A QUIET LOSS

"How about Lucia?"

"I mean, I did sleep with Fredrick in year twelve, do you think she'd be over that yet?" Aria bit her lip lightly, a habit that had followed her around since high school.

"I feel this would be a whole lot easier if you hadn't slept with half of the guest list or their boyfriends." Adrian rolled his eyes, which seemed to have been instinctive to him since Aria's arrival less than twenty-four hours ago.

They had been sitting in Isolde's mothers' lounge room for nearly two hours trying to create a wedding guest list and it was going absolutely terribly due to the fact that Aria either had beef with or had slept with pretty much everyone's boyfriend, father, uncle, or grandfather.

"Half is a bit lenient, I'm thinking more eighty to ninety percent of the guest list, darling." Aria winked jokingly at Adrian. She considered it a talent how she was able to get on Adrian's last nerves from merely a few words leaving her mouth, and she absolutely loved it.

"Aria, my love. There won't be a guest list at this rate. You'll just have to be as civil as possible and try not to cause a scene." Mrs Beaumont said, the frustration growing in her voice with each word. Isolde's mum had never liked Aria. Aria was a walking-talking mess in her opinion. She had come from a broken home with a mother who had been in the funny farm for god knows what reason, and now Aria was determined to make it her mission to sleep with the entire male population. She didn't want her precious, innocent daughter, Isolde, to ever be associated with such...trash.

But since the two had met, donkey years ago, every argument concerning Aria had been completely and utterly futile. She didn't know what sort of black magic Aria had done on her daughter; all she knew was that Isolde would defend Aria until she was blue in the face, and that was that.

"Yes, of course, Celeste," Aria responded, the sarcasm dripping from each word. The feelings were completely mutual from Aria's side.

"Call me Celia, please, Aria."

"So, Lucia's a yes then?" Isolde finally spoke, breaking the deafening silence. She made a face at Adrian, which was supposed to say something to ease this tension, please, Adrian, but either he wasn't quite understanding or, probably, more likely, was enjoying Isolde's mum laying into Aria, as most of the feelings Celia had towards Aria were similar to his feelings towards her.

"Yup, who's next?" Aria responded.

"Josh, you know the blonde guy in our Math class, he's actually my work colleague now," Isolde said.

Celia, Isolde, and Adrian instantly stared at Aria, waiting to hear how she'd had a one-night stand with him, or cheated on him, and how it'd be way too awkward for the two of them to be in the same room again, as had been the case with nearly all the other wedding guests.

"What? I haven't slept with him, I promise!"

All three concurrently let out a breath of relief; they were getting somewhere with the guest list.

"...But we went on a date once, and he took me home, and I might have accidentally hooked up with his brother Matt, and he kinda, sorta walked in on us?" Aria explained tentatively, waiting for the backlash.

"Oh, for fucks sake." Adrian's hands flew to his head, and he ran his hair through his curly mane, clearly exasperated.

"Well, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Aria muttered once they'd returned to the house, and she plopped herself down onto the black matted couch, next to Adrian, who seemed absolutely bemused by this strange creature who was the one-and-only Aria.

Isolde laughed, "Well, Aria, you've really outdone yourself in my mother's books this time." She said, grabbing the very expensive wine bottle from their fridge and passing it over to Adrian, along with three wine glasses.

They'd been saving the wine for one of those knackering days, and any day that involved Aria constituted that exact definition.

"C'mon, I didn't even do anything this time. I mean, yeah, she had a reason to be angry when I nearly slept with your brother in her bed, and she walked in, but this was nothing compared to that!" She blabbered on.

Adrian rolled his eyes again. He'd never in his life met a girl as sexually insatiable as Aria.

He popped open the bottle before pouring the wine into his and Isolde's glasses, reluctantly stopping at Aria's glass, contemplating whether she was worthy of such expensive wine after the stunt she had pulled at his future mother-in-law's house.

"Adrian, you know I'm more of a tequila and vodka kind of girl, but I'll never say no to free alcohol." She continued.

"What, really? I never would have guessed that." Adrian responded rather sharply, yielding him a glowering look from Isolde whilst Aria just chuckled in response.

Aria had never been one to be offended very easily.

"What's the longest relationship you've ever been in, Aria?" Adrian questioned, turning his body to face Aria whilst spreading his arms and legs across the couch.

"Adrian!" Isolde scowled.

"I'm only asking, you wanted us to get to know each other better, right?" Adrian retaliated, whilst moving his wine glass in circular motions before taking a long sip and then deciding he'd rather stick to his usual beer.

"One year."

Adrian coughed in surprise, before taking a long swig from the beer bottle Isolde had just passed over to him. He had been almost certain that she'd never been able to maintain a relationship lasting longer than three months.

"How did it end?" Adrian continued, raising his eyebrows, waiting for her to say how she was unable to help herself and had cheated on the poor guy with his brother or his best mate.

"Adrian, stop it," Isolde warned, as she placed one hand on his shoulder.

Like Celia, Adrian had always known that Isolde could not take a single bad word against Aria. The two had been best friends, well before Adrian had first mustered up the courage to ask Isolde out on a date in Year ten. But surely, this was ridiculous. He was merely trying to get to know the girl better, like Isolde had asked him to.

"Isolde, it's fine. It was two years ago, actually. Erm...I got pregnant, and things just...let's just say things went wrong from there."

Adrian struggled to imagine Aria with a child, heck he struggled to imagine Aria even being pregnant. But she was extremely irresponsible, so it was bound to happen sometime.

Almost as though Aria had heard Adrian's thoughts, she responded, "I had a miscarriage." Her voice undeniably cracked at the word miscarriage, almost as though she was a child saying a big word that was difficult to pronounce.

The smirk that had been plastered on Adrian's face disappeared instantly, and he was stunned into utter and complete silence. The only emotion he felt now was shame.

"I'm sorry, Aria." Barely able to formulate the words, let alone get the words out.

Isolde immediately rushed over to Aria's side, stroking her back and asking her repeatedly if she was alright, if she needed water or anything, and glaring at Adrian.

"It's fine. I know what people think of me, and I don't expect you to be any different." She laughed, but it was an empty kind of laugh.

"Way to kill the mood, right? Can we get some music in here or something?" She quickly said, trying to change the topic. She plastered a smile on her face and started swaying along to the music that Isolde had quickly put on.

'Reggae-ton lento' by Little Mix started playing; a favourite of both girls. Aria grabbed Isolde by her arms and started fake grinding her ass against her as the two giggled like they were still schoolgirls.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Isolde confronted Adrian as soon as Aria had left the room. They had ordered from Aria's favourite pizza place, Dominoes and Aria had gone up to her room to change into her nightwear.

"How the fuck was I supposed to know, you never told me!" Adrian retaliated.

"It's not something that you want random people to know, though, is it?"

"Okay, so I'm a random person now?"

"You know what I mean, Adrian. She didn't want me to tell anyone. But you had no right to speak to her like that." Isolde's hands were placed on her hips.

"Okay, I admit I made a mistake. If I had of knew, I would never have brought it up." Adrian put his hands up in defeat.

"You were judging her, trying to make her feel shit about herself." Isolde continued.

"Look, I've apologised. I'm sorry, Isolde. What else can I say to make this better?"

"Go and apologise to her before the food gets here," Isolde instructed.

Adrian made his way upstairs.

Aria's room door had been left ajar, and he peeked in to see Aria tiptoeing at the edge of the room, near the window.

"Come in!" Aria said.

She rambled about her childhood attic room, the window, and imagining strangers’ lives.

"It's not weird," Adrian said softly.

He stood beside her, London stretched below them.

"See that guy over there? In the navy blue suit? What do you think his life is like?"

"Hmm...he looks like a John, and he's a solicitor arguing with a client."

"And he has a beautiful wife named Naomi… but also a mistress."

"Are you sure you're not that mistress?" Adrian teased, then quickly stepped back.

"Hmm, you never know."

"I came to say sorry… about earlier."

"Isolde sent you, didn't she?"

"I am sorry. Honestly."

"It's fine… but it’s not something I want to talk about. Ever."

"But there is something you can do to make it up to me," Aria smirked.

"What's that?" Adrian and Isolde spoke at the same time as Isolde appeared at the door.

"Invite Matteo to dinner tonight, pretty please!"

Both laughed.

This girl will never change.