Against The Rocks

Johnny Is A Loooser

"Hey, bestie," Heidi giggled, her eyes twinkling as she pulled Lily into a hug. "And how are you on this fine day?"

"I'm okay," Lily shrugged, giving her friend an unconvincing smile and a squeeze in return.

Heidi pulled back, eyeing Lily with suspicion. "I'm sorry, did you just say you were 'okay'? You never say that. What's wrong with you?" she asked jokingly, an impish smile still plastered across her face. Noticing Lily's unusually quiet demeanour, she studied her more closely with concern, "Are you okay, babe?"

Lily sighed, and shook her head, "Can we go inside?"

"Sure," Heidi nodded, standing aside to let her friend into her home.

The Haners had a beautiful house. They'd bought a wreck shortly after getting married and had slowly worked on transforming it into the kingdom it was today. Heidi, normally so fussy about her hair and nails, had donned boiler suits and taken messy buns in her stride to work beside Brian as they painted, papered and tiled their way to their perfect home.

The two women settled themselves in the sleek kitchen; Lily planting herself at the table as Heidi busied herself with mugs and coffee.

"Here," Heidi offered, holding out the steaming mug to her friend. As Lily accepted it from her, she raised her eyebrows, "So, are you going to tell me what's up?"

Lily frowned, staring down at her coffee so she didn't have to make eye contact with Heidi, who was insistently staring at her. "How come you and Brian never had a baby?" she asked, finally daring to look up.

"Oh," Heidi uttered, taken aback by her friend's bluntness. She dipped into the fridge as she fumbled her way through her answer, "Uh, I guess neither of us are really into the idea of being parents right now. After we got married we were busy with the house, then we decided just to wait for a bit. We haven't spoken about it since. Why?" She looked closely at her friend, a hint of excitement dancing in her eyes as she set a plate of fruit salad between them, "Are you guys thinking about having a baby?!"

Lily gave a short, awkward laugh as she picked up a strawberry and shook her head. "Kind of the opposite," she sighed, pursing her lips. "We've been thinking about it – and trying; my god have we been trying – but it's not happening, so now we just decided to wait for a bit."

Heidi's mouth dropped open, "You never told me!"

"I know," Lily replied, casting her an apologetic glance. "At first we just wanted to keep it quiet, but then it went on and on. It seemed stupid to tell people when nothing was happening anyway."

"Well, it can take time," Heidi answered, trying to reassure her friend. "How long have you been trying? It can take months."

"We're going on a year and half now," Lily revealed, cramming the strawberry in and adding a spoon of sugar to her coffee. "And it was getting stressful. I turned into a monster, Heidi," she whined through her mouthful.

"No way," Heidi argued in disbelief, "I refuse to believe that you could be anything close to a monster, Lil."

"No, I was," Lily insisted with a grimace. "We were arguing all the time, and I made Johnny sleep on the sofa more than once," she admitted sheepishly.

Heidi's eyebrows shot into her fringe, "Oh... yikes."

Lily nodded, "Yeah..."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Heidi asked, reaching a comforting hand over. "I could have... well, I don't know what I could have done, but I could have supported you."