She goes back to mixing the dough, folding in chocolate chips with more force than strictly necessary. The bowl rattles against the counter. The wooden spoon scrapes against the sides, and I can hear her breathing, uneven and shaky.
"I keep thinking about the wedding," she says finally, not looking at me. "About climbing out that bathroom window. About driving here in Melissa's car with mascara running down my face and my dress bunched up around my knees."
I don't say anything. Just listen. Let her talk.
"And I keep thinking, what if I made a mistake?" Her voice cracks. "What if Callum wasn't as bad as I thought? What if I overreacted to everything, and now I've ruined my entire life, and I'm living in my ex's best friends' house like some kind of pathetic refugee who can't get her life together?"
"You didn't overreact."
"How do you know?" She finally looks at me, and the pain in her eyes makes my chest ache. "You weren't there. You don't know what it was like."
"Because I know Callum." The words come out harder than I intended, sharper. "I've known him since we were kids. I've watched him charm people. Manipulate them. Make them feel like they're crazy for questioning him."
Jessica's hands still on the dough.
"I've watched him do it to you," I continue, and the admission tastes bitter. “When you started dating him, you became quieter. Smaller. Stopped laughing at Carlos jokes." I take a breath. "Stop being you."
She turns to look at me fully now, cookie dough forgotten. Her eyes are wet, shining in the kitchen light.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Her voice is barely a whisper.
The question hits me like a fist to the gut. Knocks the air from my lungs.
"Because I was a coward." The admission scrapes out of me, raw and painful. "Because you were his girlfriend, and he was my best friend, and I told myself it wasn't my place."
"And how would you have done it?" She sets down the wooden spoon, giving me her full attention.
The air between us shifts. Thickens. Becomes something I can almost taste.
"I would have let you laugh as loud as you wanted." I hold her gaze, let her see the truth. “And never, not once, made you feel like you were too much or too loud or too emotional or too anything."
A tear slides down her cheek, leaving a clean track through the flour.
"Sergio..."
"I'm sorry." The words feel inadequate. Hollow. Not enough for the years of silence. "For not coming after you when you left six years ago, and pretending I didn't..."
I stop myself. Force the words back down where they belong.
"Didn't what?" she whispers, taking a step toward me.
I look at her. At the flour on her cheeks and the tears in her eyes and the vulnerability written across her face. At the way she's looking at me like I might have answers she needs.
I should lie.
"Didn't think about you every single day," I say instead. "Didn't wonder where you were and if you were happy and if Callum was treating you right."
Her breath catches. "Chosen differently?"
"Chosen us instead of him."
“No. Me."
The kitchen is silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the ticking of the oven timer counting down.
"I thought about you," she says finally, her voice barely audible. "All of you. More than I should have."
"How much is more than you should have?"
