A Vulnerable Vacuum In Which To Be Cornered

Ayla didn't respond to her little explanation. Her face had settled into that stillness that Renée recognized from their worst moments - when young love had crashed against misunderstandings that neither of them had been mature enough to handle.

The unpublished writer's skill at hiding her struggles had met the future lawyer's talent for assuming the worst… and everything had fallen apart in silence and cold shoulders. Until that messy confrontation about jealousy and distrust… and well meaning choice to end things.

[I should tell her everything. I want to tell her everything.]

But wanting to be brave enough wasn't the same as being brave enough. Not yet. Not with the reception swirling up around them and Ayla looking simultaneously like every wet dream and disjointed nightmare she'd had about seeing her again. Every desire and fear of failure.

The tense, extended moment of soft sips at a wine glass fractured when someone came to pull Renée away for the scheduled party photos. She'd almost been grateful for the interruption - another minute and she might have spilled everything, right there at the reception table.

Her story and truth spoken loudly… desperately. The woman's tongue had felt extra heavy with the very confessions she wasn't ready to voice. Not with Ayla still wearing her silence like spikes in front of her.

They separated without real resolution, both of them too raw for supposedly different reasons to push each other further. Renée had smiled and made some comment about finding her later. A promise that neither of them quite believed.

As she let herself be led away, she'd felt Ayla's eyes on her back the entire time.

[The same way she watched me walk away back then.]

⛌-⛌-⛌

An hour later, the reception was in full swing. Renée had stationed herself near one of the tall cocktail tables meant single (or double) use upon return, ostensibly watching the dancers but really tracking Ayla's movements in her peripheral vision. The bronze dress still looked like liquid metal, but the wearer's movements had changed.

Or the lack of overall movement.

None of that calculated seduction, all of the unwelcoming distance. As if Ayla was trying to hold herself together through sheer force of will in the middle of the event. Going through minimal motions.

[I should have told her. Should have explained...]

But the words were still stuck behind that old wall she built. Even seeing how this silence had wounded them both, Renée couldn't quite break through years of hiding her struggles. Years of using therapy to dance at the edges of the truth in order to learn appropriate techniques to grow closer to thriving than surviving.

In her introspection, she watched as a young woman approached Ayla. With that slightly detached self-blaming state… the writer still noted how the fresh face positioned herself just a touch [too close]. There was something predatory in her stance that made Renée's instincts prickle.

She'd seen that look before - someone mistaking a look of vulnerability for weakness and willingness. Seeing an *opening* that wasn't really there. Once upon a time, in a youth-filled land called high school, Renée had been no knight on a white horse herself. But her 'tactics' were always inviting and not pressuring.

Her self-education had been quite thorough in learning how to read when a girl's smile reached her eyes. When someone's laugh was genuine enjoyment of flirting company rather than nervous energy. The difference between hesitation that needed gentle coaxing... and hesitation that meant 'no'.

[I was a female rake, maybe. But never a wolf looking to chomp their legs so they can't escape.]

The young red-head edged closer to Ayla, forcing her target to either step back or accept the further invasion of space. It was the kind of move Renée had witnessed before - creating false intimacy through proximity. The writer's fingers tightened on her glass as she watched the classic setup unfold.

She recognized the strategy even if she'd never employed it herself. Isolate and strike. Create a bubble of staged conversation that others would be hesitant to interrupt. That they would assume was entirely reciprocal.

The predator's toolkit hadn't changed all too much since her own wild days. But of course, Ayla wasn't some shy wallflower.

The rigid set of her shoulders spoke volumes to anyone who bothered to actually look. Her mask of professionalism was firmly in place, but Renée could see the tension building underneath. The kind that would have made the writer back off from amorous thoughts.

Her own reputation might have been colorful as any rainbow back then, but she'd earned it fairly. Through charismatic charm and clear intentions rather than cornering. By reading between the lines for genuine interest in those she looked at or that looked at her… instead of *manufacturing* exploitable pressure.

The sound of Ayla's voice carried across the space as the pair wrapped tight in tête-à-tête. The volume out of her throat was intentionally raised so it never looked so 'private' on her part. Renée could hear what others in the area might miss - the strain of someone maintaining composure against their instincts. 

A sign she wanted help.

Unexpectedly, this 'Samantha' let her voice carry to the same level after only a few exchanges. Precisely pitched to reach every interested ear around them. Renée found herself drifting closer inconspicuously. Not obviously listening, but collecting the details in that sideways way she'd perfected for people watching.

"I heard about your Bar results."

The younger woman's tone was venom wrapped in polite conversation. She hated it instantly. Renée could already picture where this was going. That venom was meant to break someone down.

She watched as something shifted in Ayla's eyes - barely there, but to someone who had just witnessed her vulnerability an hour ago, it might as well have been a flinch. It was the way Samantha leaned in after also noticing it, all eagerness and sharp edges, that made Renée's fingers tighten around her own glass.

She also hadn't pulled anyone's hair since high school, but this was the sort of behavior that deserved it in her mind. Of course, the writer would never admit right now she felt it all the more strongly because it involved Ayla.

"Passing on the first test was impressive, especially considering all the... distractions you've had in the past."

The word 'distractions' hung in the air like smoke, clearly meant to drift in Renée's direction. Even the back of the woman's head tilted as if to reference the place the writer had been seated. They both saw the tensing of Ayla's shoulders. The way her spine straightened just a fraction more.

To anyone else, it would look like professional poise. To the predator… an opening to keep attacking. But Renée knew even better - knew what Ayla looked like when she was protecting something precious from harm. She also knew that Ms. Bozkurt spared no expense on such service.

[Oh, little junior lawyer. You have no idea what you're actually poking at, do you?]

Still, she held herself back. The writer in her wanted to see how this drama played out, even as another part of her - the part that had just barely restrained itself from spilling every truth and desire earlier at that reception table - itched to intervene.

To save Ayla the cost. The professional face. Or even just to prove her own style of charm was a better lure to women of quality than the red-head's boa constrictor ploy.