Previously 

Alice was exhausted when she finally got to the hotel. She was glad that Julia had that New York taste. She was in the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel and was looking forward to the bed that she would just envelop her when she fell in it. As she walked into the room, she smiled seeing a bouquet of flowers.

 She smelled the lilies and smiled opening the card. Her smile faded as she saw what was in the card.

 So our Dana just couldnt stay away from you. I warned her of what that would mean, but I guess she just didnt care. So this is her penance. Not a very flattering shot of her, is it?

The first picture was of Alice and Dana at the airport earlier that day. Alice was hesitant to look at the second picture. When she finally did, the card and pictures just fell to the floor.

Chapter 30

Alice wasnt sure how long she was curled up on the floor of her hotel room and she didnt really care either. In a second, her world fell apart. Everything she knew to be true was suddenly changed. The givens she had in her life were built upon the premise of her life with Dana. Everything else came as a result of that. Her center point, her core was that life. She built everything else around that.

She had family and friends, but until Dana, she didnt know what unconditional meant. Once she learned what that was, that it actually existed outside of Hollywood, and most importantly, that she had found it in Dana, her perspective on everything else changed. Her other relationships changed. Her understanding of love and friendship were forever altered.

Alice reached across the plush carpet to grab the photo. She held it in her hands without looking at it. She knew she needed to look at it again. She needed to make sure what she had seen was real, but there was this part of her unable to move. At that moment, all logic was gone from Alices thought process. If she didnt look at the picture again, she wouldnt need to deal with it. If she didnt look at it, she didnt need to acknowledge it. Her world could stay safe and secure in its ignorance.