They sat beside each other for a moment, and then Erica said, “I should try Allie again.”
She sounded almost reluctant, Lucy thought, although she got up anyway.
Erica got up, and went over to her desk, and picked up her phone again. She dialled, but didn’t actually bother lifting it up to her ear as rung, this time. She just looked at the screen, and waited, not really seeming like she expected the call to connect. She waited, and then hung up when the tiny little voice that was Allie’s voicemail message began.
“No answer,” Erica said, and put the phone down.
“Is she likely to?” Lucy said. “I mean, so soon? She seemed upset is all, so…”
“Yeah,” Erica said, still standing beside her desk. “Probably. I mean, no I don’t think she’ll answer, not yet, but I still have to try.”
Lucy didn’t say anything.
“Don’t I?” Erica said. “Have to try?”
Lucy kept looking at her.
“I mean,” Erica said. “I kind of have to make the effort, don’t I? Because someone has to, and I’m the one who isn’t angry, so it kind of has to be me.”
“I suppose it does,” Lucy said.
“Doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “I suppose it’s up to you. At least to try.”
Erica looked at her for a while, thinking. “Yeah,” she said, slowly.
Lucy hesitated, knowing she shouldn’t say anything more, knowing this was a dangerous topic to be talking about. “Although,” she said anyway. “Um. Or what?”
“How do you mean?”
“If you don’t call her, then what?”
“What happens?” Erica said.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. She probably doesn’t call me.”
“Ever?” Lucy said.
“I guess not.”
Lucy was surprised. “She never calls you after a fight?”
Erica shrugged, a little sadly. “Not that I can remember, anyway. I think I’ve had to call her every single time.”
“Oh,” Lucy said, and then desperately made herself not add anything else. Not a word, not a change in her facial expression, hopefully not even a shift in her the tone of her voice. She sat there, and looked at Erica, and at the blue, blue sky out the windows behind her, and tried to keep her face as expressionless as possible.
It didn’t work.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Erica said, suspiciously. “Oh?”
“Nothing,” Lucy said, quickly. “Nothing at all. Just oh, okay. You told me something, so I said okay.”
Erica nodded. She kept looking at Lucy, though. She kept staring at Lucy, across the room, and all of a sudden she seemed to be thinking quite hard.
YOU ARE READING
Losing Everything
RomanceLucy loses everything that matters to her, her partner and job and business and all her money. She loses everything, and in doing so she reconnects with an old friend, Erica, and begins to fall for her instead. And as she does, she realizes that e...
