”Alice, I think you might be a little paranoid. Dana loves you. And that’s the only thing that’s obvious to everyone.”

“Look, I know you think I’m making too much out of this, but I’m telling you, you don’t see what I see. There’s this…thing between them. The looks they give each other, the way Dana gets all nervous around her…I’m telling you, she still wants to be with her,” Alice’s voice trailed off into a whisper. She hadn’t relayed these fears to anyone else but Dana before, and since Dana reacted by getting all distant and uncomfortable, she was honestly scared that Shane would do the same.

Shane noticed Alice’s need for reassurance immediately and stopped what she was doing so she could spin Alice around in the chair to face her. Once she did, she bent down slightly and placed both her hands on the arms of the chair, leaning closer to Alice and looking her square in the eye.

”First of all, you don’t know what I’m thinking because actually, I don’t think you’re making too much out of this. Al, you’d know better than almost anyone if there’s still something there between Dana and Lara. But the one person who probably does know better than you is Dana herself. And if she’s telling you that there’s nothing to worry about, and that she loves you and wants to be with you, than why is it a problem?”

“Because she’s just saying that to make me feel better. She doesn’t want to hurt me, you know how she is. Hell, she pickled away in that self-loathing closet for years just to avoid hurting her family. Dana puts the needs of the people she loves before her own. It’s one of the reasons I love her so much. But…she’s also my best friend and she’s used to sparing my feelings, whatever the cost. And I just know that that’s what she’s doing now.”

Shane sighed at how obstinate Alice could be. She was so determined to believe that Dana couldn’t possibly love her, that she wouldn’t hear any argument to the contrary. “Al,” she started, “Even if that is true and Dana’s just ‘sparing your feelings’, why get yourself all worked up like this?”

“What the fuck else am I supposed to do?”

“I dunno…shit or get off the pot, maybe?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning…look sweetie, it’s evident to everyone else how much Dana loves you. It’s written all over her face. But if you refuse to believe that, and you insist on thinking that she secretly wants to be with someone else, than why not just end it? Why go on fighting with her and putting yourself through hell when neither one of you is going to give in?”

Alice thought about this for a moment and spoke the only words that seemed to make any sense to her at all anymore. “Because I love her.”

Shane recognized the genuine, unadulterated emotion on Alice’s face and it almost broke her heart.

“And I can’t imagine going back to being just friends with her. I’ve loved her for as long as I can remember, Shane. I just can’t let her go.”