Paving The Way

ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ

Her handwriting looked awfully weird given the fact that she did not look at the paper she was writing on.
Glancing to the television that is closed, she had no idea what she was looking at.

Bethany was simply completely frozen.
She's been frozen for a while now.

Although she was keen on melancholy, this time she wanted out. At least she wanted to function again so that she can actually clean her apartment, jog in Central Park every once in a while and for god's sake – invite her parents for a dinner so that they knew she was living in a proper situation.

That looked like that did not going to happen for a while soon.

She started scrolling on her phone again, checking the family chat and the chat she had with the girls.
The family chat looked normal with his uncle asking about two shirts, the deep blue one and the lighter one.

"Definently the deep blue! Would make your eyes pop!" she wrote with couple of emojis. Her face did not even flinch though. She did what she was supposed to and checked the paper she took notes on once again.

She forgot the thing she wrote, although she wrote it five minutes ago.

"That's bad" she murmured to herself,
"Can't shoot that" and just like that she threw it to the 'no pile', that pile was too much. She was not able to finish anything she started ever since she made it to New York.

She never informed her friends about coming back, that was okay. She never ran into anyone,  because she barely got out. Her cute neighbour said 'hi' once, she did not care. Not just about him though, she lately lost her ability to care anyway.

When she checked the time she saw it was 3 pm. automatically she got up from the couch,
"Must eat" she murmured to herself. She was not hungry, she just knew she had to eat.

Her phone vibrated.
Eleanor texted the family group.
"Agreed on the deep blue!!"

Bethany sighed, placed her phone in the kitchen counter. She have not seen Eleanor for a while now. Maybe like... two weeks. To be fair she did not even see Brooklyn in two weeks as well. They gathered in family meetings, NEVER talked about what they supposed to talk about. They both were trying to look okay for each other. None of them managed to ask a proper 'how are you doing?' to another. But they never resented each other for it. In fact, every once in a while in family meetings they would hug, a bit longer and tighter than usual, not saying anything but attempting to share strength. And that was all about it.

Bethany's phone vibrated again.
Eleanor sent a voice message to the chat group of three of them.
They did not use it for a while now... Ever since, you know.

"Hey girls! I've got huge news, like HUGE NEWS. You know I've been trying to be a part of the diplomatic mission right? Well... I got that. Appearently there's an opening in Norway, Oslo and the State Department thinks I make the cut. Like... some of them thought I was too young for this but I managed. And I am going! There WILL BE a celebration. Tonight. A dinner party at Grams but like my collagues will attend as well. It's black-tie. Wear your cute stuff. Tomorrow morning I'll sign the papers, before that I wanna see you. Oh and I am leaving in a month. See you tonight!"

Bethany listened to the voicemail without any kind of expression on her face. Just for a moment she thought how 'not-so-Eleanor' she sounded. Guarded, fake, trying too much. Regardless, she could not blame anyone, she was not able to deal with everything anyway.

"See you in the evening" she wrote, support for the loved ones all the instinct she had left afterwards.

***