Because whatâs more clichĂ© than the best friend?
Sheâs unthinkable, untouchable until the December night sheâs not. And you hate yourself for every second you spend with her, learning the curves of her body, but thereâs almost nothing better than something so taboo even Hollywood has a hard time accepting it.
And then one day itâs all you have left, the affair, and the best friend isnât the girlfriend and you find yourself comparing them at every chance even though she now is your girlfriend and your ex canât even be in the same room as you. When you look back at the summer nights you spent wrapped in your loverâs arms â I mean the real lover, the girl you loved too much to leave â and you witness how you fucked it all up, royally, you hate yourself to the point where sex isnât going to change how you feel inside. That big, gaping hole? Nothing fixes that. Not the shots you guzzle or the joints you smoke, not even the lines you snort or the pills you pop. Theyâre escapes, but you grow immune. Even under the haze of white powder, you see her face. It haunts you; it fucking follows you wherever you go. You can down twenty shots and before you pass out itâs whatâs burned into your eyelids.
And youâre still with the best friend, but she wants more from you. Commitment. A promise of forever. A diamond right to slip onto the finger of the left hand so that the world knows sheâs taken. Fuck no, you think, but itâs what societyâs told you to do. Somehow itâs less wrong if you broke an angelâs heart if you did it for love. Yeah, you slept with the best friend â but then you married the best friend, and when Kid 1 and Kid 2 and Kid 2.5 ask you how you met, you can find a story to tell them. Summer nights that turned into winter. And winter you found yourself in the arms of the best friend.
Sheâs straddling you, right now. The love of your life. The ex. Youâre stars on some TV show and she loves her paycheck more than she hates you. And the paycheck comes at the expense of your great love story â the made-for-TV version because behind the glow of neon screens passion and summer go on forever. The new girlfriend â the best friend â doesnât like it. You lose âem how you got âem, after all. But you reassure her thereâs nothing between you, even though youâre barely convincing yourself.
âAndrew,â the ex says in this husky voice that she used to use to whisper sweet nothings. Andrewâs not your name; itâs the name of the prissy, whiny vampire whoâs managed to capture the heart of the enigmatic volleyball star.
âCaroline,â you moan and you long to have her real name on your lips, so you try to convey every ounce of your feeling and being into the words you say next. âI love you. I really, really love you.â
âI love you, too, Andrew,â she says in the same tone and gives an imperceptible shake of her head to remind you itâs not enough.
âCUT!â the director shouts and heâs beaming because the chemistry between you and her â driven mostly by you â is off the motherfucking charts. You take five and watch and she turns the corner before you jog after her, hoping, praying, sheâll give you one last chance.
âMaisie,â you say, and she turns and looks at you and there are tears in her eyes and sheâs all choked up and you feel so trapped within yourself you can barely breathe.
âNo,â she says, and you open your mouth to talk, but she puts up a hand. âNo, Ryan. Donât come after me with those big blue eyes and the dimples and the sorry's and forgive me's and the bullshit youâre going to pull to get into my pants. I loved you, you asshole, but thatâs past fucking tense. Love-d. With a D the size of Texas â not that youâd know anything about that, considering yours is Rhode Island.â
âOuch,â you say quietly, with a small smile on your face, but you take a step closer and she doesnât recoil. âI never heard you complaining.â
âThatâs cause I was too polite,â she spits, but a small smile breaks through and now sheâs the one stepping closer to you. And the mood, itâs suddenly shifted. Thereâs something electric between you now. âWe were good together, werenât we?â
âThe best,â you say.
âWhy?â
And thatâs the one question that nearly breaks you. She asked the how and when and the what when somebody âfessed up, but never why. You thought it was because she didnât care, because she was already 500% done with your cheating ass, but maybe it was because the truth hurts so much we canât even see the end of the pain. Pain hurts less when you ignore it. Thatâs the theory, anyways.
âI donât know,â you say, and itâs maybe the truest thing youâve said to her about the affair. You donât know. There is nothing to know except you donât deserve her. You donât deserve the best friend, you donât deserve the angel in front of you, hell, you donât even deserve yourself. Youâre a twisted bastard who doesnât deserve love. But somehow, youâve got two of the worldâs finest girls loving you.
âYou donât know?â she whispers, and thereâs something fiery in her eyes now, something youâve never seen before. âWas it me? Was I not good enough?â
âOf course you were,â you say softly.
âWere you bored with me? Was I too uptight, too prissy, too sweet?" she questions in this tone that reaches inside your chest and rips your heart to shreds. You never stopped to think that she might hate herself too, blame herself for the degradation of the relationship. Because she's selfless like that. She carries all your burdens, and even now she's trying to make them lighter for you.
âNo-o,â you deny frantically. âDonât do this to yourself. Maisie, youâre incredible, youâre angelic and godlike and make me a sinner in a single breath, and any guy on this whole planet would be lucky to have you and none of those smug motherfuckers deserve you.â
âBut you do?â
âNo, Maze. I deserve you least of all.â
âDo you?â and she draws ever closer to you until her lips meet yours and youâre connecting frantically in a series of burning kisses that say all the words you canât. Because she smells like summertime and itâs mid-July and winter seems so far away it could practically never happen. Because youâre thinking of moving to the Southern hemisphere when the leaves go golden so you can have infinite summers with the love of your life. Because youâre young and youâre stupid and youâre in love and right now August merges into September in a way that keeps both of them together and your infinity is greater than all the other infinities.
You try to do it right this time. You break up with the best friend. You wait a month and a half âCosmo says three, but fuck if youâre waiting that long â and you ask the girl of your dreams, your co-pilot in all things grand and eternal out on a real date, and three weeks later you ask her to go steady. And everything seems perfect to you because your TV show is a hit and youâre rolling in cash but none of the babes that come with it even tempt you. You puff out your chest when you're walking downtown, hold her closer to you so every punk on the street knows she's yours.
And then one day she turns to you and tells you sheâs pregnant and your whole world seems to burn a little brighter because youâre going to be a dad.
That doctor visit where you see your baby for the first time, you cry. And you're not ashamed in the slightest. There's something so manly about shedding a tear over a baby who you love so much you'd die for already even though she hasn't been born yet. The little fingers of her hand that ball up into a fist on the ultrasound screen make your heart sing. That's your daughter. You've made so many mistakes in your life, but she is perfect.
"She's a fighter like me," you say to your girl and she reaches up and flicks your ear in an admonishment.
"Don't give her any ideas," Maisie says to you and you break into a big grin, a goofy thing that makes you look twelve years old. You're going to be the best dad in the world. You can feel it.
You give up the joints and the pills and the lines and the drinks. You're clean and sober. You get a movie deal and Maisie gets a modeling gig and your baby kicks at night in her stomach and the feeling of being alive and free is all around you. There's a hum in the air that only you hear and it makes you want to sing and dance and scream so that the whole world hears your joy.
Youâre flying high, so high you canât even see the clouds, until you crash land to the earth with a pain in your hip and an MRI that changes everything.
You spend a lot of time looking at those x-rays. At night, burning the midnight oil, by candlelight during power outages, in the light of day. How Death has been creeping up on you for years and years and you never felt it. The circular splotches that dictate your end.
You lose 40 pounds, all your muscle tone, your hair, your dignity, your smile. You go through chemo, radiation, and surgery. After all youâve fought through to get the perfect life with the perfect girl, why let a little cancer stop you?
But there's nothing little about it. The last thing you lose is your will to live. You die in her arms with your daughter looking up at you with big blue eyes and a killer smile and the good looks of her mother and the patience of her father.
And you float away into an eternity of infinite summers.