Who: Miles Egerton and Eleanore Bardou When: January 13th, 2049 Where: The Hearth Cafe, outdoor seating area Rating: PG-PG13 Summary: Getting off on the wrong foot Warnings: TBA
Miles Egerton was not a person who was usually disposed to the suffering of depression. In fact, Miles Egerton was strongly of the opinion that depression was an old and dated act which was practiced by childish attention seekers who were merely hanging on to sadness in an effort to appear more interesting to their own minds, and he was plenty satisfied with himself, thank you very much. However, over the past few weeks, Miles Egerton had changed from a person who could not fathrom depression to a person who was somewhat consumed by it.
His impending marriage to a woman whom he had never met and only spoken to briefly on one occasion loomed ahead of him like a death sentence for which he had no chance of appeal. The Katrina girl whom he had briefly flirted with had managed, somehow, to worm her way out of an ill-fated partnership, but Miles suspected that this separation had come as a result of the redhead taking action immediately to succeed in freeing herself. He, on the other hand, had bought himself a figurative ticket to Never Never Land and had blissfully pretended that the whole thing wasn't happening, which had worked perfectly well Rhys had moved out of their dormitory and the full weight of the situation had been impressed upon him with all the speedand ferocity of a punch to the face. Now he was left floundering in the situation where the government would most certainly not accept a plea for separation submitted so ridiculously late, and even if they were to consider it, it didn't really matter, because his freedom would come at the price of being forced into yet another partnership a mere month later. Furthermore, he had but weeks to find the woman he was betrothed to, get to know her even on the most superficial of levels, and proceed to making wedding, living and financial arrangements, and planning was not his area of expertise. None of this was anything that he felt sufficiently emotionally equipped to handle, and this above anything was what had been weighing down upon his mind, at great cost to his own ego. Being overwhelmed by a situation was not a familiar feeling.
Fearing that his roommate would become concerned if he were to outwardly display the sense of complete and utter helplessness that had been living in his gut ever since the stupid Helper had served him his sentence, something which would serve to both further reduce his sense of pride and cause Rhys unnecessary stress when he had his own worries to be dealing with, Miles had presented a false front of bravado and confidence, something which he had never had to fake before. It had irritated him greatly, for he despised lying with a passion and was loathe to do it to a friend, and by the time Rhys had packed up his belongings and left the dorm, Miles was almost happy to see him go. However, now that his best friend was no longer living with him, he had no more distractions, and the gloom was becoming palpable. And so, in a last ditch effort to restore some modicum of sanity, he had contacted the one person to whom he wasn't afraid to confide his worries in, his mother.
Although he had spent several days over the Christmas break at home and had seen his mother, he had spent the majority of his break in his dorm by himself, and had not ample chance to talk to Clarissa with his father in the house. Therefore, when he had called her and informed her that he kind of, sort of, maybe needed some help, she had instructed him to meet her at their favourite cafe that afternoon for a chat. Miles had arrived there an hour early, hoping to snag a table before the usual lunchtime rush, and found himself amongst a huge throng of people who had all evidently come with the same idea that he had.
Muttering to himself about inconsiderate time wasters, he pushed himself to the head of what could be considered a queue by someone with absolutely no idea of what a straight line looked like, and hissed at a harassed looking girl to get him a tea (Years of living in California had not yet converted him from an British tea drinker into an American coffee consumer, he still was of the opinion that nothing could beat a nice cup of English breakfast). After a few minutes of tapping his fingers against the counter and huffing inconsiderately, he was handed his tea and pushed his way back through the crowd and to the outside seating area, for there were no tables available inside the cafe. He scanned the area, thankful that he had brought his glasses today, and to his immense fortune spotted a lone, vacated table amongst several occupied ones, an oasis in a desert. He made his way over, silently congratulating himself on his table-spotting talent, and was just about to drop into one of the available seats when he discovered that he had not been alone in making a beeline for this destination. Par for the course today, it seemed. His rival was a young and rather beautiful woman who had reached the table at exactly the same moment as he had, and had he been a cheerier mood, he might have offered his seat to her and possibly attempted to flirt a little. However, Miles Egerton hated just about everyone in the world on this particular day, and he was getting his table if it meant that fifty young and beautiful young woman had to suffer sore feet.
He pulled out the nearest available chair and placed himself in it, whistling to himself as if he hadn't noticed she was there. He didn't even send an apologetic word in her direction.