Friends Without Benefits

“No!” The room answered in unison, even Janie.

I scowled at her.

She scowled back. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re in love with him and you’re miserable about it. Time isn’t going to help. I would be a bad friend if I told you to continue with your crazy mental arm wrestling over something you’ve already decided.”

“The problem with Elizabeth is that she knows she’s hot. Plus she makes the money. She’s a hot doctor—no one wants to deal with that. She might as well be wearing a sign that says, ‘Only Nobel Prize winners and professional athletes need apply’.” Ashley’s attention didn’t stray from her knitting as she made this declaration. She held the lace weight work in progress directly in front of her face and squinted as she attempted to knit the difficult pattern.

“Or raunchy stand-up comedians who she is already in love with.” Marie sipped her wine and smiled at me over her glass. It was a knowing, teasing smile. One she employed when she was trying to get a rise out of its intended target.

“I’m . . .” I struggled, squeaked, then managed to sigh. “I don’t know what I am, everything is just impossible.”

“Why impossible?” Kat’s quiet question forced me to meet her gaze. Her expression was compassionate, but threaded with challenge and disbelief.

“Because—because I can’t be laissez-faire about this! I don’t want to try things out. I want everything to be settled, decided. I want him to stop pushing me away for my own benefit. I have a brain! I am capable of making my own decisions! I can and do use it with frequency!” I buried my face in my hands.

“Well it can’t get any more decided than marriage.” Fiona studied me. “Why didn’t you just say yes?”

“Because . . .” I was so tired of crying; my eyes burned. “I was afraid, okay? It was so sudden and . . . I don’t know what I would do if something happened to him. I don’t want to lose him, I can’t go through that again.”

“Sorry if this comes across as depressing, especially in light of what you’ve just been through, but, hon, he could die tomorrow in a car accident. For that matter, so could you, so could any of us.” Fiona’s voice was gentle, kind. “Why are you fretting about something you have no control over? Don’t you know you have to take happiness and love when and where you find it? If you love him and you know that he truly, deeply, madly loves you—and deserves you—then give yourself to him without condition.”

“I do. I know all of that!” If I hadn’t been out of tears I likely would have burst into complete waterworks prompted by Fiona’s compassionate lecture.

Janie’s voice cut through the prolonged silence. “Elizabeth thinks . . .” I glanced at her through my fingers. She waited to continue until I pulled my hands from my face. “Elizabeth used to think, and I’m not so sure whether she still does, that people only have one great love. That you can only fall in love once.”

This proclamation was met with silence and furrowed brows of confusion and incredulity.

“What are you!? A Disney princess?” Ashley’s annoyance powered semi-shout surprised the room. She dropped her knitting to her lap and glared at me, apparently sincerely perturbed by Janie’s revelation. “Get over yourself! We all have to fall in love more than once—even if it’s with the same person.”

“It’s true.” Fiona nodded. “Greg and I fall in and out of love constantly, depending on what time of the month it is, how much sleep I’ve gotten, how the kids are behaving, and whether he’s done the dishes within the last three days.”

Ashley snapped her fingers and pointed at Fiona. “Right! That! See? It doesn’t matter how much you avoid it, love finds you. Love will hunt you down, throw you over its shoulder, pull you kicking and screaming caveman style by the hair, and bludgeon you with its love club until you submit. It’s the most relentless force in the Universe. There is no where you can run—”

“Okay, Dirty Harry,” Fiona lifted her voice over Ashley’s impassioned monologue. “I think we can all agree that you’ve made your thoughts on the subject very clear.”

“So what am I supposed to do? I’m just supposed to wait around until we’ve spent enough time trying each other out? I can’t stand the thought of him being hurt. I can’t stand the way he’s hurting me. I can’t go through this again.” My heart already felt shredded.

“Too damn bad, blondie.” Ashley cocked a single eyebrow, pinned me with her blue eyes. “The love beast has reared its ugly head and your flesh is lunch, dinner, and dessert.”

“Love beast?” Marie and Sandra both said at the same time.

Ashley tsked then picked up her knitting again. “You know what I mean—and damn it all! I’ve dropped another stitch!”

“Elizabeth, what is it that you want?” Fiona’s eyes searched mine. “It sounds like you’ve admitted to falling in love with him.”

“I have. I do. I love him. I insane love him.” I studied my fingers.

“Then what is the problem?” I glanced up to find Marie, and everyone else, watching me with plain confusion.

“I don’t want to lose him and I don’t want him to leave me,” I admitted.

“Why do you think that’s going to happen?” Kat said.

I fixed my attention back on my twisting fingers. “Well, when he says things like let’s just take it one day at a time, and we’ll try each other out for a while and see if it works, and maybe we need a little distance to figure this out, then yes. Maybe he’s being reasonable and I can’t see reason, but I suddenly feel like I’m a pair of shoes and he hasn’t made up his mind whether or not he wants to buy me. Meanwhile I’m sunk at the bottom of the ocean, drowning on it, over my head in love with him.”

The room was silent for a long moment. I briefly looked up from my hands, my gaze snagged on Fiona’s. She was smiling at me, softly, gently.

“But didn’t you just say you needed time?”

“No! I mean—yes, I needed, like, ten seconds of time to figure out if I’m okay with him taking some time! And I don’t think I’m okay with it. I don’t want him to have any time that isn’t me and him time. I’m tired of alone time. I want us, all the time!”

“Elizabeth, have you told Nico this is how you feel?”

I shook my head. “I tried! I really, really tried. But he . . . he won’t listen. Especially after what happened yesterday, now he’s saying cracked things like I’m in danger because of him. He’s making me crazy! I don’t even know how I feel other than miserable. What am I supposed to do? Ask him to marry me?”

Fiona nodded. “Yes.”

I blinked, flinched, wrinkled my nose. “That’s preposterous.”

“It sounds like he’s trying to give you space. It sounds to me like he’s wanted you all along and he’s been waiting for you to play catch up.”

I gazed onto her elfish eyes, considering this, considering her words. “I feel like I’m losing him.”

“Then go find him,” she pushed.

“How?”

“Tell him how you feel.”

“Except for this morning, after the fancy stalker episode, he won’t take my calls. I’ve tried calling him nonstop for the last four days and he doesn’t pick up. And today he told me that I shouldn’t call him again this week!”

Every day without talking to him had been torture and, now that I had talked to him, the idea of going another four days made me feel sick. What made it worse was that I didn’t know what to expect at the end of those four days. Obviously because I loved punishing myself, I slept in his bed. It still smelled like him. I was pathetic.

“Have you tried asking his mother to help?”

“Yes, I’m ashamed to say, I have asked for her help on Sunday. But he won’t listen to her, only responds with texts.”

“Then go to him.”

I tsked, new tears of frustration ebbed near the surface. “I can’t. I can’t fly out to New York, ask him to marry me, live through his rejection, then make it back here in time for my next shift.”

“Yes you can and he won’t reject you,” Janie said.

I turned my attention to her hazel eyes. “Really? How?”

“Take Quinn’s jet.” She shrugged. “He can have it ready to go in an hour.”

“He wouldn’t do that for me.”

“But he’d do it for me.” Janie glanced up, her gold eyes sparkled.

“I can’t—”

“Yes. Yes you can.” Sandra abruptly stood, pointed at everyone in the room with a sweeping motion. “From the sound of it, you were miserable before the fancy stalker episode. I know you’ve been through a lot, Elizabeth, but if you don’t do this you’re just going to continue to be miserable with regret. And to make sure that you do, we’re all going with you!”

“Yes! I love it!” Ashley smiled for the first time that night. “Call Quinn, Janie. Let’s go now!”