Erica walked inside, and left the front door open, and came over and flopped onto the couch beside Lucy.
“You heard all of that, didn’t you?” she said.
Lucy hesitated. She almost wanted to deny it. To say that she hadn’t, or pretend to be confused, and say she didn’t know what she was supposed to have overheard. She wanted to pretend, but at the same time, she also didn’t want to lie. She really didn’t want to be deceitful, not right now.
“Um,” she said. “A bit of it, I think, yeah.”
Erica looked at her. “A bit?”
Lucy nodded.
“A bit like all of it?” Erica said.
Lucy shrugged. “Enough,” she said. “But nothing too horrible, I promise.”
“Oh,” Erica said. “Well, that’s good, I suppose.”
“I’m sorry,” Lucy said.
Erica seemed surprised. “For what?” she said.
“I caused all that. By being here.”
“Nah, not really.”
“If I wasn’t here, then that wouldn’t have happened, so…”
“It’s not you, it’s Allie. She’s just like that sometimes.”
“Oh. Is she?”
Erica nodded. “Yep.”
“I’m still sorry,” Lucy said, after a moment.
“Really don’t worry. It’s fine.”
“And I didn’t hear that much either,” Lucy said. “If you care about that.”
“Yeah right,” Erica said. She reached over and took the magazine out of Lucy’s hands, and flipped it closed so the front cover was visible. “Really?” she said.
Lucy looked down. It was a gardening magazine, and the front page said this issue was all about roses.
“Um,” Lucy said. “Well you have it here, so I thought it might be interesting…”
“It came free in the mail with something else. I just hadn’t thrown it away yet.”
“Yeah,” Lucy said. “Okay. So maybe I heard some of what you were saying.”
“I imagine.”
“I heard some, by mistake, but what I heard wasn’t that bad.”
Erica nodded.
“And from what I heard,” Lucy said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You know that, yeah?”
Erica shrugged.
“You didn’t,” Lucy said. “Honestly.”
“Well, I tried,” Erica said. “I guess that’s what matters.”
“You really did.”
“Yeah,” Erica said. “I did.”
She stood up and went over to her desk, and picked up her phone from beside her computer. She tapped at the screen a few times, obviously dialling someone’s number, then put the phone against her ear, listening as it rung. It obviously wasn’t answered, because she didn’t say anything. She just made a face and dialled again, and there still wasn’t an answer the second time.
She put the phone down again, and came back over to the couch, and sat down beside Lucy with a sigh.
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...
