Your life hadn't always been perfect. In fact, for as long as you could remember it has been anything but. You had been prosecuted, torn apart, and stomped all over by the very people who were supposed to show you love, but couldn't muster up enough courage to do so.
So, when you turned 21, you left and never once looked back. You moved into an apartment in New York City with your best friends and continued to put yourself through med school. You graduated in the fall of your 25th birthday and took a job at the local hospital as their forensic pathologist.
Yet, even then you groveled your way through life; and as the ups and downs got worse, you threw yourself more and more into your work.
You found yourself in a routine. You had already worked the graveyard shifts to begin with, but every Wednesday you would pick up a double. On your breaks you would head down to the local coffee shop, barely three blocks from the hospital, pick up several cups of coffee- all black- and shuffle your way back through the crowd and into the hospital basement.
Sometimes Reagan Kelley, a resident and friend at the hospital, would join you for lunch, or dinner, or the occasional breakfast, but for the most part you spent your time alone, digging through dead bodies and listening to British radio. Then when you'd get home you'd crash, only to get up and do it all over again.
Your best friend was worried sick. She kept trying to convince you that the way you were living wasn't healthy, but you would merely shrug it off with a curt "I know," before walking out the door once more and resuming what you thought was your life.
That is until one fateful morning down at the coffee shop. It all happened so suddenly, one minute I was walking through the doors of the shop and the next I was on the ground and the girl standing before me was wearing my coffee.
I immediately shot to my feet. "Oh my God, I am so sorry!" I told the girl, handing her a pile of napkins from the table beside us. "I didn't even-"
She waved it off and gratefully took the napkins, patting her shirt dry. "It's alright, it's fine." Her accent threw me for a moment. "I never quite liked this bloody thing anyway." She smiled, showing off her dimple, her blue eyes twinkling.
I swallowed harshly at the sudden realization of who she was, but said nothing nonetheless, and awkwardly wiped my hands on the pants of my scrubs.
"I should go." I muttered stiffly, jabbing my thumb in the direction of the door. "Um, sorry about the-" I gestured to the mess of coffee that now began to stain her top.
The girl, Perrie Edwards, waved me off once more. "It's not a problem." She answered and then gestured to the counter. "I could buy you-"
I quickly cut her off. "No, no. Thank you but, I, I got to go." And with a small awkward wave, I took off through the doors and practically ran back to the hospital.
Reagan was waiting for me in the basement, her chair pulled up beside the autopsy table, as she munched on her salad. It was only when she heard the doors close behind me that she looked up. "Where's the coffee?"
I shook my head. "All over Perrie Edwards. She's literally walking around New York wearing our coffee."
Reagan released an exasperated sigh and shook her head. "Great, now we're stuck with hospital food and coffee. How do these things always happen to you?"
I simply shrugged and moved to pluck a crouton from Reagan's salad, which almost cost me a finger when the resident tried to stab me with her fork. "I honestly wish I knew."
"At least tell me that she was cute."
I scoffed at my friend in disbelief. "It was Perrie Edwards, of course she was cute. She was fucking gorgeous."
Reagan merely nodded. "Maybe it was fate." She snorted. "Maybe you'll just keep running into each other and then one day she'll ask you out and then you'll go on to get married and have little baby Edwards' of your own."
I couldn't help but roll my eyes at my friend's taunting. Reagan was as smart as a whip and would one day go on to make a great doctor, but her people skills were never great and her snark would always rub people the wrong way. But I was simply used to it. Snark was the one thing Reagan and I had in common.
"Ha ha." I mocked. "Aren't you just so hilarious."
xXx
As it would turn out, Reagan was right. All of a sudden Perrie started showing up everywhere. On morning jogs, late night coffee runs, it didn't matter, Perrie was there. And every now and again if we would catch each other's gaze, she'd shoot me a small smile and a wave, which I felt the need to return. It was weird, but just like everything else in my life, it became a routine.
Expect Perrie Edwards in the least expected.
And for the next few months it worked, that was until she just stopped showing up. I had figured that she went back to England, after all that was were she resided and where her job was. She couldn't just up and leave it, and I knew that. Yet for some reason I was disappointed.
xXx
It would be another few months before I saw her again.
Regan and I just so happened to be coming back from the Coffee shop, when a mess of blonde hair blew past us, shouting apologies as she did so. But her ankle got wrapped around my own and before we knew it we were on the ground, her body landing on top of mine with a grunt.
She immediately moved her arms to my side and pushed herself off of me, her face just centimeters from my own. I finally realized who she was and smiled.
Perrie was already blurting out a string of apologies when I cut her off. "We have got to stop meeting like this." I chuckled, gazing into the bluest eyes I have ever known.
Perrie blushed and moved her body off of mine completely. "I really am sorry."
I simply waved her off and jumped to my feet before offering her my hand in return, which she took gladly, and helped her up from the concrete sidewalk.
"Are ya okay?" She asked shyly.
I nodded in return and held out my hand once more. "I'm B. B Rae."
Perrie smiled, showing off her dimple again, and took my hand. "Perrie. Perrie Edwards." Then gently sliding her hand out of my own, Perrie looked down at her shoes shyly and tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear, and asked. "B Rae, would you like to go out sometime? Like a date?"
I smiled like a lunatic and nodded my head yes a hundred times over.
That was how our story began and ever since that very first moment that we bumped into each other, Perrie has been the light of my life. The only thing that keeps me from the darkness, my light at the end of the tunnel.
It was all Perrie.
