In this room, Bri is not herself – not even for a moment, when she checks in on the guestlist. She’s a symbol followed by a number. No name. Plus one. It could mean she is less, but she takes it as the opportunity to be more: anything but herself. Everyone they want her to be. And it isn’t hard. Her date is young and attractive and paying for each hour she stands with her hand looped around his arm; double for the time she will spend on her back, her thighs around his hips. She speaks with a rumble and a raised brow and the slight, amused apathy of golden girls, and they love her. The jutting spots of her body – her elbows, hips, shoulders – are warm from the hands that brush at her as she walks by, asking her to stop for them. Aubrielle leans tighter into her date instead, promising with her body: my spine is stronger when I lean on yours. I am loyal to you (for this hour, this day – don’t think about the end of it all, darling).
It’s hard to call it loyalty when it’s being paid for, but Bri does anyway, and she believes in it. She carries those promises around in her palm and hanging from her collarbone, meaning every ephemeral oath. She swears on every temporary-tattoo kiss on his jaw – - until she sees him, and then everything is a lie. His profile cuts so sharply from the other side of the room that even with dozens of people between them, it still stings. He’s so handsome, she thinks, and Bri feels suddenly girlish as she pretends to glance idly about the room so her date won’t notice her attention has been all at once stolen.
“Excuse me for a moment – - I’ve just seen a friend, and I think I’ll go say hello.” She says it abruptly but carefully, pitching sweetness into silence when momentarily snagged eye contact was no longer enough. Butterflies were spawning in her stomach and they all lurched in John’s direction, rising and falling and pirouetting as she took the distance between them then surpassed it. She looked at him just briefly, but in the casual turn of her neck and the rolling browse of her gaze there was an invitation. Come with me. (Persephone bites the pomegranate. Eurydice calls out. She makes her decision).
It was cold on the balcony she slipped onto, a marble terrace otherwise deserted by partygoers aside from the stray corpse of a cigarette that proved previous occupancy. The moon was the only company here, its light shining down to illuminate Aubrielle’s glass of rosé and cast her shadow. If she was cold, she didn’t yet feel it.
Events such as these aren’t usually Wesley’s cup of tea, so to speak. He hasn’t ever attended a winter ball, or whatever pretentious name the little princess has given it. He doesn’t like to stand idly by and sip on beverages that no doubt cost the approximate amount of his entire suit. He certainly doesn’t like to make chit chat, mindless, boring, dull, navigating his way through a sea of masks, masks, masks, everyone smiling and polite and charming and utterly, utterly fake.
And so he doesn’t. He stands close to the side of the room, arms folded across his chest, face carefully neutral, glancing around for Yeung or Benavides. They are the only reason he’s here tonight, although truthfully he’s already made up his mind about who should inherit Silver’s seat. Yeung is the obvious choice to fill the vacancy, but he’s here anyway, along with probably the entire Coalition.
It’s just as he’s scanning the room for a third time that he spots her, clutching onto her companion’s arm like she needs reassurance that he’s still there in order to stand up. They’re surrounded by people, talking, laughing, admiring. She looks at home here, with these people, but she’s acting. He knows this because that’s not his Bri, the one who gives everything she is and bares herself to him; here, she is someone else, someone who adapts to suit what others want from her. This must be what she’d meant that first night, when she’d asked who he wanted her to be.
He doesn’t even realise he’s been clenching his jaw until it starts to ache.
His attention is now fully focused on her, expression once again neutral, and so it’s apparent the second she notices him. They lock eyes for perhaps a split second, if that, but it’s enough. The Bri she’s pretending to be is fading even as she glances nonchalantly around the room before excusing herself to walk across the room towards him. She doesn’t stop, or even slow down as she passes within arm’s reach, but just that quick, smoldering glance is almost enough to have him trailing behind her.
A few more minutes, another glance around the room, and then he’s moving. Slowly, unrushed, unhurried, like he’s just looking for a new place to stand and observe what’s going on.
The door clicks shut behind him and finally, finally he approaches her, drinking in the sight of her in the half light. He moves until he is beside her but doesn’t touch; not yet. Instead, he rests his forearms against the railing and speaks.
“I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
