Losing Everything

Chapter 9.3

Lucy had been almost too scared to see Erica the next day.

She had been scared, because she hadn’t known what to do.

She had kissed random strangers in bars enough before that she knew what meaningless kissing felt like, and that this wasn’t it. It completely wasn’t. And as well, she thought she ought to be a little worried because Erica was a woman. She thought she ought to be worried, but really, she wasn’t. She was more worried because Erica was Erica.

She thought, as she got ready for work, trying to decide how to handle this. Whether to try and talk, or not to talk, or whether to just walk into Erica’s office and kiss her again.

Which was almost what she wanted to do.

She thought, but she couldn’t decide, not while she got dressed, and made coffee and ate her toast, and not as she drove into work. She walked into Bitmo, like she did every morning, walked past the reception area, and down past all the cubicles, and almost reached her own office. She was almost at her own office’s door when Erica looked up, looked out from inside her own office, next door, and called out hi as Lucy went past. And Lucy flushed, despite herself, and took three quick steps into her own office and closed the door.

And then, right then, wished she’d done anything but that.

It was too late, though. Closing the door had decided it. Apparently she was hiding. Apparently she was pretending nothing had happened, and desperately hoping Erica would do the same.

It seemed like she had decided, so she did exactly that. She pretended. She didn’t say a word. Not for days. She barely spoke to Erica, and avoided her as much as she could. She sent emails when she needed something, and after that first morning, she stayed out the office as much as she could. She worked at home, and went to a lot of off-site meetings. She went to meetings she’d been putting off for weeks, with people she didn’t want to talk to. And which she emailed Erica to ask her to arrange.

She avoided Erica, but she tried not to make it obvious. Because she desperately didn’t want it to seem like Erica was being rejected, or ignored, or that Erica was in trouble and her job was at risk. That would be cruel, and probably illegal too, but mostly Lucy was worried about being cruel, and hurting Erica.

She worried, because as well as all the other concerns, she was beginning to realize there was a problem of power. Because Erica liked Lucy, and worked for Lucy, and Erica might very easily do something she didn’t feel completely comfortable doing, because it was Lucy who was asking her to do it.

Something like have a sordid, torrid, meaningless affair.

Lucy didn’t want to take advantage, and it began to seem as though anything she did might be exactly that. A conversation could lead to something happening between them, something Erica wasn’t entirely ready for, and which ended up hurting her. Somehow. Lucy didn’t know how, but she also didn’t want to risk hurting Erica, and she worried, because it seemed like a kiss that intense must mean something to both of them. It seemed like it ought to, and it had to. Because no-one should be able to kiss like that and not have it matter.

She was sure the kiss had mattered, that it had been a kiss which might change lives. But she didn’t know how or why or in what way those changes would happen, and she desperately didn’t want to hurt Erica by doing something wrong while she worked everything out.

So she hid. As much as she could. While trying not to be obvious that she was.