so many wordssssss
Tipping her chin up in a bit of a defiant manner, Vienna tried to keep a straight face as she answered. “No, that’s not it at all,” except it totally was. “…Okay, maybe it is.” She amended with a tiny smile, unable to keep up the act for very long.
“Damnit, and I thought I was being so sneaky,” she said this while snapping her fingers in that kind of ‘ah, shucks’ manner. “Guess I’ll just have to try a different tactic next time.
“Beauty is pain, deal with it.” She shot back with a smirk, laughing softly. “Except than you and the entire compound will be wrong.” Vienna really wouldn’t be bothered if that was what everyone wanted to call them. Art was subjective, even art in photography form – which meant not everyone would like it.
Vienna tipped her head in agreement with her friend’s grumbled words. “Can’t live with them, but it’s really damn hard to live without them,” she added, her tone laced with fondness.
“Rae gave me a camera for Christmas, so I’ve got a spare,” She answered with a smile. “So your hope of the kids breaking my one and only camera and saving you from future shoots has totally been thwarted.” Vienna knew that hadn’t been Leah’s desire in making the comment, but she just couldn’t resist throwing that out there.
She smirked and preened just a little bit at Leah’s words. “Us Albrecht women pride ourselves on our stubbornness,” she chirped, her tone bubblier than it had been in a long while. “Fine, I’ll stop saying it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.” She relented, not wanting to make her friend feel anymore uncomfortable than she already did. Vienna chuckled when Leah pointed out that she had been the first person to point out the other woman had looked tortured earlier. “True, that was my doing.” She agreed. “And you know I am thankful that you’re doing this, right?”
There really were so many reasons for slacking off on focusing on friendships. Things like motherhood and relationships, even just day to day to day-to-day stuff could make it hard to keep up. But none of them made it right to forget to check in with the people in your life, this was something Vienna was realizing now. “Our lives our busy, but I kind of don’t think that makes it okay to forget about friends and shit,” she said, nodding when Leah made the comment about promising to do better. “Yes, we’ll just have to cut out time in our busy schedules to catch up.”
Vienna had lived a lot and seen a lot in the last four years, but at the core of things she was still much younger than some people realized. At that age when advice was still needed, especially when you had not experience in how to deal with this stuff – or very little experience. Maybe that’s why quick one-night things had been appealing to her, it meant she never had to try and figure out the emotions of dealing with growing attached or growing to love someone.
She thought on Leah’s question for a moment before nodding her head. “Yeah, I trust Noah, more than I think I ever thought I would,” in all honesty he was the first guy she could really trust about as much as she had trusted Thomas. “Technically he’s not the first guy I’ve been with since Thomas, he’s just the first one I’ve stuck around with for longer than one night.” She wasn’t ashamed of her past behavior, it had kept her alive and gotten her some of the things she had needed – like a truck to her out to Sing Sing. “But I get what you’re saying, that maybe I’ve forming an attachment because he’s the first guy I’ve spent time with since Thomas…”
“Sometimes I could use the cautious road advice,” Vienna replied honestly. Spontaneity was a good thing, but sometimes, especially with relationships, some thought needed to be put into it. “Maybe, probably.” If she knew Noah’s thoughts on all of this it probably would clear up what she was feeling, because if he made it painfully clear this was ‘just casual’ she would probably be able to case these feelings away.