Hello, Again

Chapter 3 (Part 2)

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Searching for another won't fix a thing

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Life had an inexplicable habit of working out in the sneakiest ways.

Amelia Barnett was a Brit lass who didn't believe in fate, found exuberance tedious, and was quite possibly afraid of cooties, but that didn't stop her from taking a step further with her Love Of The Hour a week after she picked up a fateful blue dress from SoHo, but that's a tale for another time. You see, it was quite possible that Dresses, like people, had their paths set out for them, destined for events and places and people and stories, which inevitably contributed to their net worth, much higher than a clothing store price tag, when the dust had settled in the weaves and the fabric was thinning out and an old wrinkly hand would lift it out of a box and reminisce about the days that were.

The blue dress, quite possibly, was none of those things, simply because its owner was too caught up in the moment to even notice the outfit she had on at that time.

...

On June 23rd 2009, Amelia brought Jason to her apartment for the first time.

On March 20th 2011, Amelia met Adam McAllister at Sarah Montgomery's studio loft.

On February 22nd, 2015, Amelia attended an art exhibition with Emily at the Met.

On all three of these days, the Blue Dress stood by Amelia's side and could sincerely attest to the Churning In Her Stomach, and the God-Forsaken Sweaty Palms. If not separated by years and years of the sheer mess that is Life, Amelia might've noticed the pattern and (begrudgingly) called it a coincidence. But as it were, Amelia had been rather preoccupied and un-superstitious and it mattered very little, (except to Adam) in due course.

What Amelia would condescend to remember with vivid clarity years and years later was that she'd been merely nervous.

Merely Nervous, as Amelia would analyse in a sleepless night on three separate occasions, could take on different colours and shapes and appear as a completely unfamiliar monster each time it reared its head. Merely Nervous was a treacherous being, gripping her in its claws and refusing to let go until The Moment was over, melting her heart in her throat and her tongue in her mouth, the blood pumping in her veins until the whole world was a riot of sights and sounds and goddammit, she just wished it was over.

Amelia, unlike most people, wasn't partial to The Moment, even though it was rather hard to tell what The Moment really looked like. It was a fickle being, much like it's antagonistic friend Merely Nervous, unrecognizable and ever changing, often not alerting us to its presence until it had passed, and that sort of nonsense was only for the believers (like Adam) anyway.

Whether or not Amelia or Adam was right would be hotly debated by the two later, for at the moment Amelia was busy crossing the street in the morning rush, thoroughly involved in the process of getting herself safely across, while Adam sipped a scotch sitting in front of a large canvas, quite unimpressed with the way his work was turning out. Adam McAllister was a man with a boy's heart, the sort of person who was a curious child and never quite grew out of it. A tall man with even loftier aspirations, he'd spent the last portion of a decade locking himself away in little nooks and letting his hands do the talking, painting a picture of the world that was (possibly) not as rosy as he portrayed it. Currently, he sat on a little stool, his shoulders taut as he sipped his morning scotch from a coffee mug, his green-blue eyes focused upon the canvas while his mind wandered elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Amelia stumbled on the sidewalk in Upper East Side.

Amelia was no stranger to misery. A woman of a melancholic disposition, she had spent much of her childhood and adolescent life (silently) distraught about one thing or another, the sort of person who could spend hours gazing at the moon or sobbing over a particularly pathetic looking kitten. As adulthood came, true to her nature, she taught herself to hide it better and better, behind a mask of (almost effective) indifference and (most effective) sarcasm. What she wouldn't admit even to herself, was how the sadness seemed to grow larger and deeper, digging its way in like the roots of poisonous ivy pushing its way through the fragile soil.