Losing Everything

Chapter 3.1: Now

Lucy sat on the beach, thinking. Erica was looking at her carefully, almost scrutinizing her, probably wondering what was wrong.

Lucy smiled to herself. She sat, and let Erica stare. She didn’t especially mind being looked at. She was still awfully stoned. So stoned that she vaguely started wondering again if Erica was actually there. It seemed reasonable to wonder. Erica might just be some waking-dream fantasy of lost love come to console her. She might well be that. Or Erica might be an angel, Lucy suddenly thought. Lucy might already be dead.

Lucy thought about that. It was cold. She was cold. She was sitting with her knees pressed into her chest, hugging her legs, because of the cold. And if she was dead she would be cold, she thought. That was fairly obvious. Dead people were cold, and everyone knew that, so clearly if she was sitting here dead then she would feel cold.

She thought about that. It made a kind of sense. And what was more, she didn’t actually know what the pills she’d taken were, or how they might have reacted with the weed, or how many of them was too many. They might easily have made her so cold that she’d died without quite noticing.

She wondered if that was possible.

It wasn’t actually a terrible way for it to have happened, she thought. By accident. Even if it was a bit silly. It was going to be embarrassing admitting it to Erica, when Erica eventually noticed and asked. It was very embarrassing to have let herself die without noticing. It was embarrassing, but it had been a fairly gentle, pleasant way to die, and Lucy was glad of that, at least.

She sat there for a while, trying to decide if she was dead. Wondering whether she was a ghost or something else. Or whether she was just dead.

Or if she was dead.

Actually, she probably wasn’t actually dead, she thought. That was just silly.

She wondered about it for a while, and then decided to make sure. She reached out towards Erica to touch her, and see if she could feel her. Because a ghost probably couldn’t feel people, Lucy assumed, or be felt, so this was a good way to check whether she was real. Or whether Erica was. One or the other. Either way, it proved something, that one of them wasn’t real, since Lucy’s hand ought to go right through Erica regardless of which one of them was dead or imaginary.

Lucy reached over and touched Erica’s foot. Her foot, because Erica was sitting slightly behind Lucy, slightly further up the beach, and leaning backwards onto her arms, so her foot was the nearest part of her to Lucy’s hand.

Lucy poked at Erica’s foot. She put her hand on it. It was warm, and twitched when Lucy prodded at it, as if Erica had jumped when she was touched, or the touch had tickled her.

Lucy started to smile.

She decided Erica probably was there, after all. Because ghosts and angels and dead people probably didn’t have ticklish feet.

She thought a little more, and decided she was probably there too, herself. She left her hand on Erica’s foot while she thought. She started stroking it, after a while. Stroking gently, slowly, like she’d used to do, long ago.

She thought about long ago. Then she glanced up. Erica was looking at her now, rather than the sea. And Erica’s foot was bare, Lucy noticed. Her foot was bare, and her legs were too. Lucy had always liked Erica’s legs. She thought about bareness and legs, and wondered if they were both naked. She looked up and down, making sure, and saw that no, Erica had shorts and a hoodie and had only taken off her shoes to walk on the beach. She must have carried her shoes with her, because they were sitting beside her in the sand.

It was only Lucy that was naked.

Lucy thought about that. It seemed a little odd to her that she was. She couldn’t quite remember why.

Erica said something, then. Probably because she’d seen Lucy glancing around, Lucy supposed.

Lucy looked at Erica, and concentrated on listening.

She had to concentrate quite carefully. When she was high, sometimes, she had to remember to use her ears, and whatever these pills were, they were making that problem worse. She was becoming distracted, caught up in her eyes and fingers, in touches and stroking and patterns of light and the texture of the sand on the beach. She was too busy watching the sand, and feeling Erica’s smooth skin, and she was forgetting that she had ears.

Ears, and a nose, too.

She breathed in, and smelled salt, and liked the smell of salt and the sea. She thought about that for a while, and then realized Erica was still talking, and made herself concentrate on listening rather than smelling, until she finally heard what Erica was saying.

Erica was asking if Lucy was all right. Her tone made it seem like she was asking again, as if she had asked several times already. Lucy realised Erica was worried, and was asking what was going on and was Lucy okay.

“I’m fine,” Lucy said. “Better than fine. I’m stoned as fuck.”

Erica grinned, and looked relieved. Relieved Lucy was finally listening, Lucy supposed.

“I’m completely stoned,” Lucy said again.

“Oh, believe me, I can see.”

Lucy sat and smiled to herself for a while.

“Um,” Erica said. “You know you’re not wearing anything, right?”

“I know.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Erica said.

Lucy smiled some more.

“Okay,” Erica said. She didn’t seem to know what to do. “Well, that’s good. Is there someone I can call for you?”

“Nope.”

“No-one at all?”

Lucy smiled. “You.”

Erica looked at Lucy for a while, then reached over and hugged her quickly. Just for a moment. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”

“Just you,” Lucy said, and then suddenly felt like she wanted to hum to herself for a while. To make music. To be happy.

She made herself not, because that seemed a little odd. She stroked Erica’s foot instead. For some reason it was right there underneath her hand.