Jenny looked up startled out of her nostalgia. “Ready whenever you are.” She turned toward Burr and followed him out of the room

“Alice. I’m sure that she didn’t mean it.” Shane said as she came into the living room and sat down on her friends couch.

“You know Shane’s right. She was probably just feeling a little hurt. I bet that after she has some time to think about things she’ll be fine with the two of you going back to being just friends.” Carmen agreed with her girlfriend, smiling involuntarily at the sound of the word echoing through her head.

“Until then, Al. I think you’re just going to have to wait it out.” Shane looked at Alice in sympathy and handed her the beer that she had just brought from the kitchen. Alice sighed and tipped back the bottle.

“I want to know how she could have said those things to me. All I’m trying to do is salvage some kind of relationship with my best friend.”

“Al, I understand, but have you really thought things through here.” Shane faced her friend. She usually didn’t like pushing people in either direction, but she really felt like Alice and Dana belonged with each other.

“Yes.” Alice didn’t offer any explanation. She didn’t tell Shane that it was the only way that she could think to keep her and Dana together. There was nothing else that could be done. It scared her to think that in the last few weeks she had realized that what Dana had said earlier was right. She had not known Dana as well as she thought that she did. She didn’t want to admit that her best friend had become a total stranger to her. Didn’t want to tell them that she could already feel Dana slipping further and further away from her. And that right now she was scared to death of losing the one person in the whole world who ‘got’ her. The only person that she knew she would always be friends with. The constant in her life. The thing that would never go away. Alice looked over at Shane, who had just joined Carmen on the chair across from her. Alice felt a pang of jealousy as she watched the two of them.