Best Lesbian Romance 2014 Read Free Page B

fight to keep her words and actions under control. But being around Lizzie had been the sweetest of torments, and her life had been so very empty without her, so lacking in joy.
    With each passing month, Annie had told herself she was coming to terms with her feelings and was over the worst of it.She had been lying to herself. Deep inside she had known it all along, and if she hadn’t then, she would now, sitting alone with Lizzie in the dark summerhouse.
    Lizzie had returned from Switzerland a month ago—a month that had passed at a hectic pace, catching up with old school friends and the like. Lizzie had spent more time out of the house than in it. Again Annie had lied to herself, saying they were adults, with utterly separate lives, and she did not want, and certainly did not expect, anything else. This meeting in the summerhouse was the first time they had exchanged more than a sentence and already the thin shell of self-deception was melting, like ice in a blast furnace. She had missed Lizzie, like a drowning man misses oxygen.
    Annie felt her pulse race and her stomach tightened in a knot. Her mouth grew dry. She took a quick gulp of champagne. Unwise. Already she could feel the first faint blurring of alcohol. She put the glass down. Keeping her head clear was vital. “Why do you think your father is so much more serious this time?”
    â€œBecause he spent money on this party. Daddy never spends money unless he’s serious.”
    â€œWhat will happen if you refuse?”
    â€œHe’s threatened to cut off my allowance.”
    â€œDo you think he will?”
    Lizzie shrugged by way of answer.
    â€œSo what options do you have?”
    Lizzie drained her glass and got to her feet. Annie’s heart jumped at the thought Lizzie was coming to sit beside her, but instead she stood in the doorway of the summerhouse, resting her shoulder on the frame, her back to Annie and stared out across the bay.
    â€œEurope was wonderful. Not the school. That was a waste of time. Nothing of value, except I can now say ooh la la and
    la dolce vita, which passes for sophistication around here, so Daddy’s pleased. But the places…”
    Lizzie turned and rested her back against the door frame. Her gaze fixed on the ceiling, but Annie had the sense she wasn’t seeing it. Her mind’s eye was fixed on other scenes, other times. Annie waited for Lizzie to speak again.
    â€œEurope’s nothing like here—the buildings, the people. The world is filled with so many places I want to see. Places I have to see.” Her eyes dropped, fixing on Annie. “Do you remember my camera?”
    â€œOf course.” How could she forget it?
    The camera had been a present for Lizzie’s fifteenth birthday. For the following two years, they had done nothing except play with this new toy. Lizzie had talked her father into equipping a small darkroom. Standing cramped together, in the dark, Annie had first begun to realize just how her feelings for Lizzie were changing, and what she wanted. And then everything had all become just too difficult.
    The camera had not been a fad. Lizzie carried it everywhere with her. The cupboard in one of the spare rooms was filled with boxes upon boxes of photographs. Nor had Annie’s new understanding of herself been a fad. But in her case, it was her heart that was filled, with memory upon memory, and hopeless dreams.
    Lizzie continued. “During the summer break they took us on the grand tour. France, Italy, Greece, the lot. It was supposed to make us cultured. But I have to tell you, some of the girls I was with, it was a complete lost cause. We went to Naples. The other girls who had cameras took snaps of Pompeii.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t?”
    â€œI gave the chaperones the slip one afternoon and wandered around downtown Naples. There was a fruit market. That’s what I photographed. Old women arguing over cabbages. Youngmen carrying