Last bit:
“And why you were nice to me too?” Lucy said. “Like why you’re still being nice now?”
“What?” Erica said, sounding surprised. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I was nice to you because you’re you. Because I like you, and you’re my friend, and you needed someone.”
“So not just because of feeling sorry for me?” Lucy said.
“Of course not.”
“And not only because you were worried?”
Erica hesitated. “Not only that.’
“But worry was part of it?”
“Well,” Erica said. “I suppose so. Not very much a part of it, but some of it, perhaps.”
“All right,” Lucy said, curiously. “Then why?”
“How do you mean?”
Lucy thought. She was wondering if this actually meant something. “Well if it wasn’t because of pity or worry or whatever else, then why were you so determined that I stay?”
“I wasn’t determined.”
Lucy just looked at her. “Yeah you were.”
“Not determined. More, I was making sure you weren’t being stupidly polite in a way that you didn’t really need to be.”
“Because that’s different?”
“Um, pretty much it is, yeah.”
“Okay, but why be nice at all. Why care so much whether I stayed.”
“I didn’t care.”
“Yeah you did. So why?”
Erica sighed, and didn’t answer.
“Why?” Lucy said.
Erica sighed again. She was quiet for a moment. “Why do you think, asshole?” she said in the end.
Lucy kept looking at Erica, surprised, wondering if that actually meant what it seemed to mean.
“Stop staring,” Erica said.
“I’m not.”
“Yeah you are,” Erica said. “So stop.”
Lucy shrugged, and looked out the windows again, towards the sea.
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...
