The Way We Almost Were ✓

49| the snowball effect

| Chapter 49 |

| the snowball effect |

Vanessa, Bree's mother, released a sigh as she pulled her phone away from her ear, having just hung up with the room she was staying in -- the one she'd booked for her and Maya at the very hotel the seminar had been held at.

The hotel had provided a staff member to leave Maya behind with, and Vanessa had just had a conversation with them only to learn that her daughter was currently sound asleep.

Just as she was about to turn off her display and put away the phone in her bag, she caught the new alert of an image being sent to her. A smile lifted the edges of her mouth once she realised it was from her oldest daughter, Bree.

Dragging the notification bar down, Vanessa clicked on the alert, before the screen went dark and displayed a loading symobl, and then a photograph materialised on the screen.

Vanessa recognised the backdrop of their local mall's foodcourt instantly, having been there with both her precious girls one too many times. Her eyes swept over the picture, from Nick, to Dale, to Claire, and then to Bree. All four of them were leaning into each other, as if afraid to be left out of the frame and squeezing themselves into the photo.

They looked happy, and that simple yet obvious fact tugged at Vanessa's chest. They looked happy.

She must have been staring at the screen of her phone for too long though, because she suddenly felt the wind get knocked out of her, a dull throb spreading over her nose, and then her grip on the phone was gone, soon followed by the sound of something clattering against the floor of the hotel.

"I'm sorry," an unfamiliar male voice said. It was probably whoever she'd run face-first into. "I wasn't looking."

"Neither was I," Vanessa admitted, rubbing the tip of her nose which she was sure was reddening at this point.

Her eyes moved to the spot in front of her, to meet the eyes of the man who she'd collided into -- but was met with empty space instead. She glanced down out of instinct, and found him kneeling there, reaching to pick up her phone that'd landed with its back facing up.

Vanessa noticed the stranger stop in his movements once he flipped the phone over and saw the screen, his thumb running over a corner of the image so subtly -- until it hit her that he was merely tracing a newly formed crack on the glass, and not the photo itself.

"Shoot," Vanessa muttered, "I'm going to have to do something about that."

The man rose to his feet and handed the phone to Vanessa with an amiable smile on his face. "It doesn't look too bad. Barely a scratch. I wouldn't worry about it too much."

"Yeah?" She offered the same smile in return, recognising him as one of the lawyers who'd attended the seminar. "I hope that's the case."

"On your behalf, I hope so too," he told her with an easy chuckle. "We lawyers have enough on our plate without needing to add phone repairs or purchases to it."