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BFFS

T he Past

Mother: Who is your best friend?

Me: Felicity from school.

Mother: She might be your best school friend, but I’m your overall best friend.

Aren’t I?

Me: Um, yes. You’re my best friend, mum.

Mother: Good. Felicity is a fair weather friend, anyway.

She’s not loyal like me.

For example, if you ever kill someone, I’ll help you to hide the body, okay?

Felicity would never help you bury a body. You remember that.

The Present

Timmy and I are hanging out at my apartment, watching movies like usual. He’s insisted we do a movie marathon tonight, just us. So the plan is to cook and hang out and snuggle and have sex. Cute couple stuff. I’m excited about it.

The vibe is cozy, and the scent of garlic and herbs fills the air. We move playfully around the kitchen, me chopping vegetables while Timmy sneaks a bite of red pepper off the cutting board, earning him a playful swat and a laugh. We steal kisses between tasks, my shoulder bumping into his torso as we navigate around each other in the kitchen.

After food, we stack blankets and pillows across the bed, reminiscent of the sheet forts I made as a kid. As the opening credits roll, we curl up together. I lay against his chest, our legs intertwined, cozy against the blanket behind us, but warm enough not to need one on top of us.

Partway through the second movie, his phone dings and he checks the message. He seems distracted. “Um, I have to go and meet some people.”

“What? I thought we were hanging out here tonight.” I’m so confused. The night has been going so well and now he just wants to dip out to meet whoever?

“Well, I thought we were.” He shrugs. “But they need me to take them to get something.”

I quirk a brow and frown. “Who are these people?”

“Rebecca and Jetson. They work on movie sets. They’re some of the coolest people I know.”

“And you don’t want me to meet them? And you’re going to ditch me to hang out with them because you think they’re cool?”

He smirks, and it’s cruel. “No. I don’t want you to meet them.” His tone drops lower, and his eyes narrow slightly, as if he knows something I don’t—or worse, something that will hurt me soon. There’s no softness in his expression. Instead, it’s cold, calculated, like he’s delighting in the torment his sudden unexpected change of plans is causing me.

I feel crushed. “So you’re going to ditch me on a Friday night to go hang out with friends you don’t want me to meet?”

He frowns. “Well you can fucking meet them, I suppose. Jesus Christ.” His response makes me feel desperate, needy. It’s not a rejection, but it’s not exactly an invitation, either.

My stomach knots, and heat rises to my face. I hate coming across as thirsty for company or attention, and I know I probably just did. “I just don’t understand what the issue is.”

“You don’t have to do everything with me,” he says, his voice unusually clipped. “You always want to be together.”

I feel dismissed, rejected. For someone so excited to spend the evening with me, he’s sure ready to leave me the second someone else shows interest.

And he’s right. I do enjoy spending every waking and sleeping moment with him. But it’s definitely something that’s driven by him. I’m not letting him off the hook that easily.

“You’re the one over at my apartment. You’re the one who keeps planning things to do together every day and every night. You’re the one who takes me to work with you. You’re the one who texts me constantly on the rare occasion we aren’t together.”

“Whatever,” he says, rolling his eyes, a scowl etched into his face. “Way to twist things around.”

My voice raises, even though I don’t mean for it to. “I just don’t understand why you’re suddenly changing the plans and not inviting me. I feel excluded. It’s weird.” I feel like I’m whining. Maybe I am. But I’m just so thrown by his sudden demeanor switch and the way he’s making it feel like it’s my fault.

He lets out an exaggerated sigh, his own voice rising. “They want me to take them to go get drugs, okay? I thought you would judge me for that. Are you happy now?”

“Oh, I see.” I frown, trying to understand why he didn’t just tell me. Why he made it feel so secretive, and planned to leave me alone because of it. “Well, I wish you’d just been honest from the outset. It sounded like you were embarrassed by me and didn’t want to introduce me to your ‘cool’ friends. Or that you felt like you’d found a more exciting way to spend your Friday night than hanging out with me.”

He sighs again. “Jesus, Margaux. What the fuck is your problem? Stop assuming things. Neither of those are true. But I can go hang out with them without you if I want.”

My eyes narrow. He’s really pissing me off. “Great. And I can go hang out with whoever the fuck I like without you, as well.”

His eyes are flinty slits. “No way. You’re coming with me. I’ll introduce you, it’s fine.”

Now I feel like I’m being a brat, forcing myself on his friends. But he’s an asshole for trying to ditch me, or keep the truth from me, whichever is true.

My guilt settles in, heavy and unavoidable. I suddenly feel like a jerk for even asking. Was it selfish for me to ask? Should I have just let him go? I’m a big girl. I could have sat here and watched movies. I could have walked down the street and hung out somewhere. I could have just smiled and wished him a good time, played it cool, acted like I didn’t care.

At the same time, fuck it. He came up with the plans for our night, and then he switched them up because he received an unexpected text. I feel valid for calling him out on it, empowered by making sure he included me. But now the air feels tense and awkward, and I created that.

He grabs a T-shirt and slips it on while I sit on the bed, awkward, going back and forth in my mind about whether I’ve done the right thing. He gives me a quick but distant smile. “Do I look cute?”

“Yes,” I smile back. He does. The gray and pink T-shirt looks really cute with his long brown, sun-bleached hair and gorgeous blue eyes.

“We’ll head out in a few minutes,” he says, already staring at his phone again, already somewhere else in his mind.

I’m glad he invited me, eventually, but the guilt is gnawing at me. Like I’ve done something wrong, inserting myself somewhere where I don’t quite belong.

The moment I get into Rebecca and Jetson’s car, all worries I had melt away.

They’re friendly, a fun couple, I can tell from the get-go.

Rebecca is gorgeous, a vibrant blonde Floridian who likes to have a good time and doesn’t take shit from anyone.

Jetson is tall and lanky, also a Floridian, and I can tell he’s pissed off at Rebecca for something. I don’t know what. Sometimes you can just tell when a couple has been bickering moments before you enter their orbit.

But they’re both friendly and outgoing and funny, and they offer me a hard seltzer and we all drive off together in search of whatever they’re looking for.

As we banter, I notice Timmy glowering at me, like he’s mad I’m getting along with his friends. I immediately feel self-conscious. Am I being too loud? Too annoying? But Rebecca and Jetson don’t seem to mind.

The gnawing guilt is just following me from our earlier conversation, and I realize that Timmy is probably annoyed he doesn’t get to be the center of attention, the guy who they call when they need something only he knows how to find. So I make myself quiet, I shrink myself, and I let him take center stage. These are his friends, so it gets to be the Timmy show.

Still, they seem interested in me and both of them ask me questions. Each time I answer with something that makes them laugh or continue the conversation, Timmy seems to physically pull away from me, as if he’s punishing me. The more they seem interested in what I have to say, the more he physically recoils from me.

After we get back from acquiring whatever it was they wanted, the guys go to get some drinks, leaving Rebecca and I together in my apartment .

The conversation flows. She’s really funny, and it turns out she’s a talented artist and her specialty is dark romance art. What are the fucking chances?!

She shows me through her work and I’m incredibly impressed. Each piece is exquisite, conveying the optimal mix of angst and sexiness and trauma and beauty… I’m fan-girling hard. We talk about the potential to collaborate together on some work, because her art would definitely complement my books and vice-versa. I’ve never even met someone who does dark romance art before. It’s so fucking cool! I’m suddenly guilt-free about inserting myself into their little outing, and very glad I got to meet this wonderful and talented human!

After a while, Timmy walks back in with Jetson and just stops, eyeing us.

I walk over and give Timmy a hug and a kiss. “Welcome back! We missed you guys!” I smile.

Timmy kisses me back, and drapes an arm around me, but there’s a tension in the way he holds me.

“Oh my gosh! Rebecca is an artist!” I tell him, wide-eyed with excitement. “We have so much in common! We’re thinking of combining our talents and working on a project together.” I’m gushing, so excited to share that the person he just introduced me to has something so specific in common with me.

It also feels really good to have made my first real friend here. She’s funny and smart and interesting, and it’s enriching to meet someone in this place where all I really know is Timmy.

“Well, isn’t that just great.” His smile is forced, weak, a flicker of irritation in his eyes.

We all chat for a while, enjoying our drinks and talking about life on the coast. Rebecca and Jetson head out and we agree to meet up with them at a nearby Irish bar later on.

After they leave, he’s sullen.

“What’s going on?” I ask, touching his shoulder.

He flinches away, his foot bouncing. “Well, I’m fine with you being friends with her. But just as long as she doesn’t take up my place as your best friend. I’m your number one friend.”

My mind flashes back to childhood, my mother saying the same thing: “Felicity might be your best school friend, but I’m your best overall friend. Felicity is a fair weather friend anyway. She’s not loyal, like me.”

Maybe this is just an emotional Cancer thing, seeing as my mother and Timmy share the same star sign.

But it sounds like he’s truly worried. Like, because I got along with someone I just met, I’m suddenly going to deprioritize him and throw him away like a piece of trash.

The irony is that, while that’s definitely not going to happen, he made me feel like that earlier in the night. Like he was going to discard me and our plans that he suggested because he wanted to help these people go in search of party drugs.

I don’t like that he tried to ditch me, and part of me wonders if the reason he didn’t want to introduce us is because he could tell we would get along well, and he was threatened by the idea of me making a solid female friend connection.

Either way, I have no intention of ditching Timmy, I got to meet new people including someone who really could be a great friend.

So all in all, I consider this day a win.