Lucy hesitated, wondering what to do, and that hesitation was probably a mistake. Everything was suddenly happening too quickly for her to have time to think, and she hadn’t realised that quite soon enough.
As she stood there indecisively, Erica’s girlfriend got into her car, and slammed the door closed, and started the car’s engine, and then drove away.
She just drove away. Without another word.
Erica was halfway down the front path to the car. She had been following behind, asking what was wrong, and pleading for this to stop. Erica was halfway to the car, but not nearly close enough to do anything useful, so when the car drove off, all she could do was stand there and watch.
Lucy stopped too, with her hand still on the door handle, thinking. It was too late to go outside and try and help now, so perhaps it might be better to pretend she’d missed the whole fight entirely. It might be less awkward for Erica if Erica could make believe to herself that Lucy hadn’t overheard everything.
Outside, Erica seemed shocked. She was looking down the road, after the car. She stood where she was for a moment, staring after it, as if she couldn’t quite believe what had just happened, and as if, like Lucy, she didn’t know what to do next. She stared down the road, in the direction the car had gone, as if hoping she would see it coming back.
She stared, uncertainly, and then, after a moment, she turned around and slowly walked back towards the house.
Lucy watched Erica out the windows beside the door, still unsure what to do. She only had a few seconds to make up her mind, though, so she thought, and then decided not to embarrass Erica. She let go of the door handle and went back over to the couch as quickly as she could. She sat down on the far end of it, the end furthest from the door, and waited for Erica to come back inside.
She sat, trying to look bored, as if that would make her seem innocent.
Then, at the last minute before Erica came inside, when her footsteps were audible on the deck outside, Lucy reached forward and snatched up a magazine from the coffee table in front of her and opened it, just in case that made her look less like an eavesdropper.
YOU ARE READING
Losing Everything
RomanceLucy loses everything that matters to her, her partner and job and business and all her money. She loses everything, and in doing so she reconnects with an old friend, Erica, and begins to fall for her instead. And as she does, she realizes that e...
