The night my boyfriend programmed his passenger seat into “Wife Mode” for my best friend, I finally understood that betrayal doesn’t always begin with a kiss. Sometimes it begins with two people laughing at a joke you’ve begged them to stop making—and realizing you’re the only one who doesn’t find it funny.
Chapter 2
A year earlier, after another fight with Ryan, I had cried on a city bus while Daniel sat beside me. A woman in front of us apparently assumed he was my boyfriend and finally snapped, “Young man, your girlfriend is falling apart. Are you going to do anything?”
I had been too embarrassed to speak.
Daniel had simply opened his palm.
Three honey-lemon cough drops lay there.
“Help me out,” he’d whispered. “Stop crying before the whole bus decides I’m a monster.”
I had laughed despite myself.
Now, standing outside Ryan’s apartment with my suitcase, Daniel looked exactly the same—calm eyes, slightly crooked smile, no unnecessary questions.
“I’m here to take you home.”
Behind me, Ryan said, “Who is this?”
I didn’t answer.
Daniel took my suitcase and walked me to his car.
Once we were inside, I asked, “How did you know I was Mark’s sister?”
“His phone wallpaper.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Which picture?”
Daniel grinned. “You dancing with a golden retriever while apparently very drunk.”
I closed my eyes.
My brother was dead to me.
Daniel laughed, and for the first time that night, I did too.
My phone rang. Ryan.
I declined it.
He called again.
I blocked him.
Daniel glanced at the screen, then opened his center console at a red light. He placed three cough drops on the dashboard without saying a word.
That nearly made me cry again.
Mark and Daniel were both doctors at the same hospital. Their apartment was embarrassingly clean, mainly because Daniel had standards my brother described as “medically concerning.” Mark carried my suitcase into the spare room and announced that the sheets on the bed belonged to Daniel because he had forgotten to buy extras.
“I’ll replace them tomorrow,” I said.
Daniel leaned against the doorway. “No rush.”
The approval process for campus housing took several weeks, so I stayed with them. Daniel’s hospital was near my university, and he began giving me rides whenever our schedules lined up. He never interrogated me about Ryan. He simply remembered how I took my coffee, noticed when I skipped breakfast, and somehow knew when conversation would help and when silence was kinder.
Three days after I moved in, we passed a murder-mystery game café after dinner.
I stopped.
Ryan had promised dozens of times to take me. Somehow there had never been room for a beginner when I was his girlfriend.
Daniel noticed me staring. “Want to try?”
Twenty minutes later we were inside.
The host offered us an emotional story with optional paid actors for the romantic roles.
Daniel shook his head. “She’s with me. We’ll take the couple roles ourselves.”
I looked at him. “What’s the paid option?”
“Someone plays your romantic partner.”
I pretended to consider it. “Are they handsome?”
“Probably.”
“Then why’d you stop me?”
He smiled. “Because they charge by the hour. I’m free.”
My pulse stumbled.
Before I could think of a reply, someone behind us called my name.
Susie.
Ryan stood beside her.
Susie approached as though the past week had never happened. “Emma! This is perfect. We can play together. Maybe you and Ryan can finally talk.”
Ryan’s eyes moved from me to Daniel.
Then he said, “Sure. Emma can pair with me. I’ll teach her.”
I almost admired the irony.
“I spent three years asking you to teach me.”
His face tightened.
I stepped closer to Daniel. “I already have a partner.”
The game lasted most of the evening. Daniel and I played childhood sweethearts separated by tragedy, while Ryan and Susie received secondary romantic roles. The deeper we got into the story, the stranger the room became.
I found myself crying during the final scene. Daniel’s character sacrificed himself to save mine, and when the script called for me to embrace him, I did.
His body went still.
Then his arms slowly closed around me.
A soft chime sounded from his Apple Watch.
I glanced down.
Heart rate: 130.
Daniel calmly turned the watch around on his wrist.
Ryan had seen it too.
Something unreadable passed across his face.
A few minutes later, while stepping down from the platform, I twisted my ankle. Daniel caught me before I hit the floor, and when I couldn’t put weight on it, he carried me to his car.
Ryan rushed after us. “I can take her.”
“No,” I said.
That single word hurt him more than anything else I had said since the breakup.
At the hospital, X-rays confirmed it was only a sprain. On the drive home, my phone rang from an unfamiliar number.
Ryan.
“How bad is it?”
“Nothing serious.”
“Who is that guy?”
I looked through the windshield. “We’re broken up.”
“How long have you known him? He looked pretty comfortable carrying you.”
I almost smiled.
“We were in character, Ryan. You know how immersive these games can get.”
Silence.
Then he said bitterly, “You replaced me fast.”
“Not nearly as fast as you replaced me.”
I hung up.
Daniel drove for another mile before asking, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“What did you love about him?”
The answer came surprisingly easily.
I told him about high school. About the stupid ranking sheet some boys created to score girls on their bodies and personalities. About Ryan finding my name near the bottom, storming into the boys’ dorm, tearing the paper apart, and getting suspended for punching the kid who made it.
“That was the day I started falling for him,” I admitted. “It felt like someone had finally chosen my side.”
Daniel pulled to the curb and handed me a tissue.
“If it had been me,” he said, “I wouldn’t have punched anybody.”
I laughed weakly. “Very responsible, Doctor.”
“No. I would’ve made a new ranking sheet with those boys’ names, used their exact categories, photocopied it a hundred times, and crowned the ringleader homecoming queen.”
I stared at him.
Then I laughed so hard my ankle hurt.
That evening, Daniel carried me upstairs. My arms went around his neck automatically. Under the hallway lights, his face was close enough for me to notice the faint shadow of exhaustion beneath his eyes.
“You weigh nothing,” he said.
“Are you calling me skinny?”
“I’m saying you need dinner.”
“You saved yourself.”
He chuckled, and I could feel the sound against my cheek.
Later, while Mark brought me ice, I tried to sound casual.
“Doesn’t it get awkward, two single guys sharing an apartment? What if one of you starts dating?”
Mark shrugged. “I’m single. Daniel’s single.”
“Neither of you likes anyone?”
“I don’t. Daniel does, apparently. Some girl he’s never managed to win over.”
My hand stopped around my water glass.
That small warm feeling I had been refusing to name immediately became embarrassing.
Of course Daniel had someone.
He was kind to me because I was his roommate’s younger sister.
For the next week, I avoided him.
Then one afternoon, Susie asked me to meet for coffee.
She chose the café where I had worked during college, the place where she and Ryan once bought ridiculous numbers of drinks just to support me. I knew why she chose it. She wanted our memories to speak for her.
They didn’t.
“I fell for him,” she said.
At least she finally stopped pretending.
She stared into her coffee. “At first it was only the games. I knew none of it was real. But playing his wife over and over, watching him laugh because of me, watching him cry over the stories… I started wanting pieces of that outside the game.”
I said nothing.
“I was jealous of you,” she continued. “I never planned to take him. I thought if nothing physical happened, I wasn’t really hurting you.”
Then she started telling me how miserable Ryan was.
How he drank.
How he asked whether I had stopped loving him.
How painful it was for her to watch him suffer.
When she finished, I realized something that hurt worse than her confession.
She had not asked once how I was doing.
“Susie,” I said, “I won’t forgive either of you.”
Her eyes filled.
“You could have fallen in love with anyone. But once you realized you loved my boyfriend, your responsibility was to step back. Instead, you built a private world with him and told me I was insecure every time I noticed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I believe you. But some apologies don’t rebuild what they broke.”
I left her sitting there.
Outside, I refused Daniel’s usual ride and boarded the bus.
Five minutes later, someone dropped into the seat beside me.
Daniel.
“This bus goes nowhere near your hospital,” I said.
“Scenic route.”
I looked out the window.
Then I remembered Mark’s comment. “My brother says you’re hopelessly in love with somebody.”
Daniel sighed. “Apparently I am.”
A ridiculous ache settled beneath my ribs.
I turned away.
He held his phone toward me. “I forgot my passcode.”
“How would I know it?”
“It’s the date I met her.”
I looked at him slowly.
Then I typed the date of that rainy afternoon on the bus when he gave a crying stranger three cough drops.
The phone unlocked.
For several seconds, I forgot how to breathe.
Daniel watched me with that crooked smile.
“You remembered.”
“I have a good memory.”
“Sure you do.”
