As they entered the apartment Alice walked over to Dana and pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to worry you I just need time to think. I’m OK see.” Alice stood back with her arms out and up showing Dana she was OK. Dana looked her up and down. “Then why did you leave and why didn’t you call me?”

Alice herself was starting to feel the tears in her own eyes as she looked over at Dana. “Dana how can you not know why I had to go somewhere and think? If you would have sent me flowers and notes like that the first time we started dating I would have been swooning all over the place. But now it comes with a very high price for me.”

Dana looked at Alice with a very confused look on her face. “I don’t understand Al. Why can’t we start over. What high price?”

Alice thought back to Shane’s words, to tell Dana everything how you felt and what you went through. “Dana I love you. I probably love you more then anything or anyone else. This includes my family. ***** I probably love you more then I love myself.

Dana smiled at that comment. “That’s good right?”

Alice looked at Dana with a doubtful look on her face. “No and yes I guess. Yes if we go riding off in the sunset to live happily ever after. But no if you break my heart again.”

Dana wished she could convince Alice she wouldn’t do that again, but instead she stood there and listened as Alice tried to explain what she meant. “You have no idea what I went through when you broke up with me. I was handling the breakup, not well but I was handling it. Then you completely shut me out of your life even as a friend. I felt like I had lost you completely, so not only did you break my heart, I felt I lost my best friend. Dana we had been friends for years, you were more like family then my family. I knew they didn’t have time for me. But I never thought you would do that to me.”

Suddenly the tears started to fall hard from Alice’s eyes. “Someday I wondered if I even needed to go on. You have no idea how deep I fell into depression. Nobody knew except for Joy. I’m sure I was a great date most of the time we sat around while I cried about losing the most important person in my life. Or she was trying to convince me I really did have something to offer my friends, and they really did love me. Dana I had a hard time understanding that just because you my best friend could abandon me, not everyone else was going to do that.”