“Oh, great, so I’m screwed no matter what I do.”

“You’re not screwed, Perry. You’re just in love with him.”

“There’s a difference?”

I sat back in my chair and nodded politely to the waitress when she brought my next drink. I ignored the salad and went straight to drinking it. Noon or not, these were going down fast and I didn’t care anymore.

Rebecca watched me carefully. She opened her mouth to say something but then thought against it and started to eat her salad. I felt tears rushing forward. Another reason why I shouldn’t drink so early in the day, and on an empty stomach.

But I controlled them and sucked in my pride. I started to pick at my salad and owned up to the fact that there was no real shame in being in love with someone who wasn’t in love with you.

“Do you think I should tell him?” I asked.

She paused, fork halfway to her mouth, and then lowered it. “Tell him you’re in love with him?”

“Do you think he knows?”

She thought about it and then said, “No. I don’t think he does.”

“Do you think he might love me?”

The words hung above our table like a heavy net waiting to drop. I couldn’t believe I just said them. It was just all coming out now. I wondered if I got a contact high from being in the car earlier.

“Perry. I honestly don’t know. I’ve known Dex for a long time now and I still can’t claim to know him. If anyone would know that question, it would probably be you. You know him better than Jenn, I can tell you that much.”

I shoved lettuce in my mouth and chewed, not tasting the dressing or the ahi tuna.

She continued, “He wants to shag you, I can tell you that much.”

I raised my head and looked at her sharply.

She smiled. “Well, that part is obvious. If you could see the way his face lights up when he talks about you, when he looks at you, and compare that to Jenn. Oh, darling, no comparison. But Dex’s heart? I don’t know about that. And I would never lead you on.”

“But…he has a heart...”

“Yes,” she said. She reached over and brushed a piece of hair behind my ear, much like he would have. It felt nice. “Dex has a heart. I just don’t think he knows how to use it.”

She looked sad at that and it was a sadness I understood. A feeling of wastefulness and hopelessness. He had it in him, but whether it would ever be used was another thing.

“You know, he never talks about his past,” she said, eyeing me watchfully.

I nodded, knowing this all too well.

“I know he went to high school in Washington. Went to college in New York. I don’t know anything else. Nothing about his family. About what he used to do. We don’t know anything about him and we’re used to it. But…you know things, don’t you?”

“I know some things. Just the tip of the iceberg. I might be an old woman before I get to the bottom,”

“Jenn’s in the same boat. And for some reason, I think you have the upper hand. And that makes me very, very happy.”

I shook my head at her, still disbelieving it all. “So you really don’t get along with Jenn…”

“Or Bradley. They are a perfect pair of superficial fucks. If you ask me. The pitiful thing is, I don’t even know if Jenn can tell I can’t stand her bony arse. She’s not very smart.”

“Why the hell is Dex with her?” I blurted out.

“Have you been in a long-term relationship?”

I had, I just wasn’t sure if it counted. “Sort of. For a year. Then he cheated on me.”

“Uh-huh. Well that happens. We all know. I was with a guy for two years back in England.”

“A guy?”

“Yes. That’s how in denial I was. But not just about my sexuality. I was in denial about…life. Changes. It was so much easier to ignore the truth and pretend. I cared about my boyfriend, even respected him, but I wasn’t in love with him. I was in love with my best friend, Alyson. But I never got to be with her, or tell her how I felt, because it was easier to go on and pretend everything was fine. Change is scary and it can be scarier to some people more than others. Dex needs stability, that much I can see. You wonder why overweight people say they want to lose weight but they keep going on getting fat on lollies and burgers. It’s the same thing.”

“Do you think he loves Jenn?” I asked.

“I think…I think he loves her as much as he can. As much as he lets himself and as much as he wants to. But I think if you compared that to, say, the way I feel about my partner Emily, it would amount to nothing. Not that we have some Romeo and Juliet love. But it’s close. The free, can’t live without each other, passion consumes you kind of love. Sure, Dex and Jenn have been together for three years or something now and Emily and I are still more or less new, but I never saw what we have in them. And really, how could that ever be? Look at Dex. And look at Jenn. They might look good but there isn’t an ounce of respect between them. And if you don’t have respect, what do you have?”

My shoulders deflated and I stared down at my plate. I felt dumb and hopeless. What Rebecca said made perfect sense and it’s that reality that hurt. I could see Dex staying with Jenn forever out of fear. They survived a pregnancy scare, they got Fat Rabbit, they moved to another apartment together. All these things could have been a catalyst for Dex to break it off. Or for Jenn, when you think about it. But they hadn’t. They were still together and would probably be for as long as I was in the picture.

That hot, wet feeling of tears appeared again at the corners of my eyes and I immediately looked up to the high ceiling and the lights.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. She scooted her chair closer to me and put a slender arm around my shoulder. “It sucks. It’s stupid. I wish more than anything that you were with him, not her. He may be like an overgrown child at times, but there’s just something about you both that just…you belong together. That’s just what I think.”

“I think so too,” I mumbled, and finished the rest of the martini in one go. She did the same and then grinned broadly, her face becoming aglow.

“Hey, now that we’re all sappy and drunk, how about we do some shoe shopping? Let’s see if we can get something the Amish would spit on.”

A tiny smile tugged at my mouth. Despite the feeling of sorrow, the touch of truth I was trying to bury away, I still felt a layer of warmth around my heart, knowing there was someone who was on both our sides.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Rebecca pulled the car up to the apartment after our successful outing to the shoe store. It had taken me quite a while to settle on a pair of shoes for the Christmas party, especially since the shoe was a madhouse with sales and early shoppers beating the season’s rush, plus the amount of gorgeous shoes in that place was staggering, at least to someone like me.

Eventually I settled on a pair of shoes that would have made Ada proud. At least Rebecca looked impressed. They were stilettos but with a 1.5-inch platform so the angle wasn’t too unbearable. They were raspberry red, almost magenta, and a smooth suede. I knew they didn’t match the teal dress but I found the color combination intriguing. Plus they took me from 5’2” to 5’7” and the feel of that height was intoxicating. The only problem was they were slightly too big but Rebecca got me to buy toe pads to stick at the bottom so I wouldn’t fall out as easily.

I gathered up the shiny bag and glanced up at the apartment. I had texted Dex to let him know I was on my way but he hadn’t responded.

“Well, thank you so much for lunch,” I told Rebecca.

“No hugs goodbye?” she asked, looking hurt, her maroon-lined lips pouting.

I blushed, not used to random hugging, and leaned over in the car to hug her. As I did so, I caught of whiff of heady wildflowers and Jasmine in her hair.

“Oh, before I forget!”she cried out and flipped open the console between us. She brought out a clear baggie of marijuana and put it on my lap.

“That’s for Dex,” she said simply.

I eyed the bag of weed in my lap. There was at least a quarter pound of it. “Um, what?”

“That’s what the money was for,” she said.

“Um…”

“He goes through stages. I guess because he’s quitting smoking that he’s doing this now. I don’t know. We used to hang out a lot of Dean’s place and smoke but Jenn got suspicious and uppity about it. So don’t show that to her. You’ll get him in deep shit.”

“Okaaaay,” I said and placed the drugs in my purse, feeling paranoid and sketchy as I stepped out of the car and onto the rainy street.

I waved goodbye and was about to shut the door when she leaned forward.

“Wait, what are you doing before the Christmas party on Friday?”

I shrugged impatiently, wanting to get inside. A young couple with a baby walked past and they gave me a funny look. Oh, they could totally tell I was packing.

“How about I drop by before and we can get ready together. I’ll bring Emily. It’ll be fun.”

It did sound fun. I never really got to experience the whole “girls night out” primping ritual, even in college.

I smiled at her, feeling oddly touched and said, “That would be awesome.”

“Perfect,” she said and wiggled her ivory fingers at me. “See you then!”

I shut the door and then she was off.

I checked my phone to see if Dex had texted back but there was nothing. They had better be home; otherwise, I was shit out of luck.

But when I buzzed their apartment, I was let in with another anonymous click.

Turns out they were both home. Jenn let me in, giving me a strange look.

“I heard you went out for lunch with Becky,” she said. Her voice didn’t sound pleasant. It was almost jealous, if you could believe that. Then she spied the shoes.

“And you went shopping! What did you get?”

I decided to indulge Jenn. I placed the bag on the kitchen counter and took out the shoes. While she oohed and aahed over them, I looked around for Dex. He was nowhere to be seen but the door to the den was closed. I wondered how he was doing. The fact that I had messed with his meds hadn’t left my mind all afternoon.

“Where’s Dex?” I asked innocently.

She nodded at the room while rolling her eyes. “In there, working.”

She put the shoes back in the box and then looked me over, as if she couldn’t believe that I would be wearing them. Well, to be honest, I couldn’t really believe it either.

“Are you going to break them in?” she asked.

I frowned. “Break them in?”

“Yeah. You can’t just wear those straight out of the box, honey,” she said with an amused laugh and a hair toss. “You better start wearing them around the house. Today.”

I looked at the shoes like I was sizing up a new enemy. Who knew shoes came with so much responsibility?

“Actually I have a great idea,” she said, smiling and taking a step closer to me. My instinct was to step back, away from her, but I held my ground and tried to match her grin, which was predatory in nature. “You and I should go out tonight.”