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"I think you sound lonely."
The words hang between them in a resounding silence.
Technically she's not wrong, of course. That's the thing with Carla, Lisa's found. She has an annoying habit of being right and sounding absolutely brutal in the process.
She should go.
Really, she should never have come in the first place. She definitely shouldn't have had a glass of wine. Or the one after that, or the one after that…
The thing is though, when it comes to Carla, she can't seem to stay away. She's tried, she's really bloody tried.
At least that's what she tells herself even though she keeps on picking up extra shifts and working late on cases that might mean she's near the factory, or the pub, or any of the bistros or hotels a certain someone might hold her business meetings in.
When she looks up from her glass of red she's met with those big, round, soulful eyes that she's tried so hard not to gaze into over the past few months.
"Are you lonely, Lisa?" Carla's voice is soft, like a caress in the air across the table. "I think I would be, if I were in your shoes. Long hours on the job, only a mardy teenager waiting for you at home…" She pauses briefly before continuing. "I know I was lonely once Peter went off on his grand adventure and now…" She gestures at the confirmation of divorce on the table, "Now that feeling is coming back."
Carla takes another glug of wine.
"What I meant to say is, I know how you feel. It's not the same obviously, Peter is still alive and Becky is…" She has no intention of completing the sentence but Lisa does it for her anyway.
"Dead. It's okay to say it, Carla." Lisa laughs bitterly, "It's hardly a shock to me after all these years, is it?" Her fingers slide up and down the stem of the wine glass absentmindedly as she considers whether or not she'll answer Carla's question. After a moment or two, she makes her decision.
"Yes," she says simply. "At first it was like being plunged into this gigantic pit of despair that I thought I'd never get out of. It was horrible. Every single bit of me didn't want to exist anymore. Not without her." Her fingers trace the faint pattern on the table between them.
It takes everything Carla has in her not to reach across the gap and settle those restless fingers with her own. She's not sure her heart has ever ached so much.
Lisa takes a deep breath and continues. "But then… You know, you've got to keep going. You've got to keep existing. For Betsy, for yourself, for Becky… She wouldn't have wanted me to just shut down completely. I'm not sure she would have wanted me to feel like this either but… yeah. In answer to your question, yes, I am lonely."
She doesn't know why she's admitting it. What she hopes to get out of the admission. But there's something about saying it out loud to someone who (she hopes at least) cares. It's like a small weight has lifted off her shoulders with the saying of those three words.
Any resolve Carla had, snaps at the admission, and her hand moves across the table to grasp Lisa's fingers. Just the tips, just enough contact to say 'I'm here' but not nearly as much contact as something inside her is urging her towards.
Lisa's eyes flick up at the contact, locking with Carla's and there's something in that shared look that stirs something deep inside her that she's not felt for a long time.
"We…" Carla says slowly, tentatively. "We could always be lonely together…"