lost in p a r a d i s e {open}

[MARLENA CARTWRIGHT]

Like most things that happened to Marlena, she really hadn't realized what was happening until it was too late. She hadn't realized she was falling down the stairs until she was at the bottom, bruised and confused. After she knew what was happening, she thought it was a horrible thing. To be that sore and broken, it hurt. But thought the bruises faded and the pain went away, she still had something from that incident. Not a scar, of course, but something much better.

Love.

She had admitted to herself somewhere between the dream-like buying of her ticket and the searching for the perfect dress that she was in love with Julian Sorenson. It didn't hit her at once like most things did, but she had been thinking about it for a while, so when the realization came, it was much less of a shock then she later thought it would have been.

Of course, she would never say this out loud, ever, to anyone, even if they asked. Marlena wouldn't outright lie, of course... just avoid the question. She'd bring up something else, and it would likely be onvious what she was trying to do, but it was better than embarrassing herself. Or Lucas somehow finding out...

She hadn't spoken much to Lucas ever since she found out how rudely he had acted towards her friend Cleo. She had told him she was upset and had been giving him the cold shoulder ever since, hoping he would get the hint and apologize to Cleo and buy her a whole new bag of gummy worms. Until then, she was going to not speak to him. Simple as that. Except Marlena wasn't the kind to stay angry or hold a grudge, especially towards her brother, so it was likely she would give in before long.

That wouldn't be tonight, however.

Tonight she was lost.

The masquerade had seemed like a lovely thing to attend, and she had been talking about it ever since she got the invitation. If she had something silly as a social network account, she would have posted on it. Except for Tumblr, of course, she had a Tumblr and posted about it on there. Otherwise, all her friends knew she was going because she had told them in her excitement. And she had gone dress shopping and gotten the mask and everything, and it seemed to go by so fast, she could hardly believe it when it was the night of the masquerade and time to get ready. Her dress was brown with gold sequins and sparkles, and her mask was just simple and golden. She had a golden flower ring on to match and simple black heels that she taught herself to walk in without quite so much stumbling.

Of course, Marlena was still a bit wobbly as she made her way into the hall where the masquerade was.

Without realizing, she had searched the covered faces for Julian as soon as she saw someone with a mask. She checked the eyes and hair and thought she'd be able to recognize him, but it was proving to be difficult. Realizing she hadn't been paying much attention, she tore away from the faces to try and find the tables. The shoes were hurting her and she couldn't just look at every man attending the ball, that would have been rude. Oh, dear, she had been rude already, hadn't she? Cheeks red, she sat at an empty table. Many of the tables were empty, likely because most people were dancing.

She had to focus on other things, yes? Try to have fun. Maybe ask someone to dance? Oh no, she was much too shy for that... but if someone asked her, she'd likely accept. Not just because she was too polite to say no, but because she wanted to have fun. No one knew she was in love with someone she wasn't sure was here, and she could keep it that way, right?

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[JULIAN SORENSEN]

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Originally, Julian hadn't intended to come.

He didn't like large social gatherings. They didn't appeal to him, not the idea of being around so many people, nor the idea of talking to them, listening to them, God forbid dancing with them, eating with them, watching them, anything. Human beings were repulsive to him as a general rule, if only because his father's death and its mysterious circumstances had blacked out the entire world to him.

He had always thought he would never love anyone.

He was wrong.

It was something that was difficult for him to admit to -- that he was falling very quickly in love with Marlena Cartwright. She was just... He didn't even know what it was about her. It was everything. The way she looked up at him through her lashes, that endearing sort of clumsiness, that purity of character and that innocent grace of hers, it was all...

It was all beautiful.

And Julian loved it. He had always loved beautiful things. After Christer died, he had thought to himself that nothing was beautiful, that the entire world was darkness and human depravity and nothing was worth the time or the effort anymore.

Marlena had changed his mind.

He hadn't told anyone. He had thought of telling Pieter -- in fact, the more he thought about it, the more he thought that his best and only friend deserved to know. Besides, it wasn't like Pieter would tell anyone.

Sunny, on the other hand... Well, she was hanging out with that Ari kid more than Julian would have preferred. And on top of that, Sunny wasn't exactly the best secret keeper. Julian didn't want anyone to find out the information secondhand -- he hated that sort of thing. So he had kept his feelings to himself.

It was because of this newfound love that he had found the inspiration to go to the masquerade at all. He had been too... well, too shy to invite Marlena, too certain that she would turn him down or not want to go. So he had come in the hopes that she would be there, too, that he could find her, dance with her, talk to her, anything. Maybe even without her knowing who he was.

He'd been wading through the crowd for several minutes, looking at every girl he passed, trying to judge if they were the right height, if they had the right hair. None of them did. Every time he thought he saw her plump, perfectly-shaped pink lips, he looked again and saw something in the woman's face that was not her, something in her body that was not Marlena.

Julian was just about to give up.

And then he saw her.

The instant his eyes lit on her, he knew who it was. He knew by the way her hair fell and the way her eyes looked behind the mask even all the way across the room and the way her body curved in her brown and gold dress.

He walked over, finding himself trembling, hands shaking. What if he wasn't dressed elaborately enough? What did she think of him? What if she said no?

No, no, couldn't think about that. Just had to do it.

He approached her, cleared his throat. Then he quietly asked her, "May I have this dance, miss?"

[MARLENA CARTWRIGHT]

Though she tried to keep her mind on other things, admittedly she continued to scan the masked faces of men from her seat at the table, despite how rude it could have been. Though if they noticed her, she looked away quickly, her cheeks pink under her mask. Luckily it didn't happen enough times for her to stop searching; in any other case, she would have been too embarrassed to continue after the first man noticed her looking at him. It seemed they understood, though, that this was a masquerade and she was looking for someone in particular...

Oh, this was silly. Not everyone in the entire city was invited, after all, and Julian could have not been on the list. That was illogical, though, because if someone like Marlena was on the list, surely someone like Julian would have been. Julian was somebody, after all, wasn't he? Marlena not quite so much.

Rumor had it that Julian wasn't the nicest of people, but she thought that was ridiculous. One of her friends told her that they had briefly met (though she wouldn't say how) and her opinion of him wasn't that pleaseant. Well....she only knew him briefly! Marlena knew him longer, so she bothered to take to time to actual-

Marlena realized her hands were clenched into fists, and she was actually getting angry at the thought of another girl's opinion of Julian Sorensen. One hand flew to her mouth in surprise, and she calmed herself down and let it fall to her lap. Looking at the centerpiece of the table, she realized once again that she was distracted by Julian. This happened much too often, but perhaps that was a side effect of love. She didn't know much about it, after all, just that she felt it for him.

Keeping her eyes on the floral centerpiece, she gently felt one of the flowers. Velvet, but real flowers would have withered yes? Besides, it was a lot nicer than simpy plastic. Plastic flowers made her want to cringe.

At first she didn't realize he was speaking to her.

She had been imagining Julian asking her to dance only moments before, after all, so it could have been in her head. Then she noted how real it sounded, but looked up expecting no one to be there. Marlena was, what was the expression? Crazy in love, right? It was silly because she wasn't insane, just slightly shaken.

But she looked up and he was there. She could tell it was him, naive as she was, if only because he was not the other men she had inspected for any trace of him. He wasn't dressed quite as debonair as others, but she didn't care. It was Julian and Julian was here and Julian had just asked her to dance.

Oh, he had asked her to dance!

Composure was slightly lost as she stood and hit her arm on the table with a little twist of pain in her expression and pink on her cheeks, but she calmed down enough to say "Y-you may," and hold out her hand, but not enough to look hi m in the eyes directly. She glanced, of course, to make over one hundred percent sure, but she was embarrassed.

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