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Maybe she wasn’t the sort of person who people — friends or lovers alike — felt comfortable assigning terms of endearment to. Lauren knew she could be prickly and snap at people, that her tendency to hyper-focus at times shut those closest to her out in the cold. So, perhaps, few people felt encouraged to pursue such affection with her.
It wasn’t as though she had ever wanted to be called something soft or sweet. The suggestion would have prompted little more than eye-rolls in the past.
Until Helen started calling her sweetheart.
It was a slip of the tongue, Lauren was sure, even if it was one that she hadn’t seen Helen use with other people. Lauren wasn’t even sure when Helen started calling her it, to be honest, only that whenever it happened for the first time, Lauren didn’t protest and now it had become a thing.
And Lauren knew she was making a choice each time she let it happen without drawing attention to it. She could tease Helen, raise her eyebrows at the word, make light of it somehow…
She just didn’t want to; because, if she did, Helen might never call her it again and that was the last thing that Lauren wanted.
Because when Helen called her sweetheart — the word wrapped in that gorgeous accent rolling so easily from Helen’s lips — the world seemed to stop, for just a moment. Lauren’s cheeks would try to pull a smile onto her face — a smile that she wouldn’t be able to explain without admitting more than she would like — and she fought to stop a decidedly uncharacteristic shyness from overtaking her. Then, she would take a breath and the world would restart until the next time.
And the next.
Helen didn’t seem to call anyone else in their circle sweetheart, but Lauren didn’t look into that too hard. Maybe because she wanted to believe she was the only person that Helen bestowed the term upon, however unlikely that was.
One day Lauren might need to explore all the feelings tied up in how hearing that term of endearment could brighten even the worst of days.
One day, she might need to be honest with herself over exactly how she felt about Helen Sharpe.
But one day did not have to be today, so Lauren could live in a self-imposed facade of unexamined bliss for a little while longer.