““Okay, Lucy, what did you want to talk to me about?" he asked. "Us." "There is no us," Val reminded her firmly—although he had gotten misty just a moment before while holding her hand. She had given him both the best years of his life and the worst. "There used to be an us," she suggested, "which was a good us, a great us. Now there isn't an us, but that doesn't mean there can't be an us again. And a great us, not just a good us, because without us, I do okay and sometimes not even okay." Val's eyebrows wrinkled and he stared hard at her. "That didn't come out quite like I imagined," Lucy said. Romantic it certainly wasn't. "I meant to say, I'd like us to have a second chance.””
