“I said I’d figure it out. And I have.” He sits up, gently disentangling himself from me. “Harper and I have something real, Pipes. I didn’t know that before, but I know that now. I can’t throw that away for...”
He doesn’t finish the sentence, but he doesn’t need to.
For whatever this is. For whatever I am.
“But what about us?” The question comes out small and pathetic.
“There is no us.” His voice is kind but firm. “There never was. This summer was just... fun. Right? We both knew it wasn’t serious.”
“That’s not what you said?—”
“Pipes.” He reaches for his jeans, starts getting dressed with efficient movements. “You’re a great friend. One of my best friends. But that’s all this ever was. Let’s not make it weird, okay? We were both just getting it out of our system.”
I sit there in his t-shirt, watching him put his life back togetherlike nothing happened. Like I’m not sitting there half-naked and completely devastated.
“You said you couldn’t wait to be with me properly,” I whisper.
“Look, I can’t remember every stupid thing that I said and besides, it doesn’t mean I meant them the way you heard them.” He pulls his shirt on, won’t meet my eyes. “Look, we both got a little carried away this summer. But now it’s time to go back to reality.”
“Reality.”
“You’re my friend, Piper. My good friend. And I need you to be okay with that.” Finally, he looks at me, and his expression is almost pleading. “Promise me you won’t make this complicated when Harper gets back. Promise me we can just go back to how things were before.”
Before. When I was just the girl who helped him pass his classes.
When I was useful but not wanted.
“Right ok,” I respond. Embarrassed, ashamed and feeling more naïve than ever. He’s chosen her. He was never going to break it off with her. Maybe I had read into everything too much, too deeply.
I can’t trust my judgment because I was sure, I was so sure he liked me and that we were going to be together.
I spent the next few months ignoring him and all of our old friends, I shut myself away in my room, barely eating and talking only to Riya. I spent days working on an app idea to make sure this never happened to me or anyone else ever again.
“You used me,”I say now, the words cutting through the diner’s ambient noise. “You knew I was in love with you, and you used that. All summer. You kept saying just enough to keep me hoping, but never enough to actually commit to anything.”
“That’s not?—”
“You told me you were in an open thing with Harper. That you were basically just texting her casually until she gotback, that what we had was real and what you had with her was just... existing habit.”
Miles’s jaw clenches. “I never said that.”
“Yes, you did. You liar! I trust my memories now. I’m not crazy. You said you couldn’t wait to be with me properly once you figured things out with her. You said she wouldn’t understand if you broke up with her over text while she was abroad, that you wanted to do it right.” My voice is getting louder, but I don’t care anymore. “You said all of that, and then when she came back, you slept with me one last time and told me it never meant anything.”
“Because it didn’t.”
The words should hurt. A year ago, they would have destroyed me. But now, looking at him across this table, all I feel is a strange kind of clarity.
“You’re right,” I say quietly. “It didn’t mean anything. To you. But you knew it meant everything to me then, and you used that.”
“I didn’t use?—”
“Yes, you did.” I lean forward, meeting his eyes. “You used my feelings to get what you wanted all summer. Sex, companionship, someone to make you feel interesting while your girlfriend was away. And when she came back, you discarded me like I was nothing.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“Am I? Because I remember that last night very clearly, Miles. How different you were. How you couldn’t get away from me fast enough. How you made me feel like I’d imagined everything that came before.”
He has the grace to look uncomfortable. “I thought you understood?—”
