They sat for a moment, quietly, both seemingly lost in their thoughts. Lucy looked out the windows at the sea, watching the sunlight catch and flicker across the waves. She breathed in, slowly. The wet salty smell of the ocean filled the room, carried on the breeze through the open door.
“Hey, um,” Erica said, after a while. “There is something though. Something I’d meant to say. I maybe told Allie a bit more about what’s going on with you than I should have.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Just if you care.”
“Not really,” Lucy said. She thought for a moment. “Although, um… like what?”
“Just that I was worried about you. And why. I mean, that I was worried this morning, when I talked to her, that was all. Like about you turning up down on the beach, with vodka and pills.”
Lucy nodded.
“Do you mind?” Erica said.
“Not really. I don’t know her, so…” Lucy shrugged. “Nope, not really.”
Erica smiled, and that seemed to be that. They sat a little while longer. Lucy started thinking about that morning, and wondering how bad she might have seemed to Erica. She wondered if she had actually felt that bad, after all. She couldn’t quite remember.
“Why did you worry,” she said, a little curious. “I mean, what did you think I was going to do?”
“I didn’t know. That was kind of what worried me.”
“Oh,” Lucy said. “Well, I wasn’t going to do anything really bad…”
“Yeah, of course,” Erica said quickly, carefully, almost as though she felt she ought to say so. “I mean, I know you wouldn’t, of course. I just wasn’t sure right then, that was all. So it seemed like… better safe than sorry. That kind of thing.”
“Better safe than sorry how?”
“That I’d better keep an eye on you, I suppose. Rather than go and see her.”
Lucy nodded. That was nice of Erica, she thought. Then she thought a little more, about everything that had happened that morning. “Was that why you told me to stay?” she said, still curious. “Because you were worried?”
Erica shrugged. “I suppose.”
“And why you were nice to me too?” Lucy said. “Like why you’re still being nice now?”
“What?” Erica said, sounding surprised. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I was nice to you because you’re you. Because I like you, and you’re my friend, and you needed someone.”
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...
