Grey Skies, White Lies - Larina | [COMPLETE]

Chapter 38 | Apologies.

"I do?" I asked as I eyed the brunette intently, prodding her to tell me where I knew her from.

"679 artists." Emma replied, meeting my confused eyes with her own, though she seemed to be hiding some element of truth from me.

Something clicked inside my head, though, I wasn't sure what.

"Of course!" I replied, laughing, slightly with relief of the tension releasing, but an attempt to seem as being light-hearted. "What brings you up to Manchester?" I asked, I now remembered she was close to a contract last time I'd seen her, now she was a receptionist in a boardroom? It didn't add up.

"Life brought me up here." She sighed, leaning her chin against her palm. "Things didn't work out." She concluded, stiffly.

"How so?" I asked, noticing Lizzy approaching out of the corner of my eye.

"Cab'll be here in 5." She said as she stood beside me, looking at Emma.

"Steve Morson." Emma granted, rolling her eyes.

I raised my eyebrows. "What about him?" I asked, alarmed by his name.

"I'm just better off miles away from him." She replied.

"Aren't we all." Lizzy snorted, shaking her head.

"Are you okay up here? This job isn't you..." I began, cut off by a sharp twitch in her facial expression, perhaps surprise at my sudden proclaim to knowing her.

"I'm just doing the best I can to... Move on." She replied, looking down again, some sort of shyness hindering her from saying what she truly wanted to.

Then, it clicked. I realised what had clicked earlier. This wasn't Emma. This was Emily.

"Emily..." I murmured, my instincts were right, I did know her.

"Yes." She replied, stiffly.

I darted my eyes towards Lizzy before returning them to Emily.

"I'm sorry." I whispered, I wasn't sure what else to say, I wasn't sure if she'd even know what I was apologising for, I just felt like I had to.

She nodded slowly. "Yeah." She replied, a slightly unexpected response, as if she was granting me for doing the right thing.

Lizzy frowned, clearly frustrated with not being able to work out what was going on, or even what to say, though, I was finding it difficult to as well.

Around 4 years ago, I had my first encounter with a woman, it was around about the time when I first arrived in London in hope of a record deal - Emily had the same aspirations as I did. It all ended fairly quickly when I noticed things taking a serious turn, I backed out, I walked away.

"Cab's here." Lizzy coughed, breaking the silence.

Emily flashed us a pained-smile as I dragged myself away, out the door and into the cab.

"Seriously, what was all that about?" Lizzy asked, raising her eyebrows.

"What?" I replied, trying to forget about it already.

"Is she your ex-girlfriend?" She asked me, a question I wasn't entirely sure of the answer to.

"N-no. Well, no. No. Not really." I stuttered, turning to face the window, allowing my eyes to follow the road outside.

"Why did you apologise to her?" Lizzy pressed, sensing there was something I wasn't telling her.

"Just, things between us didn't exactly end well." I replied, shrugging half-heartedly, though my heart felt heavy. I'd always hated revisiting chapters in my life, especially when they were memories I'd be better-off forgetting.

"How so?" She pressed even further, I felt her eyes lowering-in on me.

"They just didn't." I snapped, not turning to face her though I could still feel her eyes upon me.

"I'm allowed to ask." Lizzy defended, sighing as she spoke.

"You are, but I just don't want to talk about it. I've always hated recalling on things in my life where it's not necessary, I'm not going to try and explain it to you when I barely know myself." I snapped again, only just rotating my body so I was directed towards her.

The cab stopped as we pulled up outside the hotel, rain pouring outside seemingly proving pathetic fallacy theorem to be plausible.

We clambered out of the car, payed the driver and entered the swinging doors, walking up the stairs to our room in silence.

After a few minutes, the guilt had already began to eat me inside. I sat down beside Lizzy on the bed, she was scrolling through something on her phone, quite rigidly as it were. I brushed my hand against her outer-thigh.

"Sorry." I whispered, for the second time today.

She turned to face me, nodding. "It's fine." She replied, meeting my inquisitive eyes with her own.

I shrugged. "I shouldn't have snapped at you like that, I guess I was just overwhelmed with seeing Em-her here." I said.

"It's okay, Marina, I understand." Lizzy spoke, meeting my cold hand with her warm fingertips. I knew she didn't understand, she couldn't possibly understand. But, I was grateful she was trying.

"Now - I believe we have some celebrating to do!" She exclaimed.