One glimpse into the twisted connection I’ve got going with Lara the ‘soup’ chef should confirm that! She keeps telling me that she wants to talk. Ever since that night in Whistler last week that’s all she’s got to offer me. But I don’t want to talk. I want to feel. I need something to remind me that I’m stll alive because I don’t feel it anymore. Fucking Lara maybe somewhat masochistic, but that’s what I need right now. I don’t need to listen to her drone on about our ‘feelings’ and I certainly don’t want to talk about Dana. I think she forgets that she’s the one who stole Dana off me in the first place. I still hate her for that ya know! All I want is some uncomplicated, unemotional, unattached sex. I certainly don’t want to discuss the possibilty of a relationship with her because if I’ve lost my ultimate connection then how does she ever expect to compare?

I don’t know maybe i’m underestimating the whole connection thing. Maybe we don’t all have one ultimate connection, maybe, unlike me, some of us have two…or forty if your names Shane McCutcheon! I mean look at it this way, love is nothing but a chemical reaction right? Well when you mix all those acids at high school the bubbles don’t just connect to one other bubble, they connect to two or three. Maybe we’re no different. The idea of having only one true love in your life only works if you don’t lose that person, because if you do the whole idea seems vacant and cruel.

"Hey, Al….!?"

Shane’s deep voice pulls me from my thoughts and I look up from the web of names on my laptop to my best friend. I’m pleased her voyage of discovery only lasted for two days after the cancelled wedding. I’d miss her if she wasn’t here…I miss all my friends when they’re not here.

"What?" I ask with a slight shrug of my shoulders.

"Have you even been listening to a word we’ve said?" Shane’s voice is soft but challenging and I can’t say I blame her. I don’t think I’ve taken in a single word of our daily ‘Planet’ breakfast talk. "Where have you been for the last thirty minutes?"