“And I told him to ***** the wall with his huge *****!” Jenny was narrating a story about the latest brat-star that she was ghost-writing for as Shane and Carmen came into the living room. Alice and Dana had arrived and they had already brought out the cake for Angie.

Kit wasn’t kidding when she said the theme was Martians, because even the cake was shaped with feelers. Angie was bouncing up and down in glee because of the Mummies and Aunts in comical feelers.

Plonking herself down onto the couch with Carmen, Shane made herself comfortable and snuggled close to her girlfriend, who was now trying to make little Angie giggle.

Bette walked up behind her wife and whispered in her ear, “Look at Shane.”

Tina stole a glance at Shane and understood what Bette wanted her to see. “Looks like she had been crying.” Bette nodded her agreement but Tina just shrugged. “Might be tears of joy.”

Concern got the better of Bette and she decided to play it safe by asking Jenny, she crossed the room and sneaked up behind, whispering into Jenny’s ear. “What’s up with those two.” Jenny stole a glance at Shane and Carmen and shrugged. “No idea, they have been acting weird since Carmen got back.”



While she was tickling the laughing toddler in her lap, Carmen had noticed the whispering that were going on between Bette, Tina and Jenny. She saw them stealing glances at her out of the corner of her eye and it had made her very uncomfortable.

Not wanting to be the spoilsport to throw a tantrum, she tried to ignore the insecurities by placing the centre of focus back on Angie, occasionally looking up to smile reassuringly at her worry-wart of a girlfriend.

But nothing seemed to get pass Shane. She noticed the smile that Carmen had on didn’t quite meet her eyes, and she was avoiding looking at one direction, Bette’s direction. She turned and stared accusingly at Bette and made a sign of a slit on the throat, signaling to her good friend to ‘cut it out’. Bette understood when she should step back and lifted her hand apologetically.

Satisfied, Shane planted a kiss on Carmen’s cheek before whispering in her ear. “Don’t worry baby, how ’bout I get you a drink.” Carmen nodded her agreement but kept her eyes on Angie, making a face drawing an excited chuckle from the little girl. Angie got so excited that she threw her hands around, and managed to slap Shane right on the face as she moved to get up.

“Ow!”

Shane yelping in pain only caused Angie to get more excited and everyone in the room laughed harder. Kit managed to still the excited baby when she realized that Carmen probably couldn’t handle her anymore. This allowed Carmen to tend to her other baby.

Pretending to whimper at the pain, Shane put forth her best impersonation of a puppy and batted her eyelids innocently at Carmen. She was rewarded for her fine performance with a tender kiss on the spot Angie slapped by her girlfriend.

Chuckling lightly, Carmen placed another kiss on the same spot before tracing her lips down to her girlfriend’s lips.


Both Bette and Jenny had to smile at this display of affection, both thinking the same thing. ‘The clingy inseparable lovelorn couple is back to normal.’




As Shane tore her lips away from Carmen’s, she noticed from the the corner of her eye that Alice was clearing her throat uncomfortably. Grinning at first, she was so sure that Alice was going to come up with something sarcastic to say and she was all ready for a battle of words. But Alice didn’t say anything. And Shane noticed that she was dejected, looking everywhere except the direction of laughing Dana.

After a few more uncomfortable moments, Alice got up to walk to the kitchen, and Shane thought it was a good idea to follow.

“I will be back with your drink, peach. Ice tea okay?” Shane said to Carmen, Carmen only nodded her reply, her attention had returned to the group and Angie.




———————–




Alice was pacing up and down the length of the kitchen as Shane walked in. She smiled weakly at Shane but other then that, did not bother to slow down her pace.


“Hey, how are you holding up?” Shane asked as she approached her friend and placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her from walking a hole on the ground.

“Quite frankly, not too good.” Alice shook her head sadly.

“Ahuh Dana?”

“Is it really that obvious?” Alice sighed

“I can’t speak for the rest, but it is to me.” Shane shrugged as she leaned onto the counter top.

“Right, Yoda.” Alice stated, when Shane just continued to look intently at her, Alice sighed again and continued, ” I don’t know Shane, I mean, we are over right? I shouldn’t feel this way. But I do, and it sucks you know”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I went to pick Dana up at her place, and I saw her new girlfriend of the moment with her. They were all over each other. Its disgusting I mean not saying that it is but it seems like” Alice started to blabber on.

“I understand completely Alice.” Shane said sympathetically.

“It’s almost like, she was doing it to hurt me, trying to show off to me, you know. Like”

“She’s just being a *****, Alice. You gotta let it go.” Shane put a reassuring arm around Alice and squeezed her shoulders.

It was funny how she could see through her friends, know exactly what they were thinking, and get them to talk to her. But with her own girlfriend, she couldn’t do any of those things. She didn’t know what Carmen was thinking, she couldn’t get Carmen to confide in her, and whatever she could see, was only the surface. Just like the fact that Carmen was losing her hair, Shane didn’t even know. Not an inkling, nadder, zilch.

Shane felt like a complete idiot around her girlfriend, her patience was wearing very thin and she was trying very hard not to flare up at Carmen. But at the same time, she couldn’t live without her. Without Carmen around, Shane just didn’t feel whole. Just at the thought of losing her, Shane could just cry a river.

“Shane Shane” Alice brought Shane back out from her thoughts. She realized that Shane did not hear a word she was saying when she turned and saw the far out daze that Shane was in.

“Huh??”

“Sorry to bore you with my sob story” Alice shrugged, misunderstanding Shane’s inattentiveness.

“Eh? Noooo! No it is not like that. Look, you have to get pass this if you want to stay friends Alice. She is not worth the heartache.” Shane tried to push her own problems out of her mind and concentrate on her friend.





“Who’s not worth the heartache.”


An accusing voice boomed in the kitchen, startling the both of them. Alice and Shane jerked their heads up to that direction and saw an angry Dana.


Dana had spied Alice and Shane talking in the kitchen, and had a feeling it was about her. Shane had always taken Alice’s side in the breakup and she didn’t like it at all. She also didn’t like how Shane had been advising Alice all sort of things and Alice was becoming more and more distant from her.


Staring grimly at Shane, Dana crossed her arms and waited for either one of them to talk.

Shane didn’t want any confrontations, having enough on her plate as it is. Shane just shrugged and pulled away from the counter to cross over to the fridge. She poured the tea she came into the kitchen for, taking her own sweet time as she observed the awkward looks that were passing between her two friends.

Dana continued to stare between the both of them, all ready for a fight. But Alice simply just walked out of the kitchen and back into the living room.


“What did you tell her, Shane.” Dana questioned.

“Dana, I didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know.” Shane stated lightly.

“Right, by painting me as the bad guy?” Dana said, voice dripping with acid.

“Look, I was just trying to comfort her.” Shane tried to explain. Dana was also her friend, and she didn’t want her to misunderstand.

“Riiight I am suppose to believe that?” Sarcasm rang in Dana’s voice.

Shane just stared straight at Dana, and resumed the nonchalant stand she always took when she didn’t want to get into a fight.

“I’m sorry if I offended you, okay. But this isn’t the place or time to be discussing this subject.” With that, Shane stared confidently into Dana’s eyes, daring Dana to continue pursuing the matter. Dana stared back, but decided to back off because this was after all, Bette and Tina’s house.

She pulled a bottle of vodka out of the wine rack and walked defiantly back into the living room, not bothering to glance at Shane at all.

Shane sighed, her life was definitely not going well. Now she had managed to incur the wrath of Dana, adding drama into her already complicated life.