Surviving

"I don't think your profession is silly at all." He replied with a soft expression. "You make clothes that help people to feel good about themselves when they wear them... that's a good thing." He cleared his throat a little. "And... you aren't doing anything wrong by not trying to actively help people, but if you feel like you want to help... that's a good thing too." He finally smiled. "Listen, if everyone were to choose a career based on deep moral convictions... the world would be a very boring, and very depressing place. I believe it's people like you who help to make the world more fun, and happier."

Abby grinned at him then, feeling much more confident about her career choice, "Thanks, that really helps... but um... yeah! I think I have an idea that will help your patients out a lot, and I'm going to give you my phone number... so then we can talk about it more thoroughly when we have time. It will be great, and I think everyone will really appreciate it!" She took out her phone then, "I hope I'm not weird asking, but what's your number?" She asked.

Michael reached his hand out, palm up. "May I?" He asked with a somewhat odd grin. Once she surrendered her phone to him, he made his way to her contacts list and made a contact for himself. He almost gave her phone back at one point, then realized he had forgotten something. A few minutes later, he was satisfied, and dropped the phone in her hand again. It had his contact info now, complete with a picture attached of him with a dorky smile. "I don't screen my calls, so feel free to call me whenever. Even if that means it's three in the morning and you can't sleep because you watched something scary." He took a sip of his frappe, but ended up giving himself a brain freeze. "Ah..! That's really painful..."

"Drink slowly!" Abby warned him with a laugh as she admired his picture, "Wait, give me your phone now, I need to give you my info!" She reached out her hands in anticipation and grabbed it when he held it out. She quickly took a picture of herself, then added her information into his phone, with the picture attached for the icon. She then handed it back to him. "Feel free to call me too, especially if your day has been particularly taxing!"

"Ah, thanks. I'll definitely remember that." He frowned when he received a text from Zachary, saying he'd been called in to the ER due to an extremely bad wreck, and asking that Michael go and visit Anissa at some point that afternoon. She'd missed him, apparently. "Ah... it seems there was a bad wreck at the intersection of South Hampton and Maple. The hospital just called my brother in, and he wants me to stop by and make sure his wife's alright this afternoon." He checked his watch. "Good thing it's still morning."

"Oh wow... I hope everything is alright. A-Anyway, I suppose I should be on my way to work, so I'll definitely talk to you later."

When they parted, Abby had to think hard on the social workings of talking to men. She had dated in the past, but that was in highschool and she hadn't had time for such things in college. Even though people showed interest, she hadn't been nearly as interested in them. Was Michael even interested in dating for that matter? She certainly was, but she'd only just met him and maybe it was silly to think of him as a potential date. Shaking her head slowly, she glanced down at the new contact info on her phone. She wondered if she should text him first later? Or would he text her? Maybe he'd call?

Despite her charisma and being very good at social queues normally, this seemed very foreign to her.

It was midnight when Michael finally arrived back at his own home. Zachary hadn't gotten home until extremely late, as the ER was unusually busy. Michael himself had experienced a stressful morning as well, having to advice a total of four different patients to discontinue treatment, and just to go home and spend time with family for the last weeks of their lives. After his clinicals that morning, he stayed the rest of the day, sitting with Anissa and the adorable little bundle that was their Victoria. He really loved her chosen name. He'd ended up staying until Zachary came home, and never once had the opportunity to text Abby, the girl from the coffee shop. She didn't seem to have had the time either, though, as he'd never received any texts or calls. He rubbed his tired eyes and sat on the couch, pulling out his phone just to make sure he hadn't missed any messages. There was nothing there. Absent-mindedly, he pulled up the contacts on his phone, finding hers to be on the very top of the list. He opened the contact, and smiled tiredly at the picture she'd taken. She was an unusually beautiful woman, and her heart seemed to fit that. She'd told him to call her if he'd had a particularly taxing day... but it was so late, would she be up? He sighed to himself. Of course she would be... she'd told him that she was barely sleeping of late. But what if he woke her up?

Before he knew it, the phone was to his ear, ringing, and his hand was covering his tired eyes. What was he even doing, calling at such an hour?

Abby was laying in bed with a tiny light on and a book over her head, her glasses perched awkwardly on her nose. She put the book down with the light still attached to the pages, and rolled over to grab her phone. When she saw Michael's picture, she couldn't help but smile in excitement at the fact that he was really calling her! Sometimes she would get phone numbers from people and they would never bother, even after she'd started conversations.

"Hello, Abby speaking!" She answered, trying to sound cheerful and not sleepy, which she really wasn't, she'd usually read for hours before actually getting tired.

She actually answered. Michael stood up suddenly in surprise, straightening his back some. "O-Oh, hi..." He mumbled, feeling suddenly awkward. She didn't sound sleepy at all, so he assumed she had been up for a while still. "I-I was wondering if you'd like to join me in getting some coffee. There's this place that's frequented by a lot of the hospital staff because it's open all night, and the coffee is really good. I probably won't be getting much sleep tonight, so I thought... I don't know, maybe you'd like to come? Y-You don't have to, of course! I just... thought you might like to, I guess."

Coffee, Abby had to admit, was her one weakness. That, and a really fantastic romance novel.
"Sure! Where should we meet? Or do you want me to get you?" She realized after she'd asked that it sounded really weird, her driving all alone to pick up someone. She pressed her palm against her forehead and huffed irritably, "Sorry, I know I sound hasty, that probably sounds really terrible... um, sorry!" Abby began to change, deciding to put on a sweatshirt and some holey jeans.

"Where do you live?" Michael blurted out, pinning the phone between his ear and left shoulder as he worked on pulling his necktie off. "I should be the one to pick you up instead, right? I mean... I'm the guy, and I invited you." He tossed the tie on his couch, then unbuttoned his shirt a bit so that it was more comfortable. He followed suit with the buttons on his cuffs as well. "But if you'd rather meet me there, it's right across from that really old Denny's on South Whorton. It's called ALCoffee Shoppe."

"Oh!" Abby quickly gave him her address and apartment number, deciding that it would be best not to go alone at such an hour. She would much rather go with a complete stranger, at least that's her mind was screaming. Was it safer to go alone than with a stranger? Both sounded unappealing, but she had a feeling that Michael was going to be good to her, that he wasn't going to attack her or anything. Over the last few years, she'd thrown caution to the wind, deciding that she wasn't going to allow her past to determine her future. "I'll see you soon!"

Surprisingly enough, Abby didn't live very far at all. It only took him about five minutes to arrive after he left his house. He put the car in park, then walked to her door and knocked, waiting anxiously for her to answer. He raked his hands through his short blond hair, which he had allowed to grow out a bit since Victoria's death. Now though, his hair was a mess from the number times he'd nervously raked his fingers through it that day. He rocked back on his heels before leaning forward to knock once more. He would have called for her, but waking up apartment people could get scary.

Abby quietly opened the door, having slipped on a pair of flip flops to walk outside. "Hi! I'm glad to see that I'm not overdressed, I'm totally ready for some coffee!" Her brain was screaming that it was dangerous to be out so late with someone she didn't know. It was telling her to run back inside and lock the door, to hide, to not open her heart to anyone. She crossed her arms over her chest nervously, though her smile was still there. "Let's go!"

Michael returned her smile, then led her to his truck where he opened the passenger door for her. He waited for her to get comfortable before shutting the door, and climbing into the driver's seat. He turned the key and the engine came to life with a soft hum. "Alright, time for coffee." He buckled his seatbelt and soon enough, they were off. "Sorry for calling you out so late... it's just... you told me to call if I'd had a stressful day, and I remembered you saying you liked coffee, so..."

"Y-Yeah, coffee is my weakness!" Abby began to pray, trying to allow peace to wash over her so she wouldn't feel so afraid, so the terrifying memories wouldn't come back at such a nice time. The evening was wonderful, and she was with someone who had been so kind to her that day. She wrung her hands together and then when she saw him glance over, she laid them flat in her lap and smiled at him.

She was nervous, and it wasn't difficult to catch. Michael resisted kicking himself upon realizing just how suspicious it might have looked to ask her out so late at night... just the two of them. It was easy for him to forget at times how dangerous it could be for women to be alone with a strange man... and they'd only met that morning. He felt a little guilty, but wasn't exactly certain how he could reassure her. He didn't want her to be wary of him, but at the same time... wasn't it kind of a good thing? If she was too relaxed around him, that would worry him.

"So, ah... how was your day today? I hope it was better than mine!" Yeah, maybe a conversation topic would be nice.

Abby glanced over at him when she heard him speak up, "Oh, it was actually really good! I decided to draw some designs for hoodies, they turned out really cute, I thought they could have fleece on the inside for extra warmth... do you think that might help your patients?" She asked, trying not to feel anxious, even though her mind was screaming for her to jump out of the car.

"Oh, yeah! They would definitely appreciate that!" He grinned, staring out at the street as he drove. "A fleece-lined hoodie... Victor-" He paused, then changed his sentence. "They'll definitely enjoy hoodies like those, I mean." He had been about to say that Victoria would have loved them, but he didn't want to turn the conversation sour. Talking about his dead wife would be sure to do just that.

Who was Victor? Abby decided not to ask, since he'd stopped there and hadn't continued with that particular sentence. She grinned instead, "I'm glad, I'll be submitting the designs, and after that we'll work on creating them for charity! I think the hoods should also be lined with fleece, that way if they have cold heads and ears they can put the hood on... although I suppose most wear hats? I know it's a silly assumption, maybe not all do, but hoods are so comfy to hide in."

Michael returned her grin as he pulled to a stop and put the tuck in park in front of the coffee shoppe. He slid out of the truck, then quickly hurried to her side to open the door for her, and help her out of the truck. "I think there are equally as many people who prefer hoods over hats. I have even seen a few that wear both at the same time. I guess it really just depends." He shut the door for her and locked the truck as they headed inside. "So no, your assumptions isn't silly in the least bit."

Abby could feel her heart racing as she walked with him into the coffee shop. She couldn't believe she was out at this hour with a stranger, and had completely opened her door for him so late. It had been a while since she felt so worried and uncomfortable, yet he was still a gentleman and hadn't said anything bizarre or raised any red flags - except inviting her out so late. She hadn't been bothered by it in the least initially.

"That's good, sometimes I just talk too much!"

A warm smile spread across his lips. "That was part of why I called you. I thought you'd end up being able to distract me from thinking about this morning. I mean, after we met kind of morning, not... distracting me from thinking about having met you..." Suddenly, he felt his ears heating up in a hot flush, and he felt incredibly awkward. "I'm sorry, I just... kind of stumbled over my words there. I just... I mean, I've had a stressful day, and I liked that you talk a lot, and I thought that maybe you'd be able to help distract me from a bad day."

"Oh, I see then!" Abby giggled a little bit as they entered the building. She sniffed the air and sighed with pleasure as she smelled the aroma of coffee surrounding her. "You know, I used to not drink coffee. Then I started college and became a night owl, from then on I was a coffee drinker... and I'm still fairly addicted to the stuff." She was about to pull a wallet out of her purse as she approached the counter with him.

"Is that so?" Michael smiled, then ordered a nice, hot caramel coffee. "I'm paying for hers too." He gestured to Abby who was standing beside him with her wallet as if she'd been expecting to pay. Victoria had been like that at one point too. No lady would pay for anything as long as she accompanied him on any venture. He wondered how long it would take Abby to discover that. He glanced back to her with a great big grin now. "Order as much as you like! I think a nice, chocolate cake sounds good..."