The Love We Choose

Chapter 3

Sitting down at the grey piano bench in the school music room two days later, Lynne dabbled her fingers over the keyboard, picking out the theme song to "The Twilight Zone" before setting on a song she hadn't sung since her angsty teenage years.

"There's a moment you know...you're fucked." She sang out in her deep alto voice, fingers dancing over the keyboard. "Not an inch more room, to self-destruct. No more moves oh yeaahh, the dead end zone. Man, you just can't call your soul your own." She stopped moving and singing as Ava entered the practice room, loudly slamming the door closed.

"Wow, this is a deviation from your normal, "I've Got to Break Free" rage-singing when one of your cohort gets on your nerves.  Care to explain the deviation that has you "Totally Fucked," which you shouldn't be singing when the students can walk in on you and report you to someone for foul language, by the way." She added the last bit, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Uggh!!" Lynne let out a frustrated sigh, leaning forward, placing her elbows on her knees. "I--I. You take your lunch break yet? I have forty-five minutes left of mine and I can't give you an answer to your question within the confines of the campus."

"I still have fifty-five minutes left of my lunch break."

'Alright, grab your bag, I'm driving us to the diner. I need a cheeseburger deluxe and maybe a chocolate milkshake for this conversation."

Ten minutes later, seated at a back corner booth, Ava and Lynne had placed their order and were thanking the waitress, Gertie, for their lemonades.  As the wizened woman walked away to her next table Ava turned her attention back to Lynne.  Cocking an eyebrow up she questioned her friend, "so what's going on with you?  What has you totally fucked?"

Lynne shifted uncomfortably on her cushioned booth seat before meeting Ava's gaze.  "Well...you remember when you and Keith went out with me for Huan's birthday in the city a couple of months ago?"

"Yeah.  We first went to that lounge with the awful DJ, gave up and then Keith got us a table at Marquee and we attempted to drink Dr. Birthday Boy's weight in whiskey and tequila?"

"That would be the night.  Still need to thank Keith for that.   Your husband is a saint.  Please remind me to do that. Well, if you can recall I stopped drinking about three hours into the night because someone needed to be sober enough to navigate transportation back to the birthday boy's apartment. Leaving my favorite lushes to continually imbibe."

"Yes, because you are ridiculously responsible at all times when you should just lighten up and enjoy yourself."

"Yeah, so Huan had been going through a rough few weeks at work, plus his girlfriend of two years had dumped him not long before his birthday, and he was way past down in the dumps. That birthday celebration was supposed to take his mind off of everything and we did just that. As his designated buddy for the night, I made sure once he passed the point of maintaining the ability to balance that he made it home safely." She paused to nervously rub the back of her neck. "I got his six foot four ass home, up the stairs and into his apartment with minimal obstacles despite being almost a full foot shorter than him. And then..." She looked down intently into her lemonade and swirled the straw absent-mindedly as she recalled the night in question. 

XXX

Roughly two months earlier

"Lyndy! We got to keep this party going! Wait, where did all the other people go?" Huan asked Lynne from his supine position on the edge of his bed. Lynne had deposited him there after strong-arming him to prevent him from opening a bottle of wine he had made a beeline for once they arrived at his apartment.