Lost Along the Way by Erin Duffy

Author:Erin Duffy
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-05-18T07:00:00+00:00

eighteen

Two hours later Meg still couldn’t sleep. She was angry, and hurt, and tormented by the blowup earlier, but now something else was keeping her awake: the sound of bottles rattling downstairs. She got out of bed and tied her cashmere robe around her waist, then descended the stairs, oddly hoping that she was being robbed and that the source of the clamor wasn’t what she thought it was. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she found Jane sitting under a blanket on the couch, a glass in her hand so full of wine she could have drowned in it. Meg was still angry, and was planning on yelling at Jane to go back to bed, but the look in her eyes made her stop. Slowly, pity began to creep in and replace some of the anger. She sat down on the floor at the foot of the couch and watched her friend stare blankly at the LIVE A GOOD LIFE sign hanging on her wall.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Meg asked. “It’s almost one o’clock in the morning.”

“There was a time when one o’clock was early.”

“That was a long time ago. Now if I see the ten o’clock news it’s a late night.”

“I guess we’re getting old. I’m sorry about your wineglass. I shouldn’t have done that,” Jane said, tipsy and groggy and so clearly lost.

“It doesn’t matter, Jane. Just go to bed.”

“I tried, but I can’t sleep. I’m too busy thinking about how much I suck at life.” Jane held her wineglass to her face and peered through the pale yellow liquid at the fire on the other side. “I made a new fire. I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s fine,” Meg said, though she was less than thrilled at the thought of a drunk Jane literally playing with fire in her house.

“This looks so weird. I feel like I’m tripping.”

“You don’t suck at life,” Meg said. Jane glanced over at her quickly, then decided to stare at the ceiling instead. “You just fell in love for the wrong reasons. You loved him for his money, and that’s why you’re in this mess.”

“I didn’t just love him for his money. I loved him for his willingness to spend it on me. It’s not the same. That’s the thing, though. I thought it was his money. I didn’t know I was hurting anyone. You believe me, right? I’d never steal from people. But I should’ve known something was wrong, and I didn’t. I lived my entire adult life at two extremes. I spent most of it chasing the life I thought I wanted. Then once I got it, I spent all my time trying to figure out how to live in it and not lose my mind. I didn’t realize that I didn’t love him. I thought, ‘Well, Jane, you’re not sixteen anymore, love isn’t necessarily what you thought it was. Just because you don’t hear “Dream Weaver” in your head every time he walks in the room doesn’t mean you don’t love him.

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