Why hasn’t he told me?

The question nagged at her mind more than it should of, crowding down the roiling anger, the devastating sadness, the poisoning guilt and sense of inadequacy.

Why hasn’t he told me?

She watched him lift a hand and smooth down his shiny curls, worn shorter than she’d ever see them. She watched him smile his goofy grin, make ridiculous faces in time with the story he was telling. She could hear the laughter around him. Did they know? Did everyone else know?

And worse, could they know that she didn’t know?

But the worst, above the doubts, the sadness, the anger, the guilt, the insecurities, were the moments when he glanced her way, their eyes locked, and she made herself grin foolishly back at him.

It seemed fitting punishment. Hadn’t she played the fool all along?

Lucy turned her head sharply to eye Travis carefully.

“Winsome and lovely?” she repeated, an edge of disgust creeping into her voice. Who was this man? Her friend Travis didn’t use words like “winsome.” And he wouldn’t be caught dead near anything lovely.

Something of the edge in her tone must have caught on Travis’s consciousness because he snuck a guilty glance at her.

“You know, she’s…pretty. She has…prescence.”

More like himself, but there was still something amiss. Before she could help herself, Lucy felt a pang of envy through her sternum.

“Yeah, everyone loves Becca,” she heard herself say flippantly. As if loving Becca were something common. Base.

“Yeah?” he responded halfheartedly. He hadn’t torn his eyes off of her yet, which was tearing Lucy apart.

“Oh, for sure. She’s had a zillion guys after her.” She wasn’t entirely sure what she meant to accomplish by telling him that. Make him think the competition was too stiff? Make him think he’d never stand out, so why bother trying? Either way, it made him finally turn to her.

“Yeah?” God, did he know any other words? Oh yes, “winsome.” And “lovely.”

“Oh, ga-zillions,” she emphasized. She had his attention, so she felt the impulse to keep talking. “Remember Matt?” She watched Travis’s eyes roll slightly to the upper left as he struggled to recall this name.

“The band guy?” he said finally.

“Yes!” she pounced. “He was ga-ga over her. I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure at least three of his new songs are about her. And she didn’t even date him!”

It dawned on Lucy that she might not be helping herself. She’d managed to paint Becca as some sort of etheareal goddess with men throwing themselves at her feet and writing songs in her honor. Hell, she would date that. Shouldn’t she be mentioning the fact that Becca never covered her mouth when she coughed or that she had this weird wart on her left foot or that she always mixed up “they’re” and “their”?

“But I mean, it’s not like she’s perfect,” she finished lamely. A warmth grew in Travis’s eyes.

“Well, not everyone can be perfect like Lucy,” he said with a grin, putting his arm around her shoulders.

There was no romance in the arm. Lucy knew that. But she let herself drift for a moment, reveling the touch as she settled back into the crook of his arm.

“Well, it is very difficult,” she said softly.

“Not worth it,” they said.

“Waste of time,” they said.

“Such a pretty girl,” they’d coo.

Always stroking hands and patting heads. And she would smile and swallow, swallow, swallow, never feeling full.

And always quiet, so well behaved.

Until her stomach, crowded out by her swollen, ulcered heart, would take too much.

So she’d vomit out her bitterness like a poison to anyone who would hold back her hair.

“Did your mother ever tell you how she and I used to try to predict your future?”

Startled by her aunt’s simultaneous thought of Lucy’s mother, Lucy jumps a bit. “Huh?”

“Well, not really predict, just kind of speculate a little. You know, about what kind of job you’d have, how your love life would turn out.” A graying wisp of chestnut hair flutters to her aunt’s forehead and she shoved it aside with the back of her hand, her fingers dripping with tomato innards.

“I’m sure that was a colorful conversation on my mother’s part,” Lucy scoff, settling herself back down in her chair.

“I always thought you’d marry a musician or an artist, but your mother always predicted something more…tumultuous.” Her aunt chooses this word as kindness. Lucy has no doubt her mother had shown no such gentleness in her damning of Lucy’s future prospects.

“Well, she would know.” Lucy tried to keep her voice bright, the education you do when you look for the good in the dead, even though there was no good to be found while they lived.

Her aunt sets the knife doubt and gives Lucy one clean, Sharp look, slicing through her like a ripe tomato.

“Your mother raise you the way she should have, Luce, but she was sick. She couldn’t-”

“I know!” Lucy snaps. “I’m not throwing a pity party, I know-”

“Now let me finish!” Lucy can recall maybe four other occasions when her aunt raised her voice, so she is instantly silenced. “Your mother was sick, but it wasn’t catching. You are not broken.” She moves to the table and grabs Lucy’s ARM in one slushy vice. “And it’s time to stop making excuses.”

“I didn’t say that, Alyssa, I-”

The same steady even pace with only the minutest changes in pitch. Calm. Monotonous. A few times his emotion ran higher and he felt his voice try to rise, but he steadied himself. He consoled his rage with the simple thought that all it would take to drive Alyssa mad would be pretending not to care.

Alyssa’s main arsenal was even simpler; she just repented everything he said in an incredulous voice. The passengers one the bus with him heard it like this:

“Well, I’m going to work, so just get back in bed and watch your 90210….yes, get back in bed…”

He made this technique even easier for her because he tended to repeat what he thought was his strongest point.

“I’m going to work, so I’m tired…”
“It’s seven in the morning, I’m going to work and you’re screaming…”
“I’ll give you what I have, but I have my own obligations, it’s why I have a job…”

But Alyssa screwed up. At the last second she changed her story for why she needed the money, and he had her.

“I know you’re there, and I know you know who this is,” Allyson spat. “He doesn’t. Want. You.”

She was doing her best impression of cruel, summoning all the hatred and anguish this pathetic girl had caused to well in her heart over the last six months, drawing to the surface of her mind what she had fought to push down and deny and pretend didn’t matter. But now she let if flood her body, the angry, violent toxins bred by weeks of uncertainty, insecurity, and jealousy.

Jealous of what, she had difficulty knowing. But she recognized the emotion and could name it as easily as she could point out a Ferrari in a sea of Volkswagens.

As the silence persisted, Allyson felt her anger giving way to exhaustion. It was tiring, all this pretending not to care and then caring too much. She wanted it to be simple. She spent most of her life actively avoiding what was complicated, only to screw everything up and fall in love with a mind-numbingly complex conundrum. On paper, though, it was simple, which was why she could never get Daniel to understand. Daniel loved her. Allyson loved Daniel. Karen shouldn’t matter. But she did. She made sure she did.

Allyson felt her shoulders slumped and slid suddenly against the kitchen wall to the floor.

“We were almost friends once,” she said softly. “As a friend? I’m telling you to move on. You’re hurting yourself just as much as anyone else. Live your life. Stop waiting around and telling yourself that you’re winning at something.”

“Oh Allyson,” the musical voice slithering sweetly through the receiver. Allyson felt her heart thump instinctively, like a rabbit who is suddenly unsure whether or not she’s alone in the meadow. “Of course I’m winning.”

The line clicked sharply, and Karen was gone.

She wondered why that happened. What flow of blood could create the sensation of wrenching, crushing, tearing in her heart valves?

She imagined it was probably a nervous system thing, not actually having anything to do with the vital organ. It was probably an involuntary tensing of nerves. An anxiety-driven reaction of her subconscious.

Lucy would do deep-breathing exercises, wait for the panic to pass. Instead it would deepen when she realized it wasn’t helping.

Your heart cannot literally break like glass, she would tell herself. Chastising her body for being so…female. Such a cliche.

Your heart cannot literally break like glass. She would repeat the empty mantra as she scoured online medical resources, typing her ambiguous symptoms into narrow search boxes, her eyes scanning the resulting links critically. All the while the pressure, the tearing would grow worse.

Lucy would obsess over the symptoms, the effect of the breaking. The one thing Lucy would not let herself think about? The cause.

The leer, she decided, was in the eyes. In the slow spreading of the lips over the teeth with a wet smolder in the eyes instead of a twinkle.

She played it safe and smiled back, but she knew without a mirror that her eyes undoubtedly conveyed her misgivings.

She would forgive him, that much was clear. She knew it. He knew it. The girl on the platform watching them furtively behind oversized sunglasses knew it. The question was when and how much she would want from him before he did.

His left hand gesticulated wildly, and from time to time he would glance knowingly at it. How could a man with such an effusive left hand be deceitful?

But the saddest part was the impending forgiveness. Because just as they all knew it would come, they all also knew it probably wasn’t deserved.

His phone buzzed nastily on the nightstand, and Daniel picked it up quickly so it wouldn’t wake her. Daniel’s better judgment told him not to answer the phone when the familiar number lit up the tiny screen.

“Hello?” Daniel whispered, hurrying out of the room.

“Why are you whispering?”

“No reason, what is it?” Daniel looked around Allyson’s pitifully small apartment and ran a hand through his hair. Karen. Of course it was her.

“What are you doing?

Without thinking, he left the apartment and stood in the hall before he answered.

“Why does it matter, Karen?”

He didn’t waste time with social niceties. They were passed that.

“You’re with her, aren’t you? My god, Daniel. You are remarkably predictable, aren’t you.” He could hear her triumphant smirk oozing through the phone and fought to retain his composure.

“I told you not to call me.”

“You knew it was me, Daniel,” she purred. “You answered the phone. Jesus, were you in bed with her when you answered?” She laughed, a melodic, tinkling sound.

“Leave me alone,” Daniel said curtly, snapping the phone shut. As if it were that easy to cut off Karen.