We both looked at her, waiting for an answer. Gabby sniffed loudly and wiped the tears from her face with her fingers. I reached across and grabbed a tissue from a box, leant across to hand it to her.

“Thanks” gabby sniffed, finally regaining herself and speaking her first word of sense since we found her on our doorstep. I smiled at her sympathetically and Alice and I waited for her to say more.

Alice

There was a brief moment of silence before Gabby had finally wiped her face and stopped crying. “I’m really sorry to just turn up like this, I just couldn’t think of anywhere else to go” Her voiced cracked slightly and I thought that she was going to start crying again, but she managed to stop herself and continued.

“I didn’t know you two had gotten together, congratulations” she smiled weakly and Dana and I both returned the smile, but stayed silent.

“I…I just have anything right now” Gabby began to explain. “For the first time, I fell in love. Completely and madly in love. But…I’m not used to being in love, I messed it up”. I noticed another tear fall from her eye.

“She left me, last month. After she left, I was a mess” Gabby let out a small laugh and rolled her eyes “like I am now really. Anyway, I couldn’t work, I got drunk all the time and blew all my money. Now, I have lost my job, my money and the woman I loved and my family don’t want to know me. I haven’t got any friends. Pathetic isn’t it?” she looked me straight in the eyes. I could see the obvious pain in this woman’s eyes and although I felt so bitter about what she did to me, I couldn’t just abandon her. I moved closer and put my arm around her.

“Gabby, it’s not pathetic, you’re been through a really rough time” I told her.

“Yeah” Dana contributed “You’ve had a bad patch but you can get through this” she told Gabby, leaning forward in her chair.

“Exactly” I agreed.

“I’ve tried to get through it, but everything keeps getting worse” Gabby said.

“That’s because you’re letting it get worse, you’ve got to be positive, try and help yourself” Dana told her.