picture: betty's vintage tee

Her high heels click against the floorboards of her bedroom with a rhythmic cadence as she wanders across the large space, brushing her golden blonde curls. She stops in front of the full length mirror, and admires her reflection with a satisfied smile. Petite figure, blue eyes with flecks of golden shine and full curved lips. She's still in her pastel pink bra and denim jeans, vacillating between her tees and sweatshirts. She's always been the kind of girl who puts on shoes first, then the outfit forms itself. Settling on a butterfly vintage tee, she picked up her sunglasses and her new phone - courtesy of her step-dad - looking forward to her date with James.

Making her way down the stairs and into the living room, she tells her mother not to wait up for her. Her mother makes an approving mumble of sorts and scoots further into the couch, popping nachos and increasing the television volume. For Betty, her mother is her entire world. When her real father walked out on them about a decade ago, the metaphorical rug under their lives was pulled and thrown away. Both of them slipped hard on the ground, bruising their souls. As a byproduct, Betty grew up faster than most people her age. Experiences made her independent, her views expanded and she learned the hard way that nothing is permanent. So she planted a swift kiss on her mother's cheek, bidding her goodbye and headed out the back door through the garden.

The evening wind was dry and lazy; the last of the sunshine thinning behind a veil of dark purple sky. The walk to James' home wasn't a long one but she took her time on the cobblestone path, loving the comforting click of heels against it.

She heard him before she saw him. The unmistakable spin of the wheels on his skateboard. Sure enough, when she turned the corner, he was there. Dark jeans, grey t-shirt, hair swaying a bit and a heart stopping smile on his lips. He was looking straight at Betty, causing delicious shivers to shoot up her spine. With one swing of his leg on the ground, he wheeled towards her, his hand expertly sliding across her waist and pulling her into him. Still standing on the skateboard, he brushed his lips against her ear.

"You'll fall if you continue that," she mumbled against him, his scent dancing in her senses and a smile struggling to break out on her own lips.

"I've already fallen," James whispered and pulled back, stepping out of the skateboard. He clamped their hands together and leaned in to take her glossed lips within his. Betty let out an involuntary sound of approval as his tongue slid across her lips. His hands snaked around her while hers combed his dark messy hair. She pressed herself into him as much as physically possible while completely clothed, and standing in the side of the street. They broke apart and he inhaled her gasp of breaths. "Hi, Betty."

"Hey," Betty smiled.

James lazily twirled a curl of her hair in his index finger. "You look beautiful."

"Really?" She feigned surprise, but little compliments like these made her heart flutter. "I look like this all the time."

"My point exactly," James grinned. "Wanna get out of here?"

"Dying to."

~•~

Swinging their clasped hands ever so slightly, a rush of overwhelming content took over Betty's insides and she couldn't help but memorize the touch of his palm, his fingers, the little jump in his walk, and the nonchalant gaze in his eyes as he tells one story after the other. She plastered this memory into the depths of her mind to visit later, like a journal.

The date wasn't anywhere fancy. They had both out grown that phase of the relationship, not that they actually had one to begin with. There's only so much fancy dates you can go to in the midst of school and the limited income from work. So they usually settled on long drives and McD's, stargazing from rooftops, and strolling around NYC. Today was the strolling endlessly kind of day. Lazy walking, hand in hand on the greens of High Line, Betty realised this was one of those moments she would remember about James even years later.

They talked endlessly about everything and nothing in particular. This is what she loved about James. He loved talking like it was a hobby. He could hold a single conversation about a single topic for hours. It was a talent really, to bullshit your way through any conversation with such confidence that convinces people into believing you blindly. Real handy for debates and getting out of mischief, Betty thought. But James never took advantage of that. He wasn't sly enough to do so. So he casually talked. Now he was telling a story he read in a blog couple days ago. Something about a rich American widow, her fancy beach house fifty years ago and a stolen cat. Betty was paying attention, but not really. She was just falling for him more and more.

"And she literally filled her entire swimming pool with Dom Perignon." When James didn't elaborate leaving room for suspense, Betty raised an eyebrow in question.

"It's a champagne."

"No way!" Betty's mouth hung open in wonder. "That's insane!"

"Truly. And that's not even the best part. She ordered an urn to be sculpted by this famous artist named Salvador Dalí. Apparently, she spent 250 million dollars over it."

Betty shook her head in disbelief, her hand still entwined with James'. "This keeps getting crazy."

"And she had asked for her ashes to be put in that urn. But when she died," he dragged out the word 'died', "there was one little problem. The urn was too small. It could only hold the ashes of one of her leg or just the head, I'm not quite sure. But it's bizarre nonetheless."

James's excitement was contagious and Betty found herself enjoying Harkness' crazy life.

"That's almost scary!"

"And speaking of scary, someone found the lid of that urn open, and oh, you won't believe what it was called!"

"The lid? It had a name of it's own?"

"It sure did, don't put it past her. It was called the Chalice of Life - which is horribly ironic."

James let out a low shudder as the wind picked up. Even though they were walking in the smack middle of the city, surrounded with tourists and visitors at the High Line, there was no one quite near to them. The sound outside of their little bubble seemed inaudible to Betty.

"That's crazy. I will never understand rich people!"

James chuckled. "So the Chalice of Life was found open after they had put in her ashes and it went ahead to make quite the ghost story that Rebekah had escaped."

"Her legacy lived on the most surreal way." Betty laughed, "What happened to the rest of her?"

"Now that is the best part. They put her in a Gristede's shopping bag!"

Her eyes widened, mouth hung open and she whirled her head around to look at him and James was already looking at her, his green eyes shining with amusement. They burst out laughing together, exclaiming their disbelief and bewilderment, and didn't stop till they had to clutch their stomach.

She couldn't help herself as she was looking at James' smile, and asked for a kiss. A wide grin broke out on his face and he immediately dropped his skateboard from the other hand and steered them towards a bench platform, away from the greenery and crowd. Betty only leaned against the platform when James circled his arms around her and took her lips within his, fulfilling her wishes without complaint. She responded quickly, placing her palms flat on his chest and melting into him. His lips were gentle with her and she could feel his lingering smile, but she took the lead and picked up the pace. She sucked on his lower lip long and hard, causing him to moan from the back of his throat, the sound that sent little shivers down her arms. He tightened the grip on her pulling her into him. His heart was beating rapidly right beneath her palm, his chest rising and falling. Something about the rhythmic tone of it seemed like his heart was screaming the syllables of her name.

Betty. Betty. Betty.

She thought she could even hear it; or maybe that was her own heart hammering in her own chest, mingling with all the sensations in her body. She could feel every nerve in her lit alive as she made out with her boyfriend under a starry night sky, thinking how lucky she was to be experiencing a special kind of love.

Love that people are deprived of even in several lifetimes.

~•~