Like I Love You by J.T. Marie

Author:J.T. Marie
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Published: 2016-02-13T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4: Maybe Something More

September 1999

If anything, the kiss only widened the distance already growing between them. When Dana sobered up, she wished she hadn’t—not hadn’t kissed Bethany, no, she didn’t regret that, because she recognized her only chance when she saw it, but rather wished her body hadn’t purged the wine from her system. If only being drunk was a viable career choice. She could totally give it a go.

The days stretched out indeterminately. Winter rolled into spring, then into summer. Bethany worked later and later, or so it seemed to Dana, and when she was home, little passed between them anymore. Dana no longer thought of themselves as best friends, but rather as former friends. They weren’t even roommates, but people who shared a common space. The number of occasions when they were in the apartment at the same time could be counted on one hand. When it happened, Bethany always looked about herself guiltily, as if caught somewhere she shouldn’t be, and was quick to retreat to her room without making eye contact.

She hates me, Dana thought. She knew it had to be true, because how could Bethany still like her when she hated herself? She’d ruined what they had together with one stupid, drunken kiss. Just call me Judas and hang me right now.

As more time went by, it became harder to broach the subject, to talk about it, until it hung over their heads like a pall, heavy and dark, smothering them. By the end of the summer, Dana could stand it no longer. If nothing was going to be said, then at least something could be done, and if Bethany wasn’t going to be the one to do it, then Dana would.

She’d leave.

And go where?

Well, back home, of course.

It galled her to do it, but it had to be done. She didn’t know where else to go. Graduate school didn’t interest her, and besides, the end of August was way too late to apply for the fall semester anywhere. She could froth milk and tamp espresso at Books-A-Million or Starbucks the same as she could on Fifth Avenue, and while she’d make less back home, she wouldn’t need all that much to live off of in the first place. Hell, if she could live at home, she wouldn’t need to make hardly anything at all. Free room and board, free meals, free laundry facilities—yeah, she might be going on thirty, but so what?

Plan A had failed. She had to fall back on Plan B now.

But the big question was, would her parents let her come back?

* * * *

Dana waited until the second week of September to call home. Watch Bethany pick tonight of all nights to come home early, she thought, sitting on the edge of the couch so she could watch the apartment door over her shoulder as she used the phone. Was it just her, or did it take forever for the line to ring through from New York to Virginia? Calls never seemed to take as long to connect when she’d lived in DC.

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