I stalked him online to find him for her. I’ve literally attended nearly every date they’ve been on. I’ve been supportive to thepoint of creepiness. I don’t think saying this will go down well.
‘I have been totally supportive!’
‘You haven’t tried to get to know him at all.’ Yeah, because you’ve been busy aggressively making out for like ninety per cent of the time I’ve been in his presence. ‘…And tonight was a really good opportunity for that, which you just squandered again. He thinks you don’t like him.’
‘What? Did he say that?’
‘He did. He was so upset when he told me.’ Sure he was. ‘He thinks I’ll break up with him out of loyalty to you if he doesn’t win you over.’ Oh, come on. ‘It has really been putting a lot of stress on us, and I feel like you just proved him right tonight. How am I supposed to defend you to him?’
I’m trying not to let my voice get too raised. But it’s late, we’re tired, and I’m just so confused that it all comes out in a bit of a shout. ‘Why didn’t you actually communicate any of that to me, then?’
Bee honest-to-goodness stomps her foot. ‘I shouldn’t have to! You’re my best friend, and you should fucking know.’
‘Well, I’m not a mind-reader.’
I realise that I forgot what I thought I was originally apologising for. And maybe this information will help Bee see that William is transparently trying to drive a wedge between us.
What a cliché of a man.
I need to get it all out in one go before I lose my nerve, so I say with no gaps (it’s basically one word), ‘Bee, I have to tell you something. Tonight when I went to the bathroom, I saw William getting inappropriately close to another woman. He had his back to me, but they looked moments away fromkissing. I’m so, so sorry to have to tell you.’
She is silent for a good long while.
Then she says, ‘That is pathetic,’ and I feel a little bit of hope. She takes a deep breath. ‘I come to you with very real concerns about your self-centredness in our friendship and how you treat my partner, and now you try to flip it all on him with disgusting lies?’
‘It’s not a lie!’
‘But you’re just telling me now, conveniently when William had something negative to say aboutyou? So you’re either a shit friend who saw my boyfriend cheating on me and didn’t tell me until it served you, or you’re a shit friend who makes up lies when backed into a corner about her very real actions? Both ways, you’re left with shit friend, babe.’
Tears are gathering in the corners of my eyes, causing Bee to refract and multiply in front of me. I blink several times to try to hold them in. ‘The third option is that I’m not lying, and I’m telling you the first opportunity that I got.’
‘You said this guy’s back was to you. It could’ve been anyone. You’ve always been so judgmental, even in high school. And you’re just determined to think poorly of William, and I don’t get why.’
‘Of course I don’t want to think badly of him!’
‘You do! It’s like youwanthim to have cheated on me!’
‘That’s not true!’
‘I can see now that this is all coming from a place of jealousy.’
‘Of what? I don’t want William.’
Bee takes a step closer now, and she has that look on herface that she gets when a barista gives her full-cream instead of skinny, thinking she won’t notice. (I assume this happens sixty per cent more often than she actually catches them at it.) ‘Of me. My adult relationship. The fact that I am growing up and moving on and maybe leaving you behind.’
Am I? I mean, yeah, I was a little bummed that my one friend has gone into a relationship bubble and has less time for me, but it’s not like that hasn’t happened before, and it honestly hasn’t bothered me for months. No, it’s definitely William specifically who has given me just cause to have concerns. Right?
She takes another step. ‘And don’t think I didn’t see you trailing after Arthur all night like a sad puppy. I know I joked a while ago that you two should date, but he was giving you donuts, and it just looked sad. Everyone thought so.’ The littering of people laughing in my wake flashes across my mind again.
I keep trying to speak, but nothing is coming out. A blessing in disguise, perhaps, because I have no idea what to say, so who’s to know what would end up tumbling from my brain to my mouth in the chaos inside me?
Bee turns as she leaves the bathroom. ‘I hope that you commit to doing the work to heal, Gertrude.’
I just grab my laptop and headphones. It’s reruns ofBrooklyn Nine-Ninefor me. My brain and I both know it won’t be shutting up, so I’m not getting any sleep tonight anyway.
BEE, I’M SOsorry this happened…
I deeply regret that William has felt uncomfortable…
