So… where'd all the reviewers go?

Heh. I'm review-greedy, folks. :) Seriously, I'd really like constructive criticism if you have any, so seeing as you can tell me if you don't like it as well as if you do, you have no excuse for not reviewing. ;) Go to.

JOANNE

I'd run out, but there was nowhere to go. I'd have walked to my car, gladly, but I wasn't at all sure I'd be able to find my way back, and anyway it would have been at least a forty-minute walk, forty minutes on shaky legs that currently felt to be the consistency of overcooked spaghetti; forty minutes with nothing to do but think about what I'd done; forty minutes carrying me farther and farther away from Maureen's carelessly messy little apartment. Forty minutes, each minute making what I'd done a little more irrevocable.

I couldn't do it.

So I slid down against a neighboring chain-link fence, feeling a little dampness from the ground seeping through my already-ruined shirt. It must have rained last night at some point. It wasn't raining now, but it was threatening to; even as I thought that, a light dusting of invisible raindrops brushed my skin, too thin to be seen, like mist congealing around my face.

I tried to think.

It didn't work very well. I kept being interrupted by random flashes from the night before. A glimpse of her body. The sound of her moan. And the sound of my own cries, high-pitched and drunken and out of control in a way I'd never allowed myself to be –

I winced and made myself stand up. This wasn't getting me anywhere. Neither was the opposite extreme, though, the one I kept rushing to as if it could provide any more answers – the I'm-not-a-lesbian-this-was-all-a-mistake line of thinking. There was something inherently false in it. As there had been all along in my consistent refusal to recognize that there was something between myself and Maureen after all. That, in short, I had the hots for Maureen Johnson. That it had been that way more or less from the moment she'd walked purposefully off the dance floor towards me, hips swinging with the music, and ordered me a drink three weeks ago.

I was going to have to take a cab home, that was all. I couldn't stand on this street corner all day. Once I was home I'd be able to start making sense of all of this. I had a brand-new legal pad there, a hefty supply of black Bic roller pens. I could make some outlines, some flow-charts detailing the progression of this whole sorry affair, list some pros and cons, maybe come up with a statement of purpose. There had to be a way to make this fit into the rest of my life.

Except, shit – I dug through my purse, cursed softly under my breath – where was my wallet?

I'd had it in the bar with me, I knew that much. I didn't know if I'd left with it. Had someone stolen it? There was a police station not far from here, I could go, file a police report –

Right, in Maureen's Rainbow Brite T-shirt (made still worse by the light dusting of rain that was slowly soaking it through) and my godawful business skirt from last night. I'd make a great impression.

Plus, it was far more likely my wallet was still in Maureen's room.

There were a few other things missing too, I realized. The sunglasses I kept in there to combat glare from the road while driving. A tin of lip gloss. My in-case-of-an-accident-or-other-emergency medical tags. Who would want any of those? I'd cast my purse aside so carelessly last night, doubtless a few things had just fallen out.

And now I was going to need to go back up there to retrieve them.

No. No.

I shook my head violently, trying to make the idea go away, but it refused to budge. I had no other way of getting out of here. I couldn't take a cab without any money; I couldn't walk to my car; I certainly couldn't walk home. And I couldn't stay here all day.

All right. So how hard could this be, really? Just step in, tell her I'd lost a few things, grab them, walk back out. No problem.

This would be fine. Really.