We Used To Be Friends

Chapter Sixteen

A/N: Thank you so much for the wonderful reviews! I'm so glad to know that people are still enjoying my story. So thanks!

Sleep did not come for Lucy that night. After spending a considerable amount of time in the shower, she finally changed into sweats and curled up into a ball on top of her bed. She allowed herself to cry freely, promising herself that the crying would stop once morning came. Once morning came, she planned on burying this secret down deep inside and never letting it see the light of day. She passed a mirror, stopping briefly to look at the reflection staring back at her. She carefully inspected the person reflected in the mirror, trying to find the familiar person that she had been seeing in her mirror for her entire life. Now it seemed that familiar person was gone forever. Returned in her place was a stranger Lucy failed to recognize. Last night that man took something away from her, something that was vital to her identity and her soul. Now that it was gone, who was this person staring at her in the mirror? She closed her eyes, wanting to contemplate this and keep herself from falling apart again. It was about seven in the morning when she had finally pulled herself together enough to leave her room. She walked out to the kitchen and started making coffee. While the coffee was being made, she sat down at the small table in the kitchen and put her head in her hands. When she closed her eyes, the only thing she saw was the attack. She was transported back to that moment. Feeling a hand on her shoulder, she jumped up, ready to attack.

"Whoa! Sorry Luce. Didn't mean to scare you. It's just me." Carter apologized, noting how worn out she looked.

Lucy had her fists up and ready if she had needed to fight, but lowered her hands when she realized that it was just Carter. Feeling silly, and not wanting to arouse his suspicions, she quickly pasted a fake smile on her face. "Sorry about that. You just caught me off guard."

"I can see that." Carter nodded. Something wasn't right about her. She was jumpy and preoccupied. But there was also something else about her that seemed different. He wished that he could figure it out, but he couldn't. "You look tired. How long did you stay up for that movie marathon?"

"Movie marathon?" Lucy questioned.

"Yeah, that movie marathon you were watching when I left." He reminded her. "How late did you stay up?"

"Oh, that movie marathon." She chuckled. That seemed like a lifetime ago. It was hard for her to believe that it had only happened last night.

He waited another moment for her to answer, but then he realized that she wasn't planning on answering. "Lucy, are you ok?"

"Of course I am! I'm fine!" She replied enthusiastically. Then she realized maybe she had said that with too much conviction.

"You don't seem fine." He pointed out.

"I'm just tired." She replied. It wasn't a complete lie. She was tired.

"Ok." He replied, not buying her story. Something was going on with her, and he was determined to find out what it was.

"Want some coffee?" She asked, walking past him to the coffee, which had finished brewing.

"Sure." He replied, watching her carefully. "Thanks." There was definitely something wrong with her.

She handed a cup to him and then poured a cup for herself. "I've got to get ready for work." Giving him a small smile, she left the kitchen and headed back to her room. Once inside, she closed the door and slid down to the ground. She wasn't doing a very good job of hiding what happened, and if she wasn't careful, she would end up blurting it out to the next person who asked her if she was ok. Slowly picking herself up from the floor, she took a drink if her coffee. As she went to her closet to pick out clothes, she silently promised herself that she wouldn't think about what happened or act differently while at work.

A few hours later, Carter was coming into the hospital to start his shift. He had entered the lounge to hang his coat in his locker, and found Dave sitting on the couch reading the newspaper. "Hey Dave." He greeted, opening his locker.

"Hey." Dave replied, not moving his eyes from the sports page.

Carter took this as an opportunity to see if Dave had noticed anything about Lucy. "Hey Dave, have you seen Lucy today?"

"Yeah. Why?" Dave asked, still not taking his eyes off of the sports page.

"She was acting really weird this morning. When I got home from Abby's, she was jumpy and…"

Dave finally looked up at Carter. "Wait. Did you just say what I think you just said? You and Abby?"

"Yeah, we did, but don't spread it around the hospital." Carter asked. The last thing he wanted right now was having the nurses gossip about him and Abby. "But about Lucy. Have you noticed if she's acting a little strange?"

Dave smiled. "She's Lucy, so she's always a little strange. But what do you mean? She seems fine to me."

"There's something going on with her." Carter stated.

"She was a little down last night, but that was probably just because it was New Year's Eve and Shelby dragged her along to this party we went to."

"Lucy went with you to a party?" Carter asked, surprised by this revelation.

"Yeah. She didn't tell you?" Dave asked, figuring that Lucy would have said something to him.

"No." Carter shook his head.

"Oh. Well, Shelby thought that Lucy might be lonely last night and dragged her along. But Lucy didn't have a good time and left before Midnight." He explained.

"So then why was she acting so weird this morning?" Carter asked himself out-loud.

"Maybe because you spent the night with Abby last night." Dave hypothesized.

"Why would that upset her?" Carter asked.

"Did you tell her that you were spending the night with Abby? Maybe she was worried about you." Dave decided to leave out the part about Lucy probably being extremely jealous and hurt about Carter sleeping with someone else. It wasn't like Carter would believe him if he told him about Lucy's feelings anyway.

"Maybe." Carter replied. "I guess I'll just talk to her about it later. Thanks." He wasn't entirely convinced that Lucy was just worried about him last night. Something else was bothering him, but she didn't seem to want him to know what it was. Maybe she would tell him about it when she was ready.

Lucy was on her way to the admit desk to pick up another chart when Dave appeared beside her in the hallway.

"Hey Lucy." He greeted with a smile.

"Hi Dave." Lucy replied, managing to meet his smile with one of her own.

"Look, I wanted to apologize for Shelby dragging you to that party last night. I know you didn't have any fun, but she meant well."

"I know." Lucy nodded. She hoped that this conversation would be about something else other than last night. Last night was the last thing she ever wanted to talk about. "Anything else? 'Cause I need to see some more patients."

Dave was a little surprised by Lucy's abruptness. She wasn't being rude, but she wasn't acting normal. Maybe Carter was right. Maybe something was bothering her. "Actually, I just wanted to see if you wanted to talk about this whole thing with Carter and Abby."

She knew what he was talking about. Carter hadn't gotten home until early morning, so there was a very good chance that he slept with Abby. At this point, her non-relationship with Carter was the last of her worries. Right now she was too worn out emotionally to even care about the fact that Carter was with Abby. "I'm fine Dave. But thanks." She knew that she had to get out of this conversation before she lost her cool. Luckily for her, Dave was called over to help with an oncoming trauma.

As soon as Lucy's shift was over, she hurried home, avoiding the alley where the incident occurred. When she arrived back at her apartment, she quickly locked the door and went into the kitchen to get a bottle of water. She hadn't eaten all day and knew that she should try to eat something, but the thought of food made her sick to her stomach. So she took the bottle of water and retreated back to the calm safety of her room. Once inside, she placed the water on the nightstand and laid down on her bed. Except for this morning with Carter, she had done a good job of pretending everything was fine. Maybe this wasn't going to be as hard as she thought. All she had to do was continue to act as if nothing was wrong and then eventually she would believe it herself. Everything would turn back to normal and she could forget that the ugly experience ever even happened. That thought made her smile. Forgetting that experience was the one thing she wanted most in the world. A soft knocking on her door brought her out of her reverie.

"Luce? Are you in there?" Carter asked, softly knocking again. He was hoping that she wasn't asleep. He was still worried about her and wanted to make sure that she was ok.

Lucy opened the door just wide enough so that she could fit her face in the open space. "Was is it Carter?"

"Are you ok?" He asked while letting the concern he held for her come through in his voice.

There was something in his voice that made Lucy reconsider her previous plan of keeping this a secret. She was tempted to just tell him what happened so that he could help her, and even debated with herself about telling him. But she didn't think that he could help her. Besides that, he also had Abby now. Letting herself be a basket case and depending on Carter to pull her back from oblivion wouldn't be fair to him or to Abby. No, she resolved to keep this a secret and keep her previous plan. She put a smile back on her face and hoped that it didn't look like a fake smile. "I'm fine. Why do you think something is wrong with me?"

"You've been acting weird." He replied, deciding to test Dave's theory that she was acting weird because he spent the night with Abby. "You know, we still haven't talked about the fact that I spent the night with Abby last night."

"We don't need to." Lucy shook her head. "That's between you and Abby."

"I know, but I just don't want there to be any weirdness between us about this." He clarified.

"There isn't. Don't worry so much." Lucy reassured him, even though she knew that there would be a lot of weirdness between them because of his relationship with Abby.

He smiled, not completely believing her. "Ok then. I haven't have dinner yet. Do you want to order some Chinese food and watch some TV with me?"

She shook her head. "I'm not really hungry. I was just going to go to bed early tonight."

He looked at his watch. "Luce, it's only eight 'o'clock."

She hadn't looked at the time when she got home. "Oh." She bit her lip. "Well, like I said, I'm tired."

"I bet. Dave told me that you went to a party last night."

"Yeah." She replied, not wanting to talk about that night. "I did."

"Did you have any fun?" He asked.

Inside she was screaming, but she held on to her calm, outside demeanor. "Not really. The party wasn't very good. An X-Ray technician hosted it. I don't even remember his name, but I wish Shelby hadn't dragged me to that party."

"The party was that bad?" He asked his curiosity peaked at her last statement.

"I just would have had more fun staying here." She replied, wishing that they could stop talking about this subject. Talking about that night was not going to help her force the memories out of her head.

He realized that he wasn't going to be able to coax her problem out of her tonight. "Oh, ok. Well, are you sure that you don't want to join me?"

"I'm sure, but thanks." Lucy nodded.

"Ok. Good night Lucy." He replied, leaving her doorway and going back to the living room.

"Good night Carter." She replied, closing her door. Sighing deeply, she walked back to her bed and crawled under the covers.