A Greater Good (girlxgirl)

Over

"You had sex with her?" Everlyn hissed angrily into her phone.

She crossed the street without looking, ignoring the honks from furious drivers as she made her way to the park opposite her work. On the other end of the phone, Jane was walking away from a crime scene taking the call even though it was her policy to never answer the phone while on a job, but she couldn't help herself when she saw it was Everlyn.

"Whom?" Jane asked casually, coming to lean against the wall of the alleyway looking out across the street.

"You know who, Jane," Everlyn spat into the phone as she paced in front of a park bench, too pissed off to sit down.

Jane smiled, it wasn't her plan to make Everlyn jealous but since that's what happened, she was glad. She knew she couldn't annoy Everlyn for as long as she normally would have because she didn't have much time to be at the crime scene. She wasn't really involved with visiting crime scenes because she was a private investigator, but her friend in the force gave her a tip off and a free pass to come and look at the scene of the gangland shooting which related to one of her own cases. 

"Well?" Everlyn urged, Jane was lost in feelings of happiness that Everlyn was jealous, there was no other reason that she would ring angry at her for sleeping with someone else.

"Yeah, I did," Jane sighed easily.

"What the fuck, Jane! Why?" Everlyn sunk down onto the park bench and stared at the ground feeling hopeless with her own emotions. If only they could make sense and if only she knew what she clearly wanted. She felt as if she was going back and forth and over and over the relationships she had with Jane and then James, and nothing made sense, it was just confusing. 

"She's pretty."

"She's not your type, you did it to get back at me."

"Jesus, Everlyn! You want me to go away, you don't want to really talk about us, but as soon as I fuck someone, you're all over me."

"It's because of who it is," Everlyn exploded. "She's my best friend, you know that!"

"I didn't know you had dips on her."

"Stop being a fucking dick."

They were both silent. Jane knew that Everlyn wasn't playing around anymore and that she was actually getting hurt. She knew this because Everlyn rarely lost her temper and tried to keep swearing to a minimum. It wasn't Jane's intention to really hurt Everlyn, more to show her that she could still do whatever and even though she had admitted to Everlyn she still loved her, they were just words. Everlyn couldn't believe that she still did love Jane, it had taken all her fucked up mind games and the pressure of the wedding for her to realise that the cool, stylish and smart Jane was the missing element in her life that she had been unknowingly been craving. She begun to silently cry, this couldn't be happening, she was about to get married to the loveliest man alive. 

"You were the one who told me she was willing to do anything to me," Jane said, breaking the silence.

"But I didn't tell you to get with her," Everlyn said with resignation.

In the alley behind Jane the police had started to pack up, she was running out of time to snoop around the scene.

"Listen, I've got to-"

"I don't even know what the point in ringing you was," Everlyn said honestly, she laughed through her tears. "Jesus Christ, how jealous do I sound right now!"

Jane didn't laugh, she was kind of worried about Everlyn's tone, she thought she might have been crying.

"Look, I'm sorry about Clarissa, it was stupid and I'm sorry about ruining your wedding."

Everlyn sighed and looked up at the sky. But she hadn't ruined it, she'd just opened up her eyes and made her see something clearly in front of her that she was ignoring. Jane waited for some kind of response.

"I'm not coming," Jane told her at last.

"I want you to be there," Everlyn whispered.

"Please don't make me, Ev," Jane whispered back, her own tears falling.

Everlyn closed her eyes. This was their breakup, it was the offical end and it hurt more than anything, more than her snapped collarbone at 14. Tears slipped down her cheeks and onto her woollen jumper. Jane balled her hand and thudded it against the bricks, she felt as if she was a victim of the shooting herself. This was the calm, reasonable discussed they'd both secretly thought would one day happen when all the childishness had faded from their relationship and they were ready to move on.

"Just..." but Everlyn couldn't find the words to say. "Just, look after yourself then."

And she hung up and stared up at the sky miserably with a broken heart but clarity. And Jane was transported back to where she was, in a blood stained alleyway where people had lost their lives, but somehow she outranked their deadness.