His Saving Grace

Chapter 1

(Almost a year back)

“Come ON Mia, don’t spoil the mood”, Nina whined as she tried to pull her out of her chair. Blaire rolled her eyes at Nina. “Can you please stop acting like a brat and sit down. Everybody at the diner is staring at us you doofus”, she scolded the red-haired girl. Nina didn’t even bother to pretend she heard Blaire and turned towards Eva. “YOU understand what I mean, Ev, don’t you?” she purposely made her already too-big-eyes bigger, “It would be SO much fun if we do go to the museum. We meet like only two times a year and all we do is come to this diner, eat, talk and then talk some more and then leave. We don’t do enough fun things.”

Eva laughed heartily at this and even Blaire snorted. “And you call going to the museum a fun thing?” Blaire asked, making air quotes as she said the word fun. Nina pouted. “Not just the museum but the walk there, dumbo. We’ll spend the twenty-five minutes walk to the museum doing fun stuff”, she was now practically bouncing on her feet with excitement. And then, as though she suddenly remembered what she really needed to do, she turned towards the brunette sitting next to her and yanked at her arm. The said brunette, who was busy stuffing her mouth with pasta, gasped at this sudden pull and fell in the direction of the executed force with the added bonus of her plate. So now the scene looked something like this: Blaire and Eva had their mouths fully opened looking at their friends across the table who were sprawled on the floor right now with Mia trying to push herself off of the floor and Nina still there with a face full of pasta, probably trying to make sense of what just happened. The whole diner, if not before, was surely staring at them now.

Mia succeeded in getting up first and then pulled Nina up with her as well. Then she turned towards Blaire and Eva and grinned, “I think it is time for that museum walk.” Seeing as they were now the center of attention of their current surroundings, both of them couldn’t agree more.

So that was how the four friends, after helping Nina clean her face smeared with pasta sauce, found themselves walking towards the museum laughing at what had just happened. They strolled through the streets gossiping and window shopping. The weather was chilly and the evening was turning into an early night due to the clouds obscuring the sky. Ten minutes into the walk, and they were already starting to shiver and yet it was turning out to be more enjoyable than their usual dinners. They were together, with each other. Their laughs, their occasional hugs and their silly banter kept them warm because of one emotion that blanketed them from the chilly weather and provided them with a friendly cocoon of their own. And that emotion was love. The four had been friends for almost seven years and even though they were of vastly different personalities, they complimented each other surprisingly well. Blaire was the ‘saucy’ one of the group who knew what she wanted, when she wanted and how she wanted it; and who was never afraid of speaking her mind. With shoulder-length chestnut hair, she had an oval face with striking green eyes that made people turn at least once to look at her again. She was stunning and she knew it. Nina was the red-headed ‘child’ of the group who pouted and whined and pouted some more in front of her friends to get her wishes be fulfilled. And what more, with her childlike eyes and chubby cheeks, she actually did manage to get the three of them to agree with her. People adored her due to her innocent face and even more baby-like tactics. They hardly ever said no to her unless it was her mother, of course. Eva with her dark raven hair and blue eyes, angular features and slim build looked nothing short of a model. She was the ‘quiet’ one of the group. The one who always smiled at Nina’s tactics and listened silently to what Blaire had to comment on the latest gossip or what Mia had to say about the novel that had just been released. She was the ‘silent-stunning-supporter’ as Nina liked to call her.

And then there was her, Mia, the ordinary one. Or at least that’s what she felt. With brown colored hair that came just short of her elbows and similar light-brown eyes, she had a slim, petite build. One thing she did like about herself was her eyebrows. She loved the fact that she never had to do anything with them to make them thicker or whatever. She had amazing dark eyebrows that gave her ordinary brown eyes a touch of mystery, or that’s what she liked to think at least. But she was grateful that there was at least one feature that she didn’t have to worry about like most girls who struggled to get their eyebrows ‘just right’. She liked to think of herself as the ‘spontaneous’ one. She loved adventures and hardly ever said no to any. She liked to always be positive in every situation. Like now, she couldn’t help but smile as she listened to Blaire go on about Derek, her current crush. The talk of Derek led all three of them to tease B about him and then, in the midst of teasing, Mia started belting out the lyrics of “Oh my, my, my” and was soon joined by Nina who danced along with the beat. That’s how they ended up at the entrance of the local museum: singing, dancing, laughing and making memories.