“Then come back to me.” The words were out of Dana’s mouth without thinking, and shocked both Alice and herself. “I-I mean, if you don’t like it there, you can always just come back here. I’m sure Ella won’t mind.”

“We broke up.” Alice’s words brought both sadness and joy to Dana’s heart.

“Al I’m so sorry,” Dana lied to her friend, barely able to sit still at the news. “What happened?”

As soon as she heard Alice sobbing on the other end of the phone Dana’s happiness ceased, and she huddled over the phone in an effort to be as close to the sound of Alice as possible. “Al, Al please don’t cry.”

“It’s ok Dane,” Alice finally said as she composed herself. She hated the fact that she had let herself become so emotional over the phone. She didn’t want Dana worrying over stupid things like her and Ella. “I hardly got to see her because she was spending a lot of time with clients and um,” Alice fought to remain normal, silent tears sliding down her face. “Last week she told me there was someone else, so we split.”

“Al I…” Dana wanted to comfort her friend so badly but words had escaped her. All she could feel was pure anger for Ella, who had so casually disregarded such a wonderful person as Alice, who had traveled across the world for her. “I’m so sorry.” She could hear Alice laugh on the other end, a laugh to cover up her real feelings about the situation.

“It’s no biggie Dane. It really is for the better.”

The two of them talked for another hour, both of them resisting the need to just proclaim their love for the other and both feeling incredibly alone as they hung up their phones.

——————————————————————————————————————————–

Alice was sitting on the floor of her rented apartment in London deliberating whether to clean up or go out drinking after finishing yet another freelance article for a local newspaper. She, of course, decided on the latter, and in under an hour had transformed her appearance from one of lazy, work from home writer, to ***** and single vixen. Alice smiled when she saw her reflection in the mirror, admitting to herself that she did look quite hot in the tight jeans and low cut top she had bought earlier in the day. She was interrupted by a knock at her door not ten minutes later.