Corrupted Constructs

Chapter 8

"You don't mean that," Lexa says, stunned for words as her heartrate picks up.

"You heard me."

"Cost..." Lexa tries, wanting to reason with her girlfriend.

"Decide," Costia says, her arms crossed over her chest.

"I can't fire her," Lexa says as she sinks down on the bed dejected.

"You can and you will," Costia retorts.

"I can't," Lexa says firmly.

"Fine. You have made your decision," Costia now speaks as tears start pooling in her angry eyes. She turns around furiously, walks into the walk-in closet, and comes back out with a large suitcase that she promptly throws open on the bed. She makes several trips into the closet and haphazardly throws pile after pile of clothing into the case while ignoring Lexa's attempts to gain her attention.

Until Lexa gently grabs Costia's wrists to stop her from packing and forces the other woman to face her.

"Costia, don't do this."

"You can easily stop this. This is your fault. Lose her or lose me," Costia says as she rips her wrists out of Lexa's light grip.

Costia zips up her suitcase, yanks it off the bed and rolls it towards the door, followed closely by Lexa.

"Last chance, Alexandria," she says, almost pleadingly as she turns back to face Lexa.

Thoughts fly through Lexa's head at a million miles per hour as she weighs her options. At first, she thought Costia was bluffing. But she knew Costia well enough to realize she wasn't. If she let Costia walk out that door, they would genuinely be over. Years of a relationship and even more years of a friendship down the drain.

Lexa thinks about all the wonderful moments her and Costia have had, and about all the fights.

Then, she is hit with a startling realization; she has not been happy for a long time. Being with Costia and being near Costia had become a habit more than anything. She loved Costia and she probably always would, and being with her was comfortable, but it wasn't exciting. She was no longer in love with the other woman, and she really hadn't been for a while now.

She had to let Costia go.

After everything they had been through and after everything Costia had done for her, she could no longer stay in a relationship with her.

Lexa can feel her heart crumble as she realizes she will not only lose her girlfriend, she would also be losing her best friend. Her only friend.

Lexa and Costia met when they were both about twelve years old and halfway through their first year of middle school. They had immediately hit it off when they were seated next to each other on Costia's first day and Costia was Lexa's first real friend.

It was hard for Lexa to make friends as she moved from foster home to foster home between the ages of six through eleven. And it was even more difficult to maintain friendships as she moved from home to home, state to state, and school to school.

But then, she went to Pinecrest Middle School and one of her foster homes finally stuck.

That is, all her previous foster families had gotten rid of her within months. Sometimes within days.

It's how Lexa learned to take care of herself early on and how she became a pretty decent cook. And it was also why she now despised cooking.

However, these foster parents held onto her because they received monetary compensation for keeping her with them. Money that was supposed to be spent on food and clothes and maybe even extracurriculars that Lexa may have wanted to participate in.