Losing Everything

Chapter 3.4

Lucy stared at Erica, momentarily lost in memories. Erica looked back, and seemed a little surprised, and then actually uncomfortable, at Lucy’s stare.

As if Lucy shouldn’t be staring quite so much.

Lucy noticed, and wondered why. She thought, then realized that her sense of time might still be a little peculiar, and she might have been staring a lot longer than she thought.

She looked away, quickly. She lay back down in the water, backwards, and floated. She looked up into the sky.

She hoped she’d realized she was staring in time, and hadn’t made Erica feel awkward. She hoped she had. Although realizing she was doing something wrong probably meant her head was getting back to normal, and she wasn’t completely sure she wanted that.

Erica was still watching her.

“What’s wrong with you?” Erica said, after a moment.

Lucy shook her head and kept looking at the sky. She could still see Erica out the corner of her eye, as she floated, but she pretended she couldn’t. Pretended to herself, as well as Erica.

“You were kind of staring just then,” Erica said.

“I suppose,” Lucy said. “Maybe.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I was just remembering.”

“Remembering what?”

Lucy wanted to blush. “It doesn’t matter.”

Erica kept looking at Lucy. She was probably thinking about the past too. Lucy started to get a little worried that Erica might work out exactly what Lucy had been remembering. It seemed like she might, and that it would be obvious what Lucy had been reminded of, as they floated around mostly undressed in the sea.

Lucy got nervous, and then irritable. She always got irritable when she was nervous. She didn’t know why Erica was being funny about people staring anyway, she told herself, when Erica had been doing it too, just as badly, back when they were on the beach.

“You were staring as well,” Lucy said suddenly.

“Um, what?”

“You were,” Lucy said. “On the beach.”

Erica hesitated, then said, “I suppose so.”

“I’m just saying.”

Erica shrugged.

Lucy floated a little longer. “So,” she said. “Is it what you remembered?”

“Is what how I remembered?”

“Me.”

Erica seemed startled, then she smiled. “Who says I bothered remembering anything?”

“Of course you did,” Lucy said and smiled too, and then went back to looking up at the sky.

She floated, and watched the sky, but she was starting to feel less happy. Her mind was getting clearer from being the water, she thought, and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. She was upset. She was sad and lonely and angry as fuck. Angry at herself, and angry at everyone else, too. At everyone around her at Bitmo who’d fucked everything up, leading to this, and who had then turned on her as soon as she made the slightest mistake.

Erica hadn’t done that though, she thought. Erica was the one person she had always been able to trust.

Lucy glanced around again, and realized Erica was still watching her, all thoughtful and sad. Erica had used to do that in the office sometimes, now and then, with that same expression. It was a habit which Jake had noticed, and which made him want to fire Erica. Lucy had always been a bit worried by that, and wished Erica would stop causing herself problems.

Not that it mattered any more, she supposed.

“Are you feeling better?” Erica said, seeing Lucy’s glance.

“Yeah, a bit.” Lucy sat up, and wiped her hair back from her face, and looked at Erica. “Thank you. I mean, really thank you. For coming down here to find me.”

Erica shrugged.

“You didn’t have to,” Lucy said. “You really didn’t.”

“Yep. I know.”

“But I’m really glad you did. I don’t have anyone else. So thank you.”

“It’s really okay. I’ve been there too, you know?”

Lucy nodded.

“So are you okay now?” Erica said. “Or a little better?”

“Still a bit… um, fucked up. Like high fucked up. In a good way. Enough so it doesn’t completely hurt too much to even breathe.”

Erica nodded, and went quiet again.

She still seemed a little worried.