All I Want...

“Yeah, there is that.” She sighed. Unfortunately alone was more familiar to her than involved. “I’ve decided to think of it as research for my next fling.”

“The word is re-la-tion-ship.” Lucy enunciated as if she was teaching a two-year-old something new. “Can you say that?”

“Ree-lay-shin…something.” She shrugged helplessly. “I got the ‘lay’ part.”

Lucy rolled her eyes, barely suppressing a smile. “Ha. Ha.”

Krista grinned. She enjoyed playing the role of the great sexual predator. They both knew better, and it made Lucy smile, which Krista desperately wanted her to do more often. “And so, Ms. Lucy, speaking of ree-lay-mumble-mumbles…”

“Oh no.”

“Come on, you knew I was going to ask. What’s up with Lincoln?”

Lucy’s beautiful face shut down and Krista wanted to put down her fork, reach across the table and shake some sense into her could-have-been-a-model, should-be-a-star sister. Fact one: Lucy was miserable with Link. Fact two: Lucy was miserable with Link. And it’s…fact three! He’s outta there! The relationship is retired!

“Things are bad. I don’t know what to do.”

“Get out?”

Her eyes grew defensive. “Krista…”

“Lucy…”

Lucy sighed and chewed a tiny bite of shrimp as if it was enough for a whole meal.

“I know, I know.” Krista waved her sister off. “You hate me saying that. But it seems obvious to me that—”

“Of course it seems obvious to you.” She gestured with her shrimp-impaled fork. “Everything seems obvious to you. The fact is, I love this man.”

“And…?” Krista looked at her blankly. “To quote Tina Turner, what’s love got to do with it? He makes you unhappy. You aren’t enjoying your day job, your performing career is stalled, you look tired and defeated…. Hello? What’s wrong with this picture?”

“You don’t understand.”

Krista leaned forward on her elbows. “Try me.”

“He is The One.”

“The one what? The one guy you’ve ever dated seriously?”

“The One. The love of my life.”

Krista let out a growl of exasperation. “Lucy, the issue is not whether you love him or not. The issue is that you’re not good for each other anymore.”

“We are.” She tightened her lips, looking exactly as stubborn and scared as she had at ten when Krista had talked her out of a ladder-climbing dare she’d accepted from a neighbor kid. “We’ve just lost our way right now.”

“Can I be totally brutally honest here?”

Lucy’s expression turned incredulous. “Like you’re ever not?”

“Point taken.” She lifted her hands in surrender. “You’re clinging to the past, to this ideal of Link that no longer exists, to this dream of marrying him and having babies and—”

“It’s not a dream.” Lucy’s voice broke. “I am going to marry him and I am—”

“When?”

“When he’s—when we’re ready.” She folded her arms across her chest and sank against the back of the booth.

“Think you’ll get a ring at Christmas this year?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you’re hoping?”

Lucy gave a small sad shrug. “It’s all I want.”

“Jeez, Lucy.” Krista stared miserably at her sister. Didn’t she hear what she sounded like? Was the person being stifled by a crappy relationship always the last to know? Or at least to admit it? “I’m watching the Titanic head for the iceberg here. You marry this guy, your shot at a lifeboat is gone. You think a ceremony is going to fix your problems?”

“No.” Lucy lifted her chin and met Krista’s eye defiantly. “But what we have is forever.”

“That’s a line from some sappy movie on the Lifetime Channel.” She forced herself to lower and gentle her voice. “This is reality we’re dealing with here. Or trying to.”

“You don’t understand. You’ve never been in love.”

“I—” She snapped her mouth shut. Kaboom. There it was. The horrible, tremendous truth. Lust, oh yes, infatuation, sure, sometimes pretty strong. But love? Nope. Emphatically not. When her relationships ended, she was over it in a week, sometimes two. And she wasn’t quite sure why.

She took a deep breath. “Okay, you’re right. I haven’t been. Not for real.”

“Because you always fall for creeps.”

Another deep breath. “But, I—”

“Bad boys who excite you for about twenty minutes until they ejaculate and run.”

“Lucy…”

“Am I wrong?”

Krista wrinkled her nose. “Exaggerating maybe. But how about we get back to you?”

“I’d rather stay on this subject.”

“Of my miserable failings? No way. We’re talking about you and how it’s not happening with you guys anymore.”

“Relationships are work.” Lucy stared at Krista pointedly. “If you’d had one that lasted more than the first thrilling months, you’d know.”

Ouch. Okay, fair enough. But none of that took away from the fact that Lucy was unhappy and Krista hated seeing her that way. Working on relationships was one thing. Staying when there was nothing left to stay for was another.

She reached across the table to touch her sister’s hand. “Answer this. Deep down, don’t you really think it’s over?”