“Did you have a fight?”

“Wha-a-t-tt? No! No we didn’t have a fight,” I sputtered, and fumbled for the box of tissues that Diane had thoughtfully left on top of the coffee table behind me, when she and Jules had been by earlier.

“Did she say no?” Jules asked.

Jules and I had talked for a long time earlier this afternoon about me finally making my feelings known to Chris tonight. If not for the … um, cancer thing … that would have been great advice, actually.

“Not exactly,” I said, not knowing how to label Chris’ reaction. Everything else aside, I knew that she wanted for us to finally make love as much as I did. More than that, I knew that she loved me as deeply as I loved her. Figuring out how two people as crazy about each other as we were could stand being apart, despite living less than twenty feet away from each other, was for others to try. Right now, that was not the type of clarity I wanted or needed.

Jules sighed again. “Aerin, I hope this is not a case where you’re going to make me pick and probe with twenty questions before you let me into whatever it is that’s consuming you –“

I blew a breath out.

“Because if it is,” Jules continued, “I’m driving over to your place right now.”

“You’re a dear friend, Jules, but there are some things I’d like to talk about just the way we’re doing, if you don’t mind.”

She blew out a breath. After another series of sighs, I heard, “Alright. Okay, tell me where you want to start.”

“I love her, and am just growing ever more deeply in love with her every minute that I spend in her company,” I started, closing my eyes, and just letting my thoughts flow.

“I had a feeling that you’d finally found that special someone in her,” Jules said quietly.

“And tonight I could see that she felt the same way about me. All that she wants is to be with me, and she looks at me with such … love … Jules, that I think she’ll no longer be able to hide how she feels whenever she and I are together with other people,” I added, recalling images of Chris’ flashing sapphire eyes fixing on me earlier tonight, while we were in her bedroom, and caressing me, almost, with her eyes when we sat face-to-face on her couch as I told her about understanding now, the meaning of my parents’ death, and my life. A life that I’d thought I’d get to share with her.