She gave me a searching smile, eyes gleaming. “Oh, yeah? Are you going to it?”
“Ah, um… I don’t know. I might just leave it to the two of them.” I didn’t know why, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand watching them dance. I couldn’t quite look at Abby, and she stepped a little closer, dropping her voice.
“Nobody’s taking you?” she said.
“I-I’m not just sad because I don’t have a girlfriend.” I didn’t know why I said that. Abby blinked fast.
“Because you don’t… I thought you were straight.”
Oh, Jesus. I’d forgotten about that whole… my entire last interaction with Abby. I laughed nervously. “Oh,” I said. “Oh, um, yeah, no. I’m pansexual. So I guess… I’m not just sad because I don’t have a boyfriend, or a girlfriend, or… whatever. I’m not sad in the first place.” I needed to stop talking yesterday. My mouth was running off somewhere without me. Abby’s smile slowly widened.
“Alyssa?”
“Yeah? Yes? Hi.” I was doing a horrible job.
“You can tell me if you’re sad. I’m not, like, judging you.”
I groaned, a hand to my forehead, as I leaned against the railing. “Jesus, I don’t know. I’ve been trying to get them together, and I’msohappy to see them being happy together, but I just… I’ve felt rotten ever since they’ve been talking again. I think I’m just worried they’re going to want to spend time with each other instead of with me, and then I feel weird and lonely and stupid. Please don’t tell anyone I said this. In fact, if you could forget I said this, that would actually be fantastic.”
She laughed, relaxing against the railing with me, picking up her martini. “I’ll pretend I don’t know a thing. But just for the record, that’s totally normal.”
“It is?” I sounded more pitiful and desperate than I wanted to.
“You clearly care a bunch about both of them. You like spending time with them. And I’m sure they won’t abandon you just to spend all their time with each other, but you know how new couples work. They probably will for a little bit just while they’re in that phase. It doesn’t mean anything about you, though.”
“I… I guess so.” But that didn’t make it feel better. For some reason, the thought of the two of them being established and happy and settled together and being friends with me at the same time felt even worse than them not talking to me anymore after all, like I was just a perpetual third wheel, forever locked out of that inner circle I’d been enjoying.
Abby smiled softly at me. “And it’s also really normal to feel a little lost and lonely, too, when your closest friends get into relationships.”
“Is that what it is?” I said, my voice small and wavering. I didn’t want to be like this in front of anyone, but… at least Abby had promised she’d forget this ever happened. “I don’t know why it feels so bad…”
“You’d been with your ex for a long time, right?”
“Since college, yeah.”
“It’s probably a big change and it feels like something is missing,” she said. “And seeing other people happy in couples is going to poke at that wound.”
“Mm…” I guess that made sense. It felt unsatisfying somehow, but I guess it made sense. Abby stepped a little closer, and she casually touched the sleeve of my jacket.
“But if you don’t want to show up alone,” she said, “I wouldloveto go with you to the dinner and dance.”
“Oh—” Jesus, that was right. She had been trying to take me on a date. Was she still trying to take me on a date? Did this woman not have standards? I blurted the wrong thing. “Are you asking me on a date?”
She laughed. “Yeah, but it wouldn’t have to be anything serious. I’m down to make it a real date if you want, or if you want to just go with someone you can flirt and dance with and have it not be a big deal, so you don’t feel left out, I would love that too. You’re really cute, you know.”
“Um…” I felt my head fizz. Was it actually going to make things feel better? Abby was clear and transparent with what she wanted, and it felt better knowing she didn’t need it to be serious. Wasn’t it worth a try? To see if anything could make this feel better? It felt like giving up, somehow, but if I was just looking for company, that would make things feel better, right?
“It’s no pressure,” she said.
“I guess… if you’re okay with it not being anything big and serious,” I said, and her eyes lit up.
“I’m more than happy to meet you where you’re at. So that’s a yes?”
Yeah. This was the right choice. Right? I think it was. “Yeah,” I said. “It’s a yes.”
She smiled wider. She had a really beautiful smile, cute pink lip gloss that made it pop, eyes that shone with excitement. Shewasreally pretty. And even with that, my eyes still drifted past her and landed on where—my stomach flopped at the sight of Jade looking at me. Not just looking at me, butlookingat me, like I was the only person in the building, like she wanted to be the one up here close to me instead of Abby, and out of everything, that look was the only thing that made me feelbetter. Like everything suddenly cleared up and there were no more problems whatsoever.
“Great,” Abby said. “It’s a date. Let me give you my number?”
