Author's note: This is my entry for the Literotica 2020 Summer Lovin' contest. Although this story is a stand-alone tale, many of the characters previously appeared in So Many Kinds of Love.
All sexual encounters occur between consenting, eager and loving adults.
Copyright ©2020 to the author.
**
The chatter of the sprinkle-smeared children at the next table echoed through my head as I dug my spoon into the sundae the server had just placed before me. Across from me, my best friend already had the first bite of peanut butter cup ice cream in her mouth, and I watched with amusement as her eyes fluttered shut and she leaned back to swallow, then moan.
"What a good idea this was," Gabriela said, slowly opening her eyes once more. "Why don't we come here more often?"
Making sure I had the perfect ratio of ice cream, cookie dough, fudge sauce and whipped cream on my spoon, I laughed. "Because we' both weigh four hundred pounds if we did?"
Gabriela shook her head. "Don't be silly. You're still too skinny."
The giant spoonful finally made it past my lips, and the contrast of its sweet, smooth coolness to the afternoon heat was everything I could have wanted. Letting it melt slightly in the warmth of my mouth, I luxuriated in the feel of the rich cream coating my tongue. It tasted heavenly, and I moaned in my turn.
The older lady overseeing the noisy brood at the next table turned to us and smiled. "I'll have what she's having!" Catching the movie reference, we all laughed before she returned to the full-time job of keeping the energetic kids from destroying the ice cream parlor altogether.
To me, Carolyn's Creamery smelled of chocolate and childhood. I vaguely recalled a birthday party here once, and the large mirror behind the counter triggered a memory of myself looking at my reflection as I sat on my father's broad shoulders, scared I might fall despite his large, strong hands holding me firmly in place.
Peering into the mirror, I had sighed. My dad had died when I was just six, and I had few recollections of him. That in itself made today doubly precious to me.
I hadn't eaten here in years, but now that I had entered remission from the cancer that had nearly killed me, I found myself wanting to revisit places from my past. Gabby, a psychiatric resident, said it was part of reintegrating myself. Me, I just wanted to reassure myself that I had even existed before cancer.
Before Cancer. B.C. How appropriate. Sometimes, my old life seemed like an ancient dream. Still, however hazy my past looked, it nevertheless appeared a whole lot clearer than my future.
Having wrung out the full pleasure of our first bites, Gabby and I turned our attention back to our sundaes. Her new engagement ring twinkled in the afternoon sunshine streaming in through the blinds, lifting my spirits further. My brother adored Gabby, and I might have felt more excited than they did when he proposed. Gary and I didn't have much family, so the idea of having a sister-in-law I already knew and loved filled my heart to bursting.
It seemed like we had always been friends, but we had met in my first year of college and her first year of medical school. We had bonded right away over a bizarre performance of Shakespeare's monologues in the library where we both studied. After security took the would-be actor away -- I had never heard anyone shout "Unhand me, varlet!" in a non-theatre setting before -- we started talking and never really stopped.
Had Gary not come home and immediately fallen for her, Gabby and I would have remained close, but our friendship wouldn't have deepened in quite the way it did. She made a sacrifice for me during my cancer treatments that went far beyond the boundaries of normal friendship, and I will never forget it -- or stop loving her for it.
Always beautiful, Gabby's face had found a new glow as her relationship with Gary had grown and blossomed. I felt so happy for them, and yet...
Putting her spoon down, Gabby regarded me. "OK, what's up?"
Startled, I looked into her deep-set brown eyes. "Nothing."
Cocking her head, she gave me her best "don't fuck with me" look. "Try again."
Shrugging, I poked at a pool of hot fudge with my spoon. "I'm just wondering ... well, it sounds silly."
My friend's look seemed to pass right though me and into my soul. "Which means it's probably not silly at all."
Looking at the little tableaus of ordinary life all around us, I saw parents and grandparents trying, with varying degrees of success, to restrain the children with them; a few singles staring at their phones while absently eating their ice cream; and couples, some loving, others some bored but together anyway. I wondered if any of them knew how fast and easily they could lose it all.
I took a deep breath. "It's just ... how do I start again?"
Gabby nodded encouragingly, and I stumbled on. "I feel like I had this life, and it was a good one, and I worked so hard to build it! And then cancer almost took it away. But I got lucky. I had a good doctor. I survived."
"You did," she agreed, her voice barely audible over the shrieking kids and eighties pop music playing from the ceiling speakers
I thought for a second. "Then I got through the pandemic, too. And that was hard in its own way. I always thought I was an introvert -- until I was forbidden to be around people."
Gabby nodded. Like most mental health professionals, she was still seeing the fallout from the pandemic, the fault lines in relationships and individuals exposed by isolation, grief and distrust.
"I think a lot of people found that out," she said, her voice gentle. "But go on."
One of the nearby children demanded more sprinkles on her ice cream, making me smile. "But now I feel good again and my hair's growing back, even if it's different."
Diverted, her eyes darted to my hair. "It's cute, though. You look good with curls."
Still amazed at their springy softness, I fluffed my new ringlets and came to the crux of the matter. "Dr. Hsu says I'm in remission and I'm good to go ... but where? And how?"
Steepling my fingers, I looked at the tin ceiling tiles as if they held my answers. "I feel like I've been shoved on a stage in front of an audience with no script and everyone's looking at me to deliver the next line. But I don't know it. I don't know which character I am. I don't even know which play I'm in anymore. I look around and everything looks the same, but somehow I don't recognize it anymore."
Spooning up the last of her sundae, Gabby swallowed blissfully, licked her spoon and set it down, giving me all her attention.
"Do you want me to listen, or do you want advice?" she asked.
Shrugging again, I set my own spoon down in the melted remains of my sundae. "Either. Both."
We smiled at each other, and I thought again how lucky I was to have a best friend who understood me so well.
"I think you're trying too hard, and maybe overthinking this," she said.
"Overthinking is what I do," I protested, only half joking. "I overthink, therefore I am."
Snorting lightly at the old joke, Gabby regarded me for a long moment, the outlines of her face softening as a cloud hid the sun.
"Of all my friends, you're the one I'd call truly self-made," she finally said. "You crawled out of a terrible situation and put yourself through college with no help from anyone. I mean, Gary loved you and supported you, but he was in the navy. He couldn't be there in the lifeboat with you."
"He would have if he could, but -- yeah. I rowed that damn boat all by myself."
"And you got back to the shore safely." She laughed suddenly. "Gary's infected us both with his metaphors! Silly writer man."
Giving her ring a fond glance, she took a breath and forged on. "And you kept rowing, and got to shore, and built yourself a good, secure life, the kind you wanted as a kid and couldn't have. And now, you're left with the trappings -- you still have a good job and a beautiful home -- but that security is gone. And now, the person you thought you were is gone too. Is that fair?"
Shivering from a sudden blast of air conditioning, I nodded, relieved to hear her say it out loud. "That's exactly it. If I'm not Layla 2.0, who am I?"
The sun shone through the blinds suddenly, picking up the dark reds and browns in my friend's almost-black hair. She gave a little shrug. "Layla 3.0?"
