Ava (II)

 Ava was definitely not the type to wear dresses regularly. As far as her dressing style went, her choice of clothes lingered around the detective from the series she used to watch. She always wore a t-shirt, jeans or any dark pants and a blazer. No matter how much she tried to change her wardrobe over the years, and look more professional, she would always circle back to the clothes that made her feel comfortable, which is why putting on this dress felt like a struggle to her. She felt too fat for the dress now but had no time to pick up something else. She also knew deep down that another dress wasn’t going to make any kind of difference, since the problem was not the dress. It was her. And the wrinkles that had started to show under her eyes did little to boost her confidence. Looking in the mirror, she thought that at least her grey hair was not showing yet. It would still be a couple of weeks before she would dye her hair black again.

The last three years had been particularly hard for her and there were signs of that all over. She had tried everything in her power to recover from that horrible situation or to, at least, find some lost pieces of her old self. But all this was much harder than she had ever imagined it would be. ‘Breathe. Just breathe’, Ava whispered to herself.

As she left her apartment, all she hoped for was to forget about the bad parts of her day and try, at least, try, to have a decently good time for a change, because she knew she deserved it. She then took her phone out and called Sophia, as she always did when she was on her way somewhere. She needed to hear a friendly voice, tonight, more than ever.

Twenty minutes later, Ava entered that beautifully decorated garden with a glass of champagne in her left hand, trying to gaze through the crowd. She located Emma with no difficulty. Not only because of her bright blue dress in a sea of conservatory black and white, but also because of her loud, abundant laughter that seemed to have drawn everybody to her. Emma had always been this person – she was always surrounded by a bunch of people she barely knew, entertaining them in conversation, deeply enjoying every second of their attention. And this time was no different. Ava smiled and started walking towards her friend.