The night my boyfriend’s best friend sat on his lap in front of me, smiled like she had won something, and then started opening the birthday present I had bought him, I finally understood why people do stupid things when they feel humiliated. I wish I could say I rose above it. Instead, I let one ugly little thought grow into a decision that nearly destroyed three relationships at once.
Chapter 2
Daniel sent me a message the next afternoon about something we had discussed. I answered. Two days later he sent me a joke related to the conversation, and I answered that too.
Nothing was sexual. Nothing was openly flirtatious. I told myself that mattered.
What I refused to admit was that I knew exactly why I had opened the door.
At the next group gathering, Daniel came over and sat beside me. We talked about work, movies, his sister’s upcoming wedding, and a restaurant I had mentioned wanting to try. I noticed Claire watching us from across the room and felt that same poisonous satisfaction.
She responded by becoming almost theatrical about Evan.
Every subject somehow reminded her of their past.
If I mentioned a movie, she announced what Evan had liked in college. If I mentioned a vacation idea, she told a story about a trip they had taken with friends years earlier.
Finally, she looked at me and smiled.
“It’s cute learning somebody in the beginning. Eventually you’ll know all his weird little things.”
I smiled back.
“Maybe. Or maybe people change.”
Her smile disappeared for half a second.
Later Evan asked, “Are you two okay?”
“Ask Claire.”
He sighed. “Please don’t start.”
That phrase did something ugly to me.
I hadn’t started the original conflict.
But I had absolutely started something else.
A few weeks later, everyone gathered at our friend Mark’s house on a Saturday afternoon. Evan and I had been doing better, and I had promised myself I wasn’t going to turn the day into another competition.
For almost an hour, I succeeded.
Then Claire arrived.
She walked over to the couch where Evan and I were sitting and said, “Move over.”
There was room on his other side.
I didn’t move.
For a strange second, Claire and I stared at each other like two children fighting over a chair.
Evan stood, and my heart sank.
Then he surprised me.
He let Claire take his spot and sat down on my other side.
It was a small gesture.
I noticed.
So did she.
Claire started telling Evan another story from high school, repeatedly saying things like, “Remember when it was just us?”
I stared at my soda.
Eventually, she grabbed his arm.
“Come outside. I need to tell you something.”
Evan looked at her hand.
“You can tell me here.”
“It’s private.”
“Then text me later.”
Claire laughed. “Come on. It’s our stuff.”
“No.”
The word was quiet.
Clean.
I had never heard him say it to her that way.
Claire blinked.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
She released his arm, but instead of walking away, she turned toward me.
“I know him better than you do anyway, so I don’t know why we’re pretending.”
The conversations nearest us slowly died.
Evan stood.
“That’s enough.”
Claire stared at him.
“We’ve talked about this,” he continued. “You keep making comments about my relationship. You keep crossing lines, and every time somebody says anything, you call it a joke.”
“You told me she was uncomfortable,” Claire said. “That’s different.”
“No, it isn’t.”
She laughed bitterly. “So now I need permission to talk to my best friend?”
“Nobody said that.”
“That’s exactly what she wants.”
Every face turned toward me.
“This isn’t about you talking to him,” I said.
Claire snapped, “Stay out of it.”
Evan’s expression changed.
“Don’t talk to her like that.”
Claire went still.
He didn’t yell.
That somehow made it more final.
“I’m serious,” he said. “The comments, the touching, acting like my relationship is some competition you’re supposed to win. I’m done with it.”
Claire accused me of being insecure. She said I was isolating him from his friends. She said she had always joked that way and nobody had cared before.
Evan shook his head.
“Then your jokes aren’t funny anymore.”
Claire grabbed her purse.
Before leaving, she looked at Evan and said, “You’ll regret this.”
She sounded hurt, not threatening.
Then she walked out.
The party never recovered.
Someone turned up the music. Another person suddenly became fascinated with ordering pizza. Evan sat beside me looking like he had just run five miles.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded.
I wasn’t.
Part of me felt relieved.
Part of me felt guilty because Claire had looked genuinely devastated.
And one smaller, uglier part of me thought, Good.
That was the part I didn’t want to examine.
The next day, several friends contacted us. One woman said she was glad someone had finally confronted Claire. Another thought Evan should have handled it privately.
Then one of his oldest friends called.
Afterward, Evan sat on the edge of the bed staring at the floor.
“What?” I asked.
He looked stunned.
“This isn’t the first time.”
Apparently, Claire had treated at least two previous girlfriends the same way. Comparisons. Private jokes. Possessive behavior. Little reminders that she knew Evan first and expected to know him last.
“You seriously didn’t know?” I asked.
“No.”
“So all those times I told you what she was doing, you thought I just didn’t like her?”
He hesitated.
That hurt more than I expected.
Eventually Evan said, “I think I liked it.”
I stared at him.
“Liked what?”
“The attention.”
He admitted Claire had always made him feel important. She answered his calls, remembered everything, showed up whenever he needed somebody. Even when he dated other women, Claire made sure he remained the center of her attention.
“I never wanted her romantically,” he said. “But I guess I liked knowing I mattered that much to her.”
For half a second, I felt vindicated.
Then I remembered Daniel.
The man I had deliberately befriended because I knew Claire wanted him.
The man who now messaged me almost every day.
The man whose attention I was starting to enjoy.
I should have confessed everything right then.
I didn’t.
Instead I said, “At least you can admit it.”
The hypocrisy tasted bitter even as the words left my mouth.
Daniel’s messages became warmer.
Nothing explicit.
“How was your meeting?”
“This reminded me of you.”
“Did your mom’s appointment go okay?”
He remembered things.
He listened.
He asked questions and waited for the answers.
Talking to him became easy, especially after months in which so many conversations with Evan had turned into arguments about Claire.
Then Daniel asked me to get coffee.
He said there was something he wanted my opinion about.
I said yes before thinking.
Saturday afternoon, we sat in a small café downtown while Daniel turned his cup nervously between his hands.
Finally, he said, “I don’t know if I’m reading this wrong.”
My stomach dropped.
“I like spending time with you,” he continued. “I know you’re with Evan, and I’m not trying to disrespect that. But lately I’ve felt like maybe there’s something between us.”
I wanted to pretend I was shocked.
I couldn’t.
“You’re not imagining that I’ve been giving you extra attention.”
Daniel waited.
I swallowed.
“But the reason I started doing it was bad.”
His expression changed.
I told him the truth.
I told him Claire had treated me badly. I told him I knew she liked him. I told him the first time I approached him, part of me wanted her to see it and feel jealous.
Daniel stared at me.
“So I was a prop.”
“At first, kind of.”
His face hardened.
“That’s a terrible answer.”
“I know.”
“I actually liked you.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“No, you didn’t know.”
He was right.
I had known he enjoyed talking to me.
I had known the messages were getting personal.
I had simply preferred not to define what was happening because ambiguity gave me permission to keep enjoying it.
“I’m not interested in you romantically,” I said quietly. “I should’ve made that clear sooner.”
Daniel leaned back.
“I need some space.”
He didn’t shout.
I almost wished he had.
Anger would have been easier than watching him become polite.
We left separately.
I sat in my car afterward and cried.
Not because I had lost Daniel.
Because I finally saw myself clearly.
I had used another human being to punish someone who wasn’t even in the room anymore.
Then I drove straight to Evan’s place.
He was making dinner when I walked in.
One look at my face and he turned off the stove.
“What happened?”
“I need to tell you something.”
He folded his arms.
I told him everything.
The first conversation with Daniel.
The reason I started it.
The messages.
The coffee.
Daniel admitting he thought there might be something between us.
When I finished, Evan looked at me for a long time.
“So while you were telling me I needed better boundaries, you were doing that?”
“I wasn’t trying to cheat.”
He almost laughed.
“I didn’t say you were.”
The words struck me because they were nearly identical to what I had said when we first fought about Claire.
Evan saw it too.
“Wow,” he said.
“I know.”
“No, Megan. I don’t think you do.”
