As soon as the words left Blair’s mouth, she realized she shouldn’t have crossed that line. Just the mention of being more than friends had Erin tensing up beside her. Plus, what was meant to be a joke might have been taken a little too seriously by Erin.

“I… well…” Erin opened and closed her mouth as though she kept changing her mind about what she wanted to say. “I don’t know. It could be, I guess. I’m honestly not even sure how Bianca parented because she barely ever did it.”

“When was the last time you talked to Bianca?” Blair normally wouldn’t push the subject, but she had already made things awkward, so she figured why not.

Erin was definitely surprised by Blair’s question, but in her defense, she recovered very quickly. “Aside from legal things, the last time we really talked was the day she left.”

Blair had to stop her eyes from popping out of her head, because that shocked her. How could you spend ten years with someone and not have a longer fallout? “Did you talk about the possibility of divorce before she ended up leaving?”

Erin sighed and shut her laptop, making Blair feel guilty about pushing the subject when she was nice enough to take care of her. “No, we didn’t. There were definite signs that things weren’t good between us, but the problem was that they also weren’t bad. Maybe that’s my fault since I refused to fight with her. Every time she left the house to do her own thing, I just let her. I was petrified that if I brought anything up and pissed her off, she would leave me. I guess that backfired since she left anyway, huh?”

“Shit.” Blair reached out and took Erin’s hand. She wasn’t sure she should ask the question that just popped into her head, but Blair wanted to put the idea out there in case it could help Erin. “Have you ever thought about talking to her about exactly what went wrong? I feel like you have so many questions. Maybe it would be good for you to get some answers. You know, for closure?”

Erin stared straight ahead for a long time, and the expression on her face gave nothing away. She chewed on her bottom lip as if there were words she was trying to hold inside.

Blair squeezed Erin’s hand. “Just say it.”

Erin shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”

Blair didn’t believe that one bit. “There has to be something you want  to say. I think you’re just not saying it because you feel like you shouldn’t.”

“Honestly, my gut reaction was to make some rude remark like ‘What are you? My therapist?’ but what good would that have done?”