Loving With A Heavy Heart 51 Drifting

For most of the afternoon both girls sat in the lounge both doing their own things. It was a something that they had often done in high school; they would both be in the same room but studying different subjects or reading different books. Elle had always found it comforting to quietly pa.s.s the time in each other's company this way.

Abby was back on her phone, still looking through at the news of MK's event last night. Occasionally she would comment on something aloud to Elle who would absentmindedly give a generic response.

Elle had gotten her laptop from her bedroom and was finally taking a moment to get back to her writing. The past few weeks had been full of work; work for Tae's new product launch as well as work preparing for MK's event. Things in her novel had left off at the introduction of a new potential male lead. As Elle went through the comments she was amazed. She thought her novel was popular before, but her views had skyrocketed since introducing a potential love interest.

Comments were pouring in about wanting more, so Elle threw herself into her writing. She carefully planned what sort of character to make the male lead, and the details of how the relationship should progress going forward. When she left off Rina had started working on the set of a new movie with James, the new potential love interest.

Elle poured her own emotions into her story – it was the only way she knew how to write. At the time Adam had just invited her to model for MK and she had been feeling insufficient, so in her writing Rina had been feeling insufficient with her acting. But today Elle felt confident. Everything had gone better then she ever hoped for last night, she wasn't in the mood to write anything negative today, so she decided things should finally turn around for her character.

Since her chapters were made to be written as diary entries of the main character a lot of the updates could be short, Elle ended up writing several entries; James helped Rina practice her lines again and again, in the end the new movie was a great success.

Elle was in her own world; she was so caught up with her writing that she didn't notice Abby watching her with a perplexed look on her face.

"I'm going to get a gla.s.s of water." Abby said finally.

"Mhmm." Elle mumbled absentmindedly.

As Abby entered the kitchen she saw Jacob again.

"h.e.l.lo." She greeted him, still feeling some embarra.s.sment from earlier.

"h.e.l.lo again. Having fun?" Jacob asked mildly.

"Yea." Abby replied, but she was unenthusiastic and Jacob picked up on it.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, it's nothing."

"It doesn't look like nothing."

"Well…" Abby said hesitantly. "Nothing's wrong, I just feel like something's different about Elle today."

"How do you mean?" Jacob asked.

"I have the feeling that she's keeping something from me." Abby confessed.

"Is that all?" Jacob said with a chuckle.

"I told you it was nothing." Abby mumbled. "It's just that it isn't like her to be keeping things to herself."

"You clearly don't know her that well then. She's always like that." Jacob said lightly. He then took his things and left the kitchen.

Abby suddenly felt very silly. It was true that Elle had never kept a secret from her before, so it had bothered Abby when Elle had very obviously avoided talking about the flowers she had received, but wasn't it normal for everyone to have a secret or two? She still hadn't shared her own secret with Elle yet, so it didn't make much sense to get all worked up.

Having made up her mind to not let it bother her anymore Abby returned to the lounge.

"Hey Elle," She said as she entered, "I actually have some news I want to share with you."

Elle looked up from her writing. "What is it?"

"I didn't say anything earlier because I wanted to be certain before I shared the news, I've actually finished enough credits to graduate early. One of my professors recommended me to be a teaching a.s.sistant at an arts college here and I got the job."

Elle suddenly shut her laptop screen and sat up excitedly. "Congratulations! That's great news."

"Thanks Elle." Abby said with a smile.

"I can't believe you managed to be quite about it for so long. You were always terrible at keeping secrets."

"That's not fair, I just get excited easily. Besides it wasn't really a secret, I just wanted it to be a surprise." Abby pouted.

Elle laughed. "When are you moving back?"

"I'll be staying with my parents for now while I get settled into my work. After the holiday's I'll probably go back once or twice to pack my things."

"That's great, really." Elle congratulated her again. "I'm so happy for you."

The girls talked for a little while longer before Abby had to leave. Elle got up to see her friend out, but first went back to her room to quickly put her laptop away. As Abby stood in the doorway she saw the flowers again and couldn't help but feel doubt creeping back into her. Abby had been overseas for almost three years now. It was only natural that things might have changed while she was gone. This left Abby to wonder exactly how well she knew her friend.