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“Never mind. I know the answer. It’s ‘selfish.’ Nobody’s that stupid. Not even you.” I thought it might feel good to say something mean. But it didn’t.
“Look—”
“I hope he’s worth it,” I said. “You just forfeited our entire friendship. You just gave up every movie night, every margarita Friday, every goofy GIF exchange, every sleepover, every Galentine’s Day, every fantasy road trip, every hug, and every atom of admiration, warmth, and affection you could ever have had with me. Right? You gave up borrowing my jeans with the rainbow pockets. You gave up book recommendations, and homemade birthday cards, and late-night tacos. And you gave up the best next-door neighbor ever, too, because I’m definitely moving out.”
I could feel my voice shaking.
I was trying to make her feel bad, listing everything she’d just lost.
But of course, I had lost it all, too.
“And you knew,” I went on. “You knew he was terrible. You knew what he did to me—how he abandoned me right after I lost my mom.” I took a long, trembling breath. “That’s what kills me. You gave it all up—every nourishing thing we had… not just for a man, but for a bad man.”
“I’m sorry,” Taylor said.
“I don’t care.”
“I don’t want to lose you,” Taylor said, her voice trembling now, too.
“He’s going to leave you,” I said. “He’s left every woman he’s ever been with. Did you know that? He’s always the dumper—never the dumpee. And then you’ll come to me and beg me to forgive you, but I won’t. You want to know why? Because I can’t. Because certain broken things can never be repaired.”
I was ready for that to be my exit line. I was ready to abandon her there in the driveway with only the echo of those words remaining. I started to walk away.
But she called after me, “You’re wrong.”
I turned back.
“He’s not going to leave me. He dumped all those other women because he hadn’t found the right one.”
Wow. The hubris. “You think you’re the one?”
“I know for sure that you weren’t.”
Oof.
And here, right here, is the trouble with being close to other people. The better they know you, the better they can hurt you.
“He never loved you,” she said then, “because you wouldn’t let him.”
How dare she side with him? “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Ask him sometime. He tried.”
It didn’t surprise me that Robby tried to make himself out to be the victim. But it did surprise me that Taylor would believe him.
She must have really needed to see me as the problem.
Then she shrugged and fixed her eyes on mine. “You’re so sure it’s all Robby’s fault.”
“Yeah! And you should be, too!”
“But you won’t see your part in it.”
How was this happening? She was supposed to stand up for me. She was supposed to feel outraged and wronged on my behalf. That’s what best friends were for.
“How can you do this?” I asked, my voice sinking. “You were my best friend.”
But Taylor shook her head. “I was never your best friend. I was your work friend. And the fact that you don’t know the difference? That’s your whole problem right there.”
