Electric Impulse

chapter 7 | waiting room I

Present Day

"It's a messy love. A one-of-a-kind thing we have. Had is probably the better word." I nod. "This man!" I laugh at my own foolishness. "He's the exception to every single one of my rules, I swear." I glance at the girl sitting to the right of me. "You know?"

"Sure, I get it. Good girls always go for the bad ones," she says it as if she's lived it. The fluorescent lights flicker on and off overhead, but even in the bad lighting, I can tell she's no more than a year or two older than me. With her hair pulled back into a long blonde ponytail, her face looks bright and clear. She's a beautiful girl but hides her slender body under an oversized gray hoodie and sweatpants. It makes her look like a tomboy.

"When I first saw him, I was curious. I mean he's bigger than life. Everyone knows him. He's like this ultra-successful business man everyone respects. Who wouldn't be curious? But after he opened his mouth, it went south. I hated him, he was such a jerk and then, things changed. He grew on me. I never would've thought..."

She raises her eyebrow at me. "A successful businessman? High society, are we?"

I ignore her snarky comment. "Everyone knew of him. But I wanted to know him. The man behind the image. My curiosity got the best of me because everything that followed still blows my mind to this day. It all came from that one chance meeting. You know, he could've been in any girl's section that night and we would've been two strangers that happened to be in the same building. Nothing more but I found him standing in my section. We were meant to meet."

"When you look at it that way, that's powerful stuff," she replies.

"Yeah."

She was the only person sitting in the cold, sterile waiting room when I arrived this morning. As soon as I walked through that door, her blue eyes lit up. We haven't stopped talking since. Maybe it's the comfort of another warm body. Or the soft, soothing voice of a stranger with a heavy heart and a tale to tell. Either way, it feels like we've been friends for longer than the past hour.

"If you hated him so much, what was the draw? Why get involved after what he said to you?" she asks, her legs shaking as if she's nervous.

"I don't know. We got past that, somehow. It was our chemistry, maybe?" I look over for confirmation. I can tell she's listening, but she's not giving me anything.

She stares ahead.

"It was this...weird attraction. We couldn't stay away from each other but it wasn't evident from the start. At first, he really got under my skin. You know?"

She lightly smiles to herself.

"He's a man's man. Makes me feel alive. I don't know. He's dangerous and by now, I should know better than to ever get close to a guy like that but there's this energy between us." I sigh, unsatisfied with my own answer. Looking around, I search for something to compare it to. "It's like...electricity. It's electric, like this song!" I exclaim, pointing at the music playing overhead.

"Like this song? "Uh-Huh" by Julia Michaels?" she asks.

I nod.

"I love this song!" She sings along.

"That's it. A streak of lightning. Electric. This ever-present hum, buzzing under every interaction we had, every time we made eye contact, hell every time he touched me or got close to me. And it lingered long after he left, brewing, stirring something inside of me, underneath my clothes, under my skin, making my heart race."

She smiles at me with bright eyes. I think she gets me. "Sounds like a twisted love story."

"Ha! Trust me, love came last but when it did, it hit hard." I laugh. "Crazy thing though, when we first met, I thought I was in love with Sebastian, so I never even considered him an option but looking back now, my relationship with Sebastian was empty. Nowhere near love. It was nothing compared to this."

"You already had a boyfriend? A little scandalous, maybe?" She gives me the side-eye.

"I honestly never thought of it that way. It didn't happen like that. It—"

"Well, how did it happen, then?" Her tone becomes sharp. "That sounds kind of treacherous, from where I'm standing."

"Wait. —"

"It's like you window-shopped your way right out of your relationship with, Sebastian, is it? Do you realize how horrible that must feel?"

"Hold on a minute—"

"How unsettling it is to trust someone, and the whole time they're smiling in your face making you think everything is fine, but their heart is really not there?" She shakes her head in disapproval. "I feel for him."

"Ha! You feel for him?" I close my eyes, to calm myself. The fact that she went so far to the left with that tells me she's probably working through some relationship issues of her own. I let it go. "Sebastian's not as innocent as you may think." Annoyed at the thought of him being blameless, I raise my eyebrows. "Let me bring you up to speed."

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A/N: Hey Lovers! This is the end of chapter 7 and a turn of events! If you notice, it's marked "Present Day," as this is Aria's current status. Everything you've read prior to this chapter happened six months ago. Curious to know how she ended up here? Muwahaha! Read on my lovers :-) Please remember to Vote and Comment. Tell me what's on your mind.