Tired. Ask her how she was and that was the only response she had these days. As if taking over a business and being thrown in the deep end wasn’t enough of a task. Ines was still sneaking around town, her head glancing over her shoulder at every new street corner, a ghost of the former self that would race down these streets, laughter echoing from the buildings, a teen without responsibility. Though, it often crept up on her that she’d become a little ignorant to what was truly looming, every day was another day ticked off but a shortening of the likelihood of not running into those very ghosts she used to run the town with.
She’d managed to avoid a face-to-face for the last 103 days, that was quite the accomplishment, she’s sure of it. Part of her thought this was it, some higher power was on her side and maybe the whole thing was a comfortable band aid — the problem was, the scab beneath didn’t heal and only a fool would believe they were out of the deep end.
Still, there was an exhaustion that had set deep in her bones, between putting on the bravest of happy faces at the office — she was the boss after all, she felt it necessary, leave the problems at the door, all of that —, her father’s ailing health, the fact that being back in Bradford Springs still felt foreign to her and she couldn’t shake it, the constant sneaking around, the way she still couldn’t face anything that reminded her of Luis.
(All that money spent on therapy and she’s beginning to think it was pointless, the woman that was fine in Chicago seemed to be barely holding onto sanity, Bradford Springs felt like her very own asylum).
Is that how she found herself here? Early morning and stuck behind a hoard of crypt keepers in the postal office, coffee in one hand, parcel in the other. She doesn’t even know the contents, had waved her mother off when she’d pulled up at her parents’ house in the morning, a quick air kiss as she threw it on the seat beside her, small talk that concluded when she agreed to dinner later on in the week.
She sighs at the never-ending queue ahead of her, a flick of her wrist to wake her Apple watch tells her she’s been here all of three minutes.
(For someone patient, this place set in a looming dread, it was too busy, and if it wasn’t for how fragile he’d become she’s sure the neighbour of one of those she’d left behind would have picked her first from a line-up, however, he shuffled past her, foot dragging the ground on his way to the exit and the air she’d been holding onto excludes from her lungs).
Time continues to pass; a ding of the door and she’s now minding her own business whilst she clings to the dregs in the bottom of her cup. Her attention shifting from the envelopes on the side, to the surprisingly cute batch of stationary that had littered one of the shelves she’d ended up stuck at on her next three-step-shuffle.
Ines’ attention is absentmindedly wandering when the crashing noise behind her quickly grounds her, it’s enough to startle her ( yet another perk of sneaking around ), but she’s been here so many times in the past three months that she quickly finds composure as she flicks her head over her shoulder to view the commotion.
Her gaze quickly flits towards the ground, as though if she stares hard enough it won’t be real (or the floor will open and Bradford Springs own hole to hell will swallow her up — but then again, maybe this is hell).
Inhaling again, she regains composure as her gaze flits back up, taking sight of one Rhys Dunsmore. She’s sure she’s forgotten to speak, but the frost seems to thaw almost automatically when her gaze hits his, looking at him all these years later and it wasn’t pain she felt, maybe it hadn’t hit her yet, maybe she was about to fast-pass to that asylum, maybe she’d take a breath in three more seconds and realise the lack of oxygen was sending her delirious.
( Nope, none of those things )
It didn’t change. Her green set upon his steely blues and it felt like home. A sensation she hadn’t felt right up until that moment, and it causes her to smile, for a faint split second before she remembers what’s happening and her expression falls back into a haze of nothingness.
She’s not sure what she expected from a first run in, but it wasn’t that, it’s a scenario she’s played countless times in her head, she had speeches written on placards, placed neatly on posts that lined her thoughts. “Hi.” She answers back as she once again remembers the basic human need to breathe, it drips in casual nature as her thumb begins to pick at the side of her coffee cup.
“I hope you’re not in a rush.” She remarks, attempting to fill the air with anything but what she thinks should be filling the air, her head tearing from him to glance around at everyone else. “Little busy this morning.”
