MIDDLETON, deena rebekah

[rebekah]

-- deena rebekah middleton. eighteen. senior. acting.

Next month was going to be Natalie's second Valentine's Day without Jonathan, or Johnny, as he was came to be known as. If there was one thing that the gossip columns were right about, he was the reason why she disappeared off the face of the Hollywood radar. Being emotionally unstable about his death and on top of the pressures of being a major star, the burden was too overwhelming for Nat. There wasn't much thought into going away, it was actually quite spontaneous. She'd come home from a grueling day at work with tears streaming down her face that she managed to hold in for that day. She stood in the kitchen - in the very same spot, and was coincidentally drinking wine - feeling her heart sinking low. The poor girl felt like she was about to explode having felt trapped and deprived of freedom. The producers on the movie she worked on at the time obviously never lost someone they loved and refused to allow her grieving time. She couldn't handle it anymore so without another thought, she headed straight to her bedroom and packed her luggage spending the rest of the year back home in Australia.

She didn't tell anyone that she left, nor where she was going. Luckily, she had managed to skip by the eyes of those who'd recognise her at the JFK airport. However, once she was back in Australia and in her parents' Sydney home, she knew she had to let someone she trusted know. Charlie was out of the question knowing that the girl would never lie if the media started asking her questions. Not like Natalie really trusted her anyway these days. Her manager and agent? No. Her publicist? Hell no. There wasn't anyone else besides the one person she knew would bring any secret of hers to his grave if she asked him to - Matthew. She called him in the afternoon, two in the morning his time, told him where she was and why. And like a true friend, she threatened to kill him if he dared to tell anyone where she was. A whole year. It took her a whole a year to recover from Jonathan's death. She was desperately in love with him, not like her high school fiance who treated her like shit and cheated on her at every opportunity. It also took her a year to realise that maybe she was having such shit luck in love because she was meant to tell her best friend that she loved him.

See, the scene where she'd tell him played out in her mind like this. She'd have a cat - when in reality she didn't - and on a gloomy day, the cat would run out of her apartment building and into an alleyway in the New York rain. In her Burberry beige trench coat, Natalie would be desperately looking for her cat dripping wet having to rush and forgetting to grab an umbrella. So as she stands in the alleyway searching for her runaway cat, Natalie turns around finding Matthew standing a few metres away having followed her. She smiles, the feeling is romantic, and both are standing without umbrellas in the rain. And then he smiles back and Natalie's heart collapses. The next thing, she hears a purring in a stack of boxes and in it, her cat is hiding wet from the rain. She cries for joy, picking her cat up and walking over to Matt who holds his arms out to take Natalie and her cat in them. And as she looks into Matt's warm brown eyes, those three words come out of her mouth without hesitation and with all the love she can put into it. He smiles back and tells her that he loves her too and they kiss in the pouring rain. Hah. As if. First of all, Natalie didn't own a cat and secondly, he probably didn't love her back. The scene was also unrealistic simply because it was a scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Clearly Charlie had made her watch that movie too many times in the past.

She stared at him with wide eyes as he joked about his Valentine's Day joke. Cheap hotels and heart shaped beds? She laughed, but truth be told she hoped he was really joking. The last thing she wanted to do was to call up on Valentine's Day and find out that he really had rented out a hotel room that wasn't a single bedded room. Anyway, she had to give him credit for remembering her favourite flowers despite his bad memory. He failed sometimes. In fact, she had programmed her birthday and other important dates on his cell phone for the next twenty or so years. Well she expected them to be together side by side for the next twenty years. It was a good thing she didn't know that he had simply grabbed the flowers from the stands without paying - she'd most likely punch him and tell him to go back and apologise to the poor tender. He could be such a dedicated friend at times.

Natalie licked her lips at the thought of digging into such a mouth watering meal. Sure, she loved restaurant dinners, but home made always won her. It was a pretty good decision then to stay with her mum and dad - her mother was the best cook. Now, he was wandering around the kitchen looking to prepare to cook. ”I know you never cook for yourself, but do you happen to remember where the pans are?” Natalie snorted, "Of course I do." She said sticking her tongue out. "I was after all, the one who placed these things in my kitchen... to your left." She said pointing to the cabinet on his left - her right - before taking another sip of wine. With his back turned to her, she tilted her head staring at his cute and well-toned behind. When she realised what she was doing, she shook her head slightly and smiled to herself as she took another drink. Soon her eyes diverted to the ingredients on the counter as Matt spoke, "Well, besides the fact that vegetable oil contributes to blindness, nope." She looked up at him for a reaction and laughed, "I'm sure nothing will hurt me though! Now, do you want help?"

anna. nineteen. +10 GMT.