Love Hurts

This is my first contribution to the "Romantic Friday Writers" Challenge, where contributors have to offer 400 words on a specific subject.

This week's subject is 'Love Hurts' and this is an excerpt from 'His Leading Lady' when Jess has learnt from her friend that Kyle had been in a relationship with her twin sister:

Jess closed her eyes in an effort to absorb everything Alison had said.  Part of her identified with Lora’s anguish but the other part was a total confusion of thoughts and feelings about Kyle. 

“I’m so sorry, Jess.”

The sympathy was too much.  Tears blinded her eyes as she looked at Alison again.  “It’s okay.  You had to tell me.  But –”  She swallowed hard, then wiped away the tear that had trickled down her cheek.  “I’ve made a total idiot of myself, haven’t I?  Allowing myself to become another notch on Kyle Drummond’s bedpost.”
  
“No.” Alison’s face creased with concern.  “No, you mustn’t think that.  Kyle isn’t – doesn’t – Look, when you’ve been in the West End for a while, you get to know which directors and agents sleep around.  And Kyle isn’t one of them.”
  
“I’m not sure that makes me feel any better.  If you’re right, and he doesn’t, then Lora must have been pretty special to him.”

“I suppose so,” Alison conceded.  “And there was a lot of speculation about them as a couple.”

“So where does that leave me? He asks me to take over Lora’s role in Token – and Lora’s role in his bed too?”  She clenched her fists. “What a total fool I’ve been!”

“You fell in love with him.  What’s wrong with that?”

 “What’s wrong?” Jess echoed.  “Alison, she’s my twin sister.”  She paused for a moment, remembering.  “When we were about fourteen, we made a pact that we’d never go after the same boy.  All right, this isn’t a teenage thing.  This is a man, but my sister’s in love with him.”

“You didn’t know that.”

“No, but he did.  He should have told me, he should have been honest about it.  But he wasn’t.  So maybe for him I’ve just been a substitute.”

“Not necessarily.”

Jess shook her head.  Anger had started to replace the shock.  Anger at Kyle for being dishonest, and anger with herself for having been duped so easily.  “It doesn’t really matter, does it?  Because that’s it – end of story.”  She tried to ignore the wave of agonising pain that washed through her.  Tried to concentrate on the anger instead.  

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I want to go home.  Away from all this.”  Hot fury consumed her and she banged her fist on the table.  “I told him I didn’t want to be part of the West End theatrical scene.  Now I know I was right.  This kind of life isn’t for me.”

(From ‘His Leading Lady’ published by Whiskey Creek Press, June 2011) www.whiskeycreekpress.com