How long has that been going on?
A hot wave washes over me, and it takes me a minute to figure out what it is. I’m embarrassed. I’m fuckingmortifiedthat I haven’t been with another girl in over three months and meanwhile she’s had a boyfriend for an undetermined period of time. I mean, she doesn’t owe me anything. We’re just friends, a fact that we’ve reaffirmed many times in the months we’ve known each other.
But we’ve spent so much time talking—hours and hours every week, and all this time, she’s had a—
“Yeah,” she says. “I probably should have mentioned that, I guess? I mean, ItoldTed it’s not like we really talk about our dating lives, you know. It’s just not our style, right?”
What?
“Uh, yeah,” I say. “Sure.” Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out what she means bynot our style. How many guys has she been seeing over the last several months? I mean, I knew she went out on dates. She’s mentioned a couple here and there as reasons she might not be able to hang out. Usually, though, she’s texting me by ten o’clock Mountain time on those nights, so I definitely didn’t think it was anything serious.
Does she thinkI’vebeen dating? I sure as hell would have told her if I had a girlfriend.
Maya seems relieved, though I can’t imagine why. “Good. I told him it was no big deal. He seemed to think it was some kind of issue that I hadn’t told you about him, but I really don’t see why—”
“Yeah, I bet he did.” It comes out with more force than I want it to, but all this emotion has to go somewhere.
Maya’s eyes narrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I open my mouth, then close it again without speaking. I’m not sure how much it’s my place to say, but I know how I would feel in thisTed guy’s place.
“It means I bet he was uncomfortable with that,” I say. “If I had a girlfriend who was spending hours on the phone with some guy friend, and hadn’t even told him she was taken—”
“We’re friends,” Maya says defensively. “Why would it matter?”
My chest ties in a knot. Itmattersbecause I thought we were close. Because I’ve been harboring feelings I shouldn’t be, hanging out with her under false pretenses, clinging to the smallest hope that someday things will be different between us. Even if I wasn’t willing to admit it before, that’s what I’ve been doing all along.
It matters because this means there was never a chance for us, and I’ve just been fooling myself.
I’m the world’s biggest idiot, which is what Shane’s been trying to tell me for months now.
“I think it matters because we probably shouldn’t be hanging out this much if you have a boyfriend,” I say.
Maya’s face falls, like this crushes her as much as it crushes me. “Why not? I don’t understand why it should matter. I’m allowed to have friends.”
“Of course you are,” I say. “And we’ll still be friends.”This sounds so much like a breakup that for a second my throat closes.
Itfeelslike a breakup.That’s how deep I’m in this.
“I don’t think anything has to change.” She’s upset; I can hear it in her voice and see it on her face.
It does have to change. I know it in my bones. Not just because she has a boyfriend—because honestly? Fuck that guy—but because I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep pouring my heart into this, hoping one day she’ll throw me a bone.
I love her, and she doesn’t love me back, not like that.
I don’t want to lose her entirely, so things have to be different now.
“Maya,” I say. “Do you really think you can fully commit to a relationship when you’re spending all your emotional energy on me?”
Maya sucks in her lips and looks down at her knees. She’s sitting on her bed, I can see now, all crunched up against her headboard. She was nervous about this call, probably afraid I was going to be pissed at her for not telling me.
And I should be. Shane would sure as hell tell me I should be. But right now, all I feel is hurt.
I push that aside. I’ll deal with it later, not in front of her.
“You’re my best friend,” she says quietly. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“And you won’t,” I say, as softly as I can. “But if you’re into this guy enough for him to be your boyfriend, you need to be putting your focus there, you know? He’s the one you should be texting from class or hanging out with in the evenings.”
