My Boyfriend Chose Her. So Did My Two Best Friends. Chapter 08

My Boyfriend Chose Her. So Did My Two Best Friends. Chapter 08

“Cassidy, Weston stood outside your office for four hours.”

Desmond’s call came in while I was working late.

“I know.”

“You know and you’re not going down to see him? He flew a dozen hours to find you-”

“Desmond, he bought that ticket himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I didn’t ask him to come.”

“Cassidy, do you not have a heart?”

Do I not have a heart.

For the past four years, they’ve been peeling my heart away, piece by piece. And now someone asks me if I

have a heart.

“Desmond, let me ask you something.”

“What?”

“Do you remember junior year of high school, when my grandfather passed away and I took three days off to

go home?”

“…I remember.”

“You and Graham waited for me at the school gate the day I came back. Graham bought me hot cocoa, you

carried my bag. It was raining, and you gave me your umbrella and walked yourself in the rain.”

Silence on the line.

“After Harlow came along-one time I had a fever, took three days off, came back, and you were all helping

her shoot her senior photo portfolio. I said in the group chat that I was back. Graham replied with an ‘oh.”

“That was-”

“That was when you all changed. You can say it wasn’t on purpose, say you didn’t notice, say Harlow didn’t

replace me. But deep down you know. You swapped me out.”

Desmond went quiet for a long time.

“Cassidy… I didn’t know you were this hurt.”

“You didn’t know because you never asked.”

I hung up.

The screen went dark again. The office was silent except for the hum of the AC.

Sloane packed up her laptop and walked over, patted my shoulder.

“Time to go. Let’s get you something good to eat.”

“It’s fine, I’ll keep working on this draft-”

“Work will still be there tomorrow. You’re not in the right state for this right now, you’ll just make it worse.”

She was right.

I shut down my laptop and left with her.

Downstairs, the office entrance was empty.

Weston was gone.

A bag sat on the ground.

Sloane glanced at it.

“His?”

“Yeah.”

“You want it?”

“No.”

We walked past it.

The bag with the paint set sat on the step, like an abandoned question mark.

Over dinner, Sloane told me about her first year in Melbourne.

“My ex came to find me too, once. Stood outside my dorm in the rain for hours, ended up with a fever and in

the hospital.”

“And then?”

“And then, from his hospital bed, he called his ex before me.”

My fork stopped.

“Seriously?”

“Dead serious. Running a fever and still thinking about someone else. Infuriating, right?”

She sipped her soup, perfectly calm.

“Eventually I figured it out. Someone coming to find you doesn’t mean they love you. Sometimes it just

means they can’t accept that you left.”

Can’t accept that you left.

It’s not that “I can’t live without you.”

It’s that “I can’t accept that you’re the one who chose to leave.”

Because in his world, I was supposed to stay put and wait for him forever.

“How’d you get past it?”

Sloane thought about it.

“One morning I woke up and realized I was doing just fine without him. Wasn’t trying to prove anything, just

genuinely felt okay.”

“That morning I had two croissants and a latte, walked to work, and saw a bird sitting on a streetlamp. I just

stood there and watched it for a while.”

“That was the first time since I got to Melbourne that I thought-life’s actually pretty good.”

I listened, didn’t say anything.

But I remembered that bird.

That night, back at the apartment, there was a new email.

Not from Weston.

From Harlow.

Subject line: [Cassidy.] The body was long.

[Cassidy, I don’t know if you’ll read this, but I still want to say what’s on my mind.]

[Since you left, Weston’s been really down. So have Graham and Desmond. They really do care about you.]

[I know you might feel like I took your place, but I never meant to. I just thought your group was so close, and I admired that. I wanted to be part of it, so I started hanging around more.]

[Since you left they’ve all been reflecting on things. Weston said he really hasn’t handled things well, and he wants to change. Can you give him another chance?]

The last paragraph.

[Cassidy, honestly, since you left, I haven’t felt great either. I never meant to hurt you. If you want to come back, I promise I’ll step back and give your spot back to you.]

Give your spot back to you.

I stared at the screen for a long time.

Spot.

She used the word “back.”

She knew that spot was mine.

She’d known it the whole time.

Known that she was sitting in my seat, wearing my boyfriend’s jacket, celebrating in place of my birthday, being called by the people who should’ve been calling me.

She knew.

And then she wrote a letter that looked sincere, wrapped it all up as “I didn’t mean any of it.”

And ended it, generously, with-I’ll give your spot back to you.

As if that spot were hers to hand out in the first place.

I closed the email.

Didn’t reply.

I pulled back the curtain. It was already dark outside.

The streetlight was on. No bird.

I stood at the window for a while, letting the breeze in.

My phone lit up. Delaney.

[Weston’s home. Posted something on Instagram, want to see?]

[No.]

[Not screenshotting it then.]

[OK.]

[Cassidy.]

[Yeah?]

[Your paint set-Winsor & Newton or Holbein?]

[…Holbein.]

[So he didn’t even know your brand.]

I laughed.

Not a bitter laugh.

Genuinely, kind of funny.

Someone says they love you, and can’t even name what brand of paint you use.

Can’t even tell your words apart from another girl’s.

Even the gift he brought to win you back was wrong.

That’s not love.

That’s habit.

The habit of assuming you’re there. The habit of assuming you’ll never leave. The habit of assuming that

saying “I’ll change” is enough to start over.

But the opposite of habit isn’t a brake.

It’s that once you’re gone, the habit just stops on its own.

I turned off the light and got into bed.

For the first time, alone in a foreign country at night, I wasn’t afraid.