"I’d consider it, sure…"

"But?" Harriet was pretty sure there was something Alice wasn’t saying.

"Well…I could sit here and tell you I’d stay away from Dana for the sake of my relationship, my sanity, whatever. But if I said that I’d by lying."

"So you don’t think you can stay away from Dana?"

"Oh I know I could. I just did it for the past seven months. But now that she’s back in my life again, I wouldn’t want to stay away."

"And do you think you can separate your feelings of love for Dana from those of friendship?"

"I think I’ll have to. Look, I never wanted to believe that Dane and I would break up and find ourselves at this point. But I knew it was a possibility, even back in the beginning when things were near perfect. And I promised myself then that if it didn’t work out between us as lovers, that I wouldn’t let that jeopardize the best friendship I’ve ever had in my entire life. So here we are…and I know that Dana and I can never be anything more than best friends and I’m willing to accept that. I just don’t want to lose her completely."

"And how does Dana feel?"

"Huh…I don’t know. She told me on more than one occasion that all she wanted was to be my friend again, to get back that closeness we had before things got all complicated with sex."

"And has she shown you that that’s what she wants?"

"Kind of."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, I know she’s sincere about wanting me back in her life. I just feel like she’s not sure if she’s even ready for that yet."

"How so?"

"Well, things will be going great one minute. We’ll be laughing and joking around, and teasing each other mercilessly, like we never spent all this time apart. It’s really amazing when I stop and think about it. We’ve been through so much shit and put each other through so much pain, yet somehow that bond still managed to stay in tact. And sometimes when she looks at me, I still get that knot in my stomach and that wave of relief washing over me, and I’m totally convinced that life is just…perfect.   But then without a second’s notice she’ll just revert back into this awkward, distant Dana who can’t look me in the eye and completely shuts down before she ultimately just runs away. And I’m so tired of watching her walk away, you know? It’s like, sometimes when I think about her and picture her face, all I can see is the back of her head. I know that sounds weird, but I really think it’s because I’m just so fucking used to watching her leave. And then once she gets like that, I find myself shutting down as well and getting equally distant and uncomfortable. It’s like this defense mechanism that I never really needed before, with her or anyone. And I’ve never been like that before and I hate it."

"You’ve never felt awkward or distant before?"

"No, no. I mean…I’ve never changed the way I thought or felt or acted because someone else did it first. I find myself feeding off of Dana’s reactions because I’m so afraid of being the only one who cares anymore…or being the one left behind. So she clams up, and then I do too. And I end up resenting her for it, and have to remind myself that she’s just going to hurt me. That this closeness is just a figment of my imagination, or some sort of wishful thinking on my part, and I can’t let my guard down because Dana Fairbanks doesn’t love me. And once I start believing in her, that’ll be my downfall. Cause I know in the end she’ll just freak out and find a way to let me down."

"Alice, it sounds to me like you’re almost as afraid of love as Dana is."

The writer laughed to herself with a smirk. "She started it."

Harriet gave her a warm smile before continuing. "None of that really matters now, does it? What matters is right now. And right now what I see is that you have a lot of love left to give, but won’t allow yourself to share it with a woman who, despite her reluctance to admit it, is totally in love with you."

"You mean Jules?"

"I mean Dana."