Just Friends

The Beginning

It was the same old story. It was a bad habit of hers and she knew it. After paying a surprise visit to her boyfriend she had found him with another woman. The details weren't important, or maybe they were, but it hurt to even think about. He had told her she the only girl for him. He had probably told that to the other woman too. Worse yet, in the midst of a screaming match she learned that he had been together with this strange interloper even longer. SHE had been the other woman all along. Lies from the beginning.

They were only together for three months, but she was sure they were in love, destined for happiness. Just as sure as she had been with the last man, and the one before. So on and so forth. She was always sure.

It wasn't her fault though. She was raised on tales of whirlwind romances. Her mother recounted ever since she was a little girl the story of how her father had swept her off her feet, and proposed to her only a month later. It only got worse from there: fairly tales with dashing princes, to films portraying beautiful people in love, to cheesy soaps and made for TV movies (still a guilty pleasure of hers.) By the age of 12 she was stealing her mother's full-length novels, and stealing young boys' hearts.

Candace Banks loved love.

It had been 24 hours now since she had shut herself up in her apartment and stopped taking calls. Most of that time had been spent sleeping. Her only nutritional intake since 3PM the previous day was a couple of pieces of toast, and even then only because her body was rebelling against her with dizzying hunger. It was dark in her bedroom now, blinds drawn and not single bulb illuminating the area, but the lights had been on sporadically over the past day. There was no real method to the madness. She was simply going with what felt right at the moment.

With the initial shock finally gone, Candace was weary but finally up to breaking the news to someone. And HE would definitely be first, as was usually the case.

She had other people to call on, of course. A good group of girlfriends who would gladly comfort her. But the fact that she was now the only single one amongst them hung over her head. The last thing she wanted now was support from anyone so happily involved with a guy, or worse yet, married.

Not Paul, though. Most always single with a sprinkling of random flings she had learned about, but only ever from a third party. He didn't like talking about girls, or sex, or anything of the sort with her. Paul the prude. When he did have a steady woman in his life, it never seemed to last long. That was just the way he had always been since he'd first gotten interested in girls.

Still, he was a good listener. And that was all she really wanted at the moment.

Candace rolled out of bed like a lump and trudged over towards her dresser. She had shut the infernal contraption off and left it here when she first returned home, but finding it in the dark was still a challenge.

A lifeless, toddling puppet passed in front of a hanging mirror beside her, long wavering ringlets of golden her draped over its shoulders. Candace squinted and averted her eyes. Something about the figure was painful to look at.

Her hand patted blindly over the cool wooden surface, nudging something small and hard. Ah, there it was!

As her cell phone turned on for the first time in a long time, a little beeping tone and a glowing onscreen warning communicated that she had nine unheard messages.

Later. She'd listen to them later.

Candace clicked 'Paul Conway' in her phone's address book. And auto-dialed the number.

-----

As Paul Conway stepped out of his shower, the musical ringtone of his cell phone exploded at him, echoing loudly in the enclosed steamy space.