Losing Everything

Chapter 9.7

They kissed.

Eventually, finally, Lucy put her hand on Erica’s chest, and pushed her backwards, because she wanted to stop, and couldn’t make herself stop, and pushing Erica away was the only way she could think of to make it happen. She pushed, and then, as soon as she did, she realized her hand was on something soft, and that putting her hand on Erica’s chest actually meant putting her hand on Erica’s breast, and that a breast was a completely different thing to a chest.

She stopped, startled. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know whether to apologize, or move her hand, or not, or whether Erica would even care.

Every other time she’d touched someone’s chest while she kissed, it hadn’t especially mattered. Touching someone there was just touching, like touching their arm. It hadn’t ever mattered before, and now it did, and Lucy didn’t know what to think. It was confusing. It was impossibly confusing and complicated. She felt out of her depth. She felt silly. She didn’t know why, when Erica had barely had time to react and hadn’t yet said a thing, but she did. She felt awkward, and stupid, and like this wasn’t something she could do, and she really didn’t like feeling any of those things.

Quickly, she shifted her hand to Erica’s shoulder, and then kept pushing, so Erica ended up over in her own seat, looking a bit startled. Then, Lucy turned away from Erica, and stared out the side window of the car, and bit her lip because she didn’t know what to say.

“Hey,” Erica said after a moment. “What’s gone wrong?”

Lucy shook her head.

“What’s up?” Erica said, and reached over and touched Lucy’s face, touching gently, trying to make Lucy turn her head, and look towards Erica.

“Don’t,” Lucy said, and pushed Erica’s hand away. She was angry at herself for feeling the way she did, and didn’t know why she was reacting so badly.

“Are you okay?” Erica said.

“No,” Lucy said.

Erica shrugged, and sat back in her seat.

“Sorry,” Lucy said.

“Nah, don’t be. I get it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah dude, you just touched my tit and now you’re weirded out. I get it.”

Lucy nodded slowly.

“It’s not a big deal,” Erica said.

“It kind of is.”

Erica shrugged again, the way she did at work when they disagreed about something trivial, but she didn’t think it was worth arguing. Lucy understood, and didn’t bother either. They looked at the park a little more, at cut green grass and goalposts and trees.

“You’re worrying, aren’t you?” Erica said.

“No,” Lucy said. Then, “Yes.”

“It is only kissing,” Erica said.

“Only?”

“Yeah, it’s only kissing. It doesn’t have to mean that much.”

Lucy stopped, and looked at her, and said, “Yes it does.”

Erica seemed surprised.

“Of course it means something,” Lucy said, almost upset.

“I thought you didn’t want it to…” Erica said, then, “Never mind.

Lucy didn’t understand, and didn’t know what Erica actually wanted, and so she had started becoming annoyed. Because she was confused, and frustrated, and uncertain what she should do, and that was how she reacted to uncertainty. She got annoyed, with herself as much as with Erica, but the difference probably wasn’t obvious. She snapped something, a few sharp angry words which she forgot as soon as they were spoken. She snapped, and then instantly regretted it, but by then Erica was upset too, and so they argued. They said things to each other that were probably unfair, about expectations and silliness and who wanted what, and afterwards Lucy couldn’t even remember what. After a few minutes of fury, disappointed and hurt, Lucy had said, coldly, that they ought to get back, and Erica said fine, so Lucy had started the car’s engine.

Then, before they drove away, Erica had tried to calm everything down, and had said that Lucy shouldn’t worry so much, and that kissing was nothing, and Lucy shouldn’t get so worked up. Lucy was already worked up, and hated being told not to get worked up, so she snapped that of course it meant something, it was whole fucking minutes that they had been kissing, so how could it not. And Erica had said don’t be stupid, it was ten seconds and no more, and Lucy, actually outraged by that lie, said, “No, it was longer.”

She had been hurt, and hadn’t known why Erica was spoiling this, and cheapening it, and making it so small and petty and bland, so she had said all that angrily, and then also said, “Why?”

And Erica had shrugged, and looked a little sad, and then said, “Because I like you. I really like you.”

And then Lucy had understood, and just said, “Oh.”

And then, in silence, she had driven back to the Bitmo offices, because she hadn’t known what else to do.