“You’ve never acted like that. You’ve had so many girlfriends. And when you don’t have girlfriends, you’re constantly sleeping with someone else.” Not to mention the times where there’s considerable overlap. “You practically screwed girls right in front of me. Those aren’t the actions of a guy who thinks I’m his one and only.”
“I know.” He thrusts a hand into his short hair. “I wanted to enjoy being young and playing the field while I could. Kind of get all that shit out of my system so when I settled down, I wouldn’t have the urge. But I always knew you and I would end up together.”
He says it again, as if by mere repetition it will become true. It’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard, and I tell him that. “That’s crazypants. You can’t do that and expect me to look at you in anything but a friendship light. In fact, you’re lucky I’ve known you so long. I overlook a lot of really crappy things that you’ve done because we’ve been friends since third grade, but I…I could never love you.” It hurts me to say those words to him, but he’s forcing them out of me.
Ace rears back as if I’ve slapped him. He looks at me with wounded eyes that flood me with guilt. “But, Lucy, we have been friends forever. I know everything there is to know about you.”
“I’m sorry, Ace, but you don’t.” This is so hard. I wish I wasn’t an adult. I wish I could run from this room and stick my head under my pillow and pretend this was not happening. But I force myself to gut it out, knowing it’ll be over. I’ll mourn this relationship but, in the back of my mind, I must’ve known it was coming because I’m not surprised. Frustrated, resigned, angry. But not surprised. I’ve just never wanted to acknowledge it.
“If you truly knew everything there was to know about me, you wouldn’t have treated me this way. If you truly loved me, you wouldn’t treat me this way. Or if this is how you treat people you love, well,” I swallow before delivering another painful truth, “that’s not going to be good enough for any girl.”
I rub my dry lips together. He sits there like a stone. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Re-evaluating his definition of love? Wishing he’d never shown up here? If I’m honest, Ace and I have been growing apart for a long time before Matty ever appeared in my life. I told myself that he was busy with football and my path took me in an opposite direction, but the reality is we had less and less in common as we grew older.
I don’t know if telling Ace this would help him, but I give it a shot. “We aren’t the same people we were in third grade. There’s no way we could be. If destiny meant for us to be together, we would have been together a long time ago, but I’ve never felt that way about you, and if you search your heart, you would know that the same is true for you. You don’t love me, Ace. I’m not the one for you. I’m your…safe option.” That felt right when I said it. It’s even there in his words. I’m his fallback option. Maybe he uses this so-called love for me to stay emotionally distant with the girls he’s with. But he’s never loved me. “I swear to you, you would not act like this with a girl you loved.”
His eyes turn from pained to flinty, and I try to brace myself for whatever horrible thing that’s going to come out of his mouth next. I’m learning Ace has a nasty mouth on him.
“And you think Matty loves you?” Ace laughs harshly. “That he would never cheat on you. That he would never look at another girl with…lust in his eyes.”
And that uncomfortable feeling I had before? It seizes me by the throat. I watch in horror as Ace pulls out his phone. I don’t want to see it. I want to close my eyes and pretend whatever he’s going to show me doesn’t exist. Whatever happened last night doesn’t exist. If I don’t see it, I can go on in my own little world believing Matty was worth the risk.
Ace lays his phone on the table and the picture is so clear and so big I can’t not see it. I bite my lips together as Ace flicks his finger. It’s a slideshow of my worst fears.
“All these years you’ve friend-zoned me.” His voice is quiet. Ominous even.
“I never friend-zoned you. We were friends. Are friends,” I correct when his eyes narrow at my Freudian slip of the past tense. “True ones,” I mumble almost absently as I stare at the pictures.
Ace’s voice falls to a whisper. “You fell for Matty Iverson. A blockhead. His best friend is a guy named Hammer. Their favorite thing to do is get loaded and bang jock chasers. Their hobbies include liking Instagram posts of chicks at out of town games. He’s an idiot.”
“He reads Harry Potter,” I defend, almost by rote.
“So he read one fucking book a year until he graduated.”
Matty has women on either side of him. In another photo one of them is kissing his cheek. Ace flicks his finger again. Matty’s looking down adoringly into the blonde one’s eyes. Flick. The blonde is kissing him on his lips. Flick. Matty’s hand is outstretched trying to prevent the picture from being taken, but there’s a lopsided smile on his face and he’s still looking at the blonde.
Ace’s finger stabs at the table. “No matter what he promises you, this is what he does. I don’t know what happened last night. I don’t know if she’s still there this morning.”
I swallow again, but there’s nothing in my throat. It’s dry, and every time I gulp it’s like swallowing sand. The tiny bits and pieces scrape and tear fissures into my tissues that grow and grow and grow like the cracks in the desert’s crust—until every part of me is torn asunder, only held together by a slender film of skin.