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❛ 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 . . . ❜ 013. heartbeat on the high line ━━━━━━━━━━━
NEW YORK . . .❜
Beth wasn't sure what qualified as a crush.
Of course, she'd had them–– for years, she'd been so infatuated with this one girl at her boarding school, back before she'd even realised what that meant. It'd been a friendship on the surface, but underneath, Beth had been a blushing mess.
It'd been the sort of crush that had been full of innocence, of a heart-beat skipping and fond smiles–– she hadn't been able to call it what it was until it was over. They'd moved on their lives without even realising what it was; a crush lost to time.
And then she'd had some that she'd acted on, too.
Manhattan witnessed that first hand.
He was a crush she had been proud of: a lawyer, nicely dressed, polite and cluttered her VCR with episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Their relationship started six months into her stay in Manhattan and three months before Mark and Beth started 'seeing' each other; it was all about dates–– by the time Beth had received a phone call from her sister on a cold night in late spring, Calum already had a toothbrush in Beth's bathroom.
"I need your help."
That's how Addison began most of her phone calls. Usually, they always fell in line with the social season: a phone call here to ask Beth if she'd be a doll and go pick up a floral arrangement that hadn't made it to the right venue, a phone call there to ask Beth to apron-up and fill in the spot of a cater-waiter that just hadn't shown up, and everything else in between.
It was always a request with Addison, always, as if Beth was some unpaid intern that was continuously on hand––
Not an intern, just the youngest sibling.
That, ultimately, was why Beth had taken to crossing her fingers whenever she answered the phone and silently chanting under her breath in hope that it was news about a death in the family.
But, as always, No. Their mother hadn't happened to have a heart attack and their father's flight to some golfing retreat hadn't just happened to fall out of the sky.
What a shame.
That evening, it was this:
"I need you to come to Lincoln Centre."
Addison's voice was muffled by a light wind and Beth could see her, hurrying down the sidewalk amidst a chaos that was completely lost to her own evening. What had, before this phone call, been a very peaceful Friday night, now seemed to unravel very slightly at the seems.
