BELLA.

I was depressed.

Staring into the mirror that hung from a nail on my wall, I ran my hands along the sides of the dark blue, silk dress I was planning on wearing to dinner tonight, and smoothed it out. I stared at my refection for a while, pondering whether or not the low-cut trims on the dress revealed too much of both chest and legs, and shrugged nonchalantly. It wasn’t as if I had much chest to show, anyway.

Frowning, I reeled my eyes away from my slim figure and focused on my make-up and hair. They looked decent enough. Glancing down, I twisted my ankles to get a better view of the heels that matched perfectly with the dress. Of course, both the dress and the heels had been given to me by Alice during one of the many shopping sprees I had endured for her throughout the years.

I didn’t like dressing up on days that I did not have to work. Even so, I made an appreciative attempt to look my best. If I didn’t, I would only have to suffer for it later. I shivered at the image of Alice dragging me back to her house to change clothes. I was nothing more than a Barbie doll in her eyes. She, of course, didn’t care that I knew it, either.

Sighing, I grabbed my small, silver purse from on top of my bed and hastily tried to stuff all my carry-on cosmetics and necessities in. That proved to be more difficult, than necessary.

I was half-way through the door when I remembered the person who would be accompanying me today.

That forced another sigh from me.

I turned on my heels and grabbed a packet of Aspirin from the cupboard in my kitchen. If I was going to survive the night with that bastard, I was desperately going to need some pain-killers. Drugs worked wonders in head-throbbing situations. It was only a shame that I ran out of the Tylenol PM, that usually knocked me out. I regretted going through the bottle so quickly after that first week Cullen was assigned to me.

While I was making my way to the silver car parked just across the street from my apartment, I forced myself not to turn back and get another packet of meds, reminding myself that I wasn’t a junkie.