after this night (camren)

36. Lauren

I took his hand, "And I trust you found that cocktail here at Cubic Z?"

......

I sank down onto Lucy's couch, "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

She flashed a small, sad smile, "Why didn't you ever notice?"

I held out my hands, showing they were empty, "I don't know"

"Did you? Notice, finally?" she asked, and her voice rose, touching some kind of hopeful note as she sat down across from me in a dove grey chair in her apartment.

I shook my head, "No. But then, lately, I haven't been so astute at connecting the dots, in the right time or the right fashion"

"Then how did you figure it out?" she asked, cocking her head curiously.

"I didn't. Camila did. She mentioned it when we went outside during the game"

Lucy winced, then dropped her head in her hands, "She must hate me" she muttered.

"No" I said quickly, needing to reassure her, "She doesn't hate you at all. She's not like that. She thinks you are lovely, smart, and funny" I said, repeating Camila's words from Saturday, "And I happen to agree with her"

Lucy raised her face, and rolled her eyes in elf-depreciation, "Some good that did"

"Lucy" I said gently.

She shook her head several times, "I feel like an idiot"

"Please don't. You're the farthest thing from that. If anyone's the idiot, it's me. I didn't have a clue"

She managed a small laugh, "I wish I could say that's because I was so good at hiding how I felt, but seeing as Camila noticed it instantly and you didn't have an inkling for nearly ten years, I'm going to have to go with you being completely blind to what's in front of you sometimes. I just have to wonder, though, Lauren, how could you not tell?"

I raised both shoulders, shrugging, "I've been trying to figure out how I missed it, and all I can conclude is this - I care about you so deeply as a friend, and you're Alexa's sister, and I feel like the three of us are kind of in the trenches together. Like we've risen up together in our jobs, and we're this great threesome of friends somehow. I guess I only ever saw you that way"

"Let me ask you a question then" she said, taking a deep breath, the look in her eyes of fierce determination, "If you'd have known how I felt, would it have made a difference anyway?"

I locked eyes with the woman I'd been friends with for so long. With my best friend's sister. With the gal I had drinks with every Thursday night. The person I'd turned to for advice on the woman who had confused me. She was my friend, always had been, and that's how I wanted to keep her. I shook my head and sighed, "No" I admitted, "I'm sorry"

She held up a hand, "Please" she said firmly, "No pity for me"

"It's not pity"

"I mean it, Lauren" she said, "I'm going to be fine. I've been in love with you for nearly ten fucking years and have managed it. Now it's time I get out of love with you"

I sank deeper into the couch, and breathed out hard, "Why didn't you say something, if you felt that way?"

She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. Her mouth was set in a firm line. Then she spoke, "I think, deep down, I knew it was unrequited. That even if I told you, I knew that it wouldn't change a thing. that whatever that kiss was about in college was all it was ever going to be, but it did a number on me"

I tilted my head, stared at her as if she were a science project I was in the middle of constructing, "Why? From one kiss?"

"It was the kiss, but most of all, it was you. I thought you were the most beautiful woman I'd ever met, and smart, and funny, and most of all, you had your act together. You have no idea what my days are like" she said, with a light laugh, "I love my job. But I spend my days with a lot of messed-up people. And you're the least fucked-up person I've ever known. You don't have issues. you don't have baggage. What you see is what you get. For someone who spends all day fixing people, I suppose I really have been longing for someone I didn't have to fix"