Falling in Love + other Conditions of Living

Chapter 15

© kelliekook

It was a second away from five o'clock when Brianna May received a text. She was  leaving the clothing store she worked at when she felt it vibrate in her handbag.

"Shit." She muttered, rummaging through her bag as she walked to her car. Why could she never find anything in this goddamn $90 piece of junk?

Brianna stopped in front of her car just as her fingers touched something cool. She sighed with relief as she took the mobile out. Her momentary delight was short lived upon realising she had yet to get out her car keys. This day truly was shaping up to be top-notch.

After a few more minutes of cursing everything and anyone, Brianna climbed into her car and looked to the phone in her hand.

To her surprise, the text was from Rachel. There had only been a handful of times where Rachel had been the one to text Brianna first since the beginning of their friendship. Generally, she just replied to Brianna's texts and called her whenever she wished to make plans. Rachel hated texting; she said that typing on the small keypad was both 'time consuming' and 'irritating' so she avoided it wherever possible. Personally, Brianna couldn't care less but she found Rachel's annoyance rather amusing and smiled at the prospect of whatever required her to do it.

Please meet me at my apartment. It's important.

Brianna raised her eyebrows. Seemed a little dramatic, for Rachel. You could expect this kind of cryptic phrasing from someone like Maddy, but Rach was hardly one for theatrics. A brief message was not unusual for her, she kept her texting blunt, but this was giving Brianna the jitters.

She started her car with a shudder, but didn't take it out of park just yet. Her mind was buzzing.

Has something happened to Rachel? Is she physically hurt? Has someone stabbed her?  Is she currently bleeding to death on the kitchen floor?

Brianna grimaced. There was a ninety-nine percent chance that none of those were true. Her efforts were in vain, a fact she was damn well aware of, but there could be no harm in trying.

Curiosity killed the cat, her mother would have said. Brianna snorted--not if it drove the cat mentally insane first, then who could blame it for wanting to put an end to its misery? She ran a sweaty hand through her hair and fiddled with the air conditioning controls, relaxing ever so slightly as the cool air blasted into the car.

She straightened, put the car into gear and made her way out of the parking lot. Rachel's wasn't far from her work, 10 minutes in bad traffic. She would be the soon and then all her worries will be put to rest.

Brianna turned up the radio to distract her thoughts, scowling as she flicked through the channels. The music on radio was terrible at night. Horrible pulsing beats with no lyrics weren't exactly the best antidote to over-thinking bizarre text messages from friends, that was for sure.

The traffic would be pretty horrific on the main roads, so she opted for a quicker -- albeit longer -- trip through suburbia. It was times like these that she truly came to value her knowledge of the area, the overbearing mother and never-present father may have dominated her childhood memories with unpleasant experiences, but growing up in the city definitely had its advantages.

Thinking of her parents reminded her of the unpleasant task she had yet to take care of.

She sighed, her wedding was only ten days away and she still hadn't confirmed with her father that he would be the one walking her down the aisle.

He'd been very willing to hand over his oldest daughter to the gentleman she loved, but Brianna didn't know if it was right that the man who was barely a father to her should essentially pretend for a day that he was. Had her grandfather not passed away last year she would have chosen him in an instant, nevertheless he was in a better place now – a place where the cancer could no longer torment him.