“Have youTalked to her since then?” Jenny asked quietly. She had known that there was something up with her two friends when Carmen hadn’t shown up at the Planet the day before. It was one of the reasons that she had stopped to talk to Carmen and the reason that she had left the message for Carmen to call her.

“No.” Carmen said.

Jenny chuckled softly. “Are you sure that you love her?” Jenny asked. When Carmen didn’t say anything she continued in her soft voice. “Because if you’re sure then I think that you should go for it, but if you have any kind of doubt you have to let her go. I now it’s notfair, but you have to be the stronger one hereSometimes people are already so broken thatthey’ve just found a way to exist with itand when someonecomes along to, change that, it’s hard. Sometimesif you don’t think that you’re strong enough to handle the personit’s better if you just leave them how you found them.you can do worst damage if you don’t respect that peopleonly form themselves around what they knowAnd that makes it easier for them, but sometimes harder for someone who’s trying to love them.” Jenny finished and she felt the familiar tears in the corners of her eyes as she waited for Carmen to answer her.

Carmen knew what jenny was telling her and she immediately felt guilty for her part in whatever jenny was going through. “I’m sorry, Jenny.” Carmen decided to just keep her apology short and to the point.

“I know.” Jenny answered. “And I know you’ll make the right choice. Just don’t hurt herI like you too much to have to kill you.” Jenny said without any threat in her voice, but Carmen understood that she was trying to protect Shane. And once again Carmen felt the guilt over trying to come between them. Carmen and jenny chatted for a few more minutes and then they said their goodbyes with both of them promising to keep in touch…

Alice couldn’t remember ever going this long without talking to Dana. And since she was feeling especially honest with herself these days she could admit that she could barely remember hanging out with her friends without Dana. She couldn’t pinpoint the moment that Dana had become her best friend, just as she couldn’t pinpoint the moment when she had fallen in love with her either, but in both cases there had only been a brief realization followed by some amount of puzzlement over the whole thing. When Alice had suddenly realized that the feelings she was having about Dana and Tonya were more than just random jealousy there had been no thought about what to do. She had simply gotten into her car and drove over to take action against the newly realized emotions that she was experiencing. And not for the first time since that night Alice wondered what would have happened if she had not acted on her feelings. Or more than that what if Dana had not kissed her back. Would they still be best friends, would she still have married Tonya, there were endless questions that were haunting her, but the biggest one as of late was if Alice had known then what she could see now, would she still have went over there and changed her relationship with the most important person in her life. Would she have risked Dana’s friendship had she let her brain do the thinking that night instead of her heart? And now could they ever go back to the way things were. And if not where did that leave them.