“If that’s how it happens then yeah, why the hell not?” Shane sighs. “Al, you’re making this way more complicated than it actually is.”

I snort. “This comes from the woman who used to think being in a monogamous relationship was as exciting as waxing the kitchen floors.”

“Hey,” she says defensively, “You and I are two different people.”

“If you say so.”

“Anyway,” she ignores my comment, “Don’t you guys realize you haven’t made any move whatsoever to move out? And Dana hasn’t even asked how long you’re planning on staying?”

“She probably feels weird being alone after all this time,” I offer rationally. “And I’m pretty good company. We watch lots of movies and play board games and—”

“Stare at each other longingly across the kitchen table?” Shane finishes, rolling her eyes. “In the two hours, we’ve been here, she must have looked at you five hundred times to make sure you were close by and I caught you staring at her since you came to sit over here.”

“What do you want me to say? That I’m still so in love with her it’s absolutely killing me to wake up every day in the same house and have her so close to me all the time and not be able to do anything?” Tears prick the corner of my eyelids. “Because, yeah, that’s true, but you knew that.”

“Hey, I’m sorry.” Shane looks taken aback at my quiet out burst and indiscreetly rests her hand atop mine. “I didn’t mean to make you so upset.”

I hurriedly wipe my eyes and glance over to the table where our friends are gathered to reassure myself nobody witnessed the commotion. Thankfully, everyone is blissfully engrossed in Kit’s retelling of a recent bad blind date.

“You didn’t make me upset,” I tell her. “I made myself upset because I’m such a coward.”

“That’s not how I would describe you at all, Al.” Shane frowns. “I could never have been as brave as you were.”

I shake my head. “I just gave you guys that impression.”

“Listen, Alice, you said you promised yourself if she didn’t die, you’d be honest with how you felt. You can’t go back on that.”

“I know I can’t, but I just don’t want to hurt her again, Shane. I messed things up once and chances are, I could do it again.”

“Don’t you think Dana deserves to make her own choice?”

I watch her across the way, her eyes sparkling and she meets me gaze. The smile she gives me at that precise moment makes her already beautiful face resplendent and all at once, my decision seems easy.

Loving her was the simple part. It always had been.