She frowned. She could tell I was trying to say something more than I’d said. “Except you,” she said, like that might be a clue.
Dead end. “I’m taking a break.” I gave her another shot. “But I have spent a lot of time in that surveillance room. Surveilling things.”
“Well, yeah. You’re the primary, so—”
“It’s amazing what those cameras can catch. Things you would never—in a million years, if you lived your whole life over and over again—expect to see.”
And then she knew.
I saw it the second the comprehension hit her. The little zap of shock in her eyes.
“Do you mean…” she said.
“You.” I confirmed with a nod. “And Robby.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“That … that—”
“That’s what happened in Madrid?”
She hesitated. Which was fascinating. Because there was no weaseling out of anything now. Finally, she said, “Yeah.” Then, as if she could redeem herself, “But by accident!”
I knew it already, of course. And I thought seeing it would be the worst of it.
But I was wrong.
The confirmation was the worst of it.
“So, all those times I called you and cried over my broken heart … you were dating the person who broke it?”
Taylor looked down. “At first, we weren’t really dating.”
“Just sleeping together.”
“But not on purpose. Not entirely.”
There wasn’t a point in even talking about it. I just wanted her to know that I knew. Then we could all be in agreement that she was a terrible person.
But then she said, “Technically, you were broken up.”
I frowned. “What?”
“We didn’t cheat on you, is what I’m saying. Technically.”
I refused to dignify that with a response.
“I’m sorry. I really am sorry. It just happened. We didn’t know how to tell you.”
“It just happened?”
“You know how it is on assignment.”
“Yes, I definitely do. Specifically with Robby.”
“We weren’t trying to hurt you.”
Again with the “we.” We, we, we. “Do you not understand the … the…” I couldn’t think of words that captured it. Finally, I went with, “the emotional atrocity you just committed?”
“We’re not talking about war crimes.”
“You looted our friendship. You firebombed the trust I had in you. You nuked my faith in humanity. You’re the Enola Gay of best friends.”
Maybe I was overstating it a bit. But I didn’t back down, even after it occurred to me that this conversation was not that different from how we talked when we were laughing. The one big difference, now, of course, being the white-hot hatred.
I had a real question, though. “Do you not understand what you did,” I asked, “or are you pretending not to?” I stared her down, waiting. “I’ll hate you forever, either way,” I went on. “But in one case, I’ll hate you for being stupid, and in the other, I’ll hate you for being selfish.”
Taylor looked down.
“Never mind. I know the answer. It’s ‘selfish.’ Nobody’s that stupid. Not even you.” I thought it might feel good to say something mean. But it didn’t.
“Look—”
“I hope he’s worth it,” I said. “You just forfeited our entire friendship. You just gave up every movie night, every margarita Friday, every goofy GIF exchange, every sleepover, every Galentine’s Day, every fantasy road trip, every hug, and every atom of admiration, warmth, and affection you could ever have had with me. Right? You gave up borrowing my jeans with the rainbow pockets. You gave up book recommendations, and homemade birthday cards, and late-night tacos. And you gave up the best next-door neighbor ever, too, because I’m definitely moving out.”
I could feel my voice shaking.
I was trying to make her feel bad, listing everything she’d just lost.
But of course, I had lost it all, too.
“And you knew,” I went on. “You knew he was terrible. You knew what he did to me—how he abandoned me right after I lost my mom.” I took a long, trembling breath. “That’s what kills me. You gave it all up—every nourishing thing we had … not just for a man, but for a bad man.”
“I’m sorry,” Taylor said.
“I don’t care.”