Losing Everything

Chapter 7.8

“Fuck,” Lucy said, and stood up. “I really should go.”

“No,” Erica said. She said it kindly, sympathetically, sounding worried as well as upset. “No,” she said. “You really don’t need to.”

“I think I’d better.”

“Lucy, please don’t.”

“I have to. I ought to.”

“Sit,” Erica said, and pushed Lucy backwards, gently, so she sat down again.

Lucy looked at Erica, and still wanted to cry. For what she’d lost. For what she’d missed out on while she was wasting time, and not paying attention, and doing other things. Because for some reason she’d always thought she had Erica. That Erica was just there, waiting, on hold in some way, in case Lucy ever changed her mind. And that Lucy could just change her mind, if she felt like it, without having to worry that Erica might change hers too. Which was silly, and wrong, and that assumption had never been true, because Erica had never agreed to any such thing. She had never even known that Lucy might. Because Lucy had always said that she wasn’t going to change her mind. She had told Erica that she’d decided, absolutely, forever, and that there was no reason Erica ought to wait. Lucy had said that, and Erica had probably just assumed it was true. And so Erica had got on with her life, and become happy, and now Lucy was there, interfering in it again, spoiling everything that Erica had.

Lucy was just a disruption. She was a nuisance in Erica’s life, and seemed to never be anything else.

Lucy ought to leave, right away, before she made everything worse.

“I’ll go,” Lucy said. “I woke you up stupidly early, and I’ve been in your way all morning. And you’ve been kind, and patient, far kinder than I deserve, but you’re obviously busy and need to do things. So I should just go. I only wanted to see you, and since that isn’t working out quite how it was meant to…”

Lucy stopped talking. Erica was looking at her, and seemed to be thinking, and Lucy wondered why. She wondered if it was because of what she was saying, and suddenly had a moment of hope.

“Is it serious?” she said suddenly. “With your girlfriend?”

“Well, yes.”

“Serious like us?”

Erica shrugged. She seemed a little unsure how to answer that. She also seemed almost miserable.

“Oh,” Lucy said, disappointed.

Erica just looked at her.

“Please,” Lucy said, sad again, but still hoping. “Just tell me. Is it serious like we were?”

“Oh Lucy,” Erica said. “I’m sorry.”

“It is?”

“More.”

Lucy nodded. That was fair. It was a little cruel, but fair. Of course Erica’s girlfriend was more serious. Lucy and Erica had only ever been a fling that was going nowhere. What Erica had now was probably something important, an actual relationship.