said, raising a hand up. "I know it's sort of strange to just walk up to someone and say hey, but I'm not really sure there's any better way to do this..."

"It's not like I'm talking to anyone else," Emma sighed, finally allowing her eyes to fully open so that she could focus on him completely. But as soon as her eyelids began to part, she found that they didn't stop. Her eyes began to pop as she allowed the man in front of her to process through her mind.

He reminded her of Owen in a strange way - they didn't share all that many physical characteristics, but there was something about the way he held himself up that brought her memories soaring back to the days where she thought her future was set in stone in the most beautiful way she could imagine.

But for the first time since they'd broken up, she didn't feel horribly drained because she'd thought of him again. If anything, it just made her excited to think she'd managed to attract someone she would most likely end up having a good night with - and maybe more, if things truly worked out. Somehow, everything seemed to be coming together right in front of her eyes.