My Best Friend's Girl

by Dorothy Koomson

  “Stop, stop,” I said, pushing him away until he stepped back, creating a safe distance between us. We stared at each other, both of our chests heaving as we gulped down air.

  “No more. This can’t happen,” I announced breathlessly.

  “Not ever.”

  “I know this can’t happen.” He closed his eyes, his face scrunched up. He pressed the heels of his hands on his eyes. “I know. It’s all going wrong…Everything…It’s going wrong…I’ve been forced to take two weeks off work because I was stuffing up. Not concentrating.” My heart lurched for him. He was always professional, no matter what was going on in his life, nothing stopped him working…I hadn’t realized how fragile he was. “I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time,” he blundered on. “Instead of sleeping I lie awake at night thinking about us.” He kneaded his face with his knuckles, leaving white marks on his sallow skin. “Wanting us to be together again…I know you’re with him. And that’s the worst part. I like him. He hates me, I know, but I like how much he cares about Tegan…” Nate collapsed into a crouch, his hands still pressed onto his eyes. “Do you remember our first huge fight? You went storming to Adele’s. Remember? I came round after you but she was having none of it. Do you remember? She went, ‘If you two split up, neither of you will get custody of me—I’ll go live with Kam’s parents.’ Do you remember?” I nodded to his bent head, I remembered. “It doesn’t seem right that you’re back in my life and she’s not around.”

  Nate was grieving. I hadn’t even thought how Adele’s death would affect him. If I did give it one second’s thought, I’d have known that there was no way he could be over it because he had been bereaved too. She was like a member of his family and she had died. Of course he’d be mourning. I was still blaming myself for what happened before her death, and we’d made the first tentative step toward peace before it happened. The last words Nate had said to Adele were that he hated her. That he’d never forgive her. The guilt of that must have been consuming him; burning him up from the inside out.

  How had I missed that? Especially when he’d been trying to tell me he was suffering. He’d told me the night we went to dinner; he’d told me when he offered to pay for Tegan; he’d told me when I asked him why he was making an effort with Tegan; he’d told me the night we had our confrontation in the street. Nate had been asking me for help, begging me to see his pain, and I hadn’t heard him. I was meant to know him and I hadn’t seen he was falling apart. My baby was falling apart.

  “Tegan is so like Adele. I look at her and I see Adele, staring at me. But she’s like you too. She says things like you do. And she has your mannerisms. Have you seen, she plays with the lock of hair by her ear if she’s tired, like you do? Have you noticed that?”

  To be honest, I hadn’t. It wasn’t important right now, though. He was. I bobbed down beside him, slipped an arm around his shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling this bad, Nate?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know,” he said, with the same intonation as Tegan when she was upset.

  “Come on, let’s go to the park, have some fun and take our minds off all this.”

  “OK,” he whispered.

  “What’s he doing here?” Luke demanded in a low angry whisper.

  His eyes had doubled in size when he saw me arrive at the park with Nate and once he’d helped Tegan off the swing he’d glared at me until I went over to him, leaving Nate and Tegan together. Nate sat on the red swing Tegan had vacated, staring at the ground.

  “Nate’s in a bad way. He’s had a bit of a breakdown,” I explained.

  “This is meant to be our time, I can’t believe you’ve brought him,” Luke hissed.

  “He’s suffering! He’s not coping with Adele’s death very well.” At that, Luke’s glower softened a fraction. “I didn’t realize how much pain he was in until earlier—he’s not eating or sleeping. He’s having trouble at work. He’s falling apart, I’m really worried about him.”

  Luke sighed, then reached out, pulled me into his arms. “I’ve got you to support me,” I muttered into Luke’s chest. “Nate hasn’t got anyone. So I have to be there for him. He was one of my best mates once, I can’t let him down.”

  “I know,” Luke conceded. “I don’t like it but I do understand.” He kissed the top of my head, then kissed my mouth. As we returned to the swings, we both halted when we saw Tegan staring at Nate with big earnest eyes, as though viewing an exhibit in a zoo. She often found adults curious objects of study because they were so different to her. Other children were intrigued by other children, Tegan was always staring at big people, trying to uncover their secrets by observing their behavior.

  Eventually, she reached out and patted Nate on the knee until he turned his head to look at her. “What’s the matter, Mr. Nate?” she asked quietly. “Are you ill?”

  Nate smiled at her and shook his head. “No, I’m just tired.”

  “Oh. Do you want to sleep in my bed? It’s very pretty.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve got a bed at my house.”

  Tegan twisted her mouth together and chewed the inside of her lower lip, then her forehead crinkled into a frown; she was thinking very hard. “You can stay at my house, Mr. Nate,” she eventually declared. “You can wear Luke’s pajamas and sleep in my bed. I’ll sleep in Mummy Ryn’s bed. Mummy Ryn won’t get cross. She never gets cross.”

  Nate smiled at her. “Thanks, Tegan, but I think it’s better I sleep at my house.”

  The weather started to break, a few spots of rain falling down on us, which gave me an excuse to interrupt. That moment, sweet as it was, was probably wrenching for Luke because she was relating to Nate how she related to him; and making Nate feel guilty for the fact that she was like Adele. “All right, I think it’s time we went home, boys and girls. It’s going to start raining,” I said.

  “O-OK,” Tegan said, rolling her eyes theatrically at Nate.

  “Are you going to come to my house for your dinner, Mr. Nate?” she asked. Nate looked up at Luke, who was standing beside me. Luke shrugged and glanced away, that was as close to “Come over” as he’d get.

  “OK, Tegan, I’ll come.”

  She grinned. “Come on, then.” She held out her hand to him. He took it and stood up. “You can call me Tiga if you want,” she informed him, nodding to emphasize her point.

  “Not T, Luke calls me T. But you can call me Tiga.”

  “OK, Tiga, thanks.”

  Tegan grinned another wide grin at him and then started off down the path, pulling Nate along with her. I slipped my hand into Luke’s, our fingers interlacing closely, as we followed Nate and Tegan home.

  Things could work out between us four, I thought as we headed home. They really could. If I didn’t keep touching my neck, running my fingers over the echo of Nate’s kisses. If I didn’t have the distinct feeling that I was falling for him again.

  chapter 42

  Luke got used to seeing Nate a few times a week.

  “Used to” might be overstretching the case, he simply limited his (cue Tegan’s deep voice) “Nate, you’re here again, how nice,” to once a week because Nate started spending a lot of time at our place. At least four times a week he would show up, almost always at Tegan’s request. She hadn’t elevated him to Luke status, but he had become like the ducks in the park she was always wanting to feed—she decided without her intervention he would starve. Almost every other night we had to call Mr. Nate to ask if he would come round for his dinner. If he couldn’t make it she’d want to know what he was going to eat. Sometimes she’d ring him to find out what he’d done at work that day and if he had any new friends. When he came over she would ask me if it was OK if he took her to the shop to buy sweets. Luke wasn’t forgotten in this. Whenever she returned from a trip with Nate she would always go straight to Luke, climb onto his lap and tell him the details of their mini-trip and then ask him if he’d take her to the shop next time. She didn’t ever forget to let Luke know that while Nate wa
s fun, Luke was number one.

  As a result of the time he spent with us—the realization that he wasn’t hated by me or Tegan—Nate slowly got back to normal. As normal as he could. He moved into the phase where it hurts but you can function. He started to sleep, eat properly, look better, and we even had conversations about Adele. “Remember that night Adele came to my house and threatened me?” Nate asked once when the four of us were in the park.

  I smiled as the memory returned to me.

  “She told me she’d kill me if I ever hurt you. ‘Proper kill you,’ she said.”

  “She was funny.”

  “No, she was serious. I remember when I first met you I quickly realized that Adele was a part of our lives. And then when she had Tegan the three of you came as a package.” I turned to look at him. “Not complaining. It was nice, actually, to have a ready-made family. I was just waiting for that day when you would say, ‘Why don’t we buy a house so they can live with us?’” I grinned because the thought had crossed my mind. “Yeah,” Nate said, “I knew it!”

  “I know you fell out, but she did love you,” I admitted.

  “Only as a friend, though. You realize that now, don’t you? I was just like your brothers were to her.”

  “She slept with my brothers as well?” I asked.

  His eyes widened in horror. “What? No! I never said that—Ah, you’re joking. Very funny. Very funny.”

  “Del would have thought so.”

  “Yeah, she would have.”

  The fact that I could talk about Adele without breaking down also meant that I was getting better. I was dealing with what had happened. In tiny increments, but I was doing it. I’d had to force myself to. Since the day of Nate’s breakdown I’d been jolted to my core. The realization that I was falling for Nate again had scared me. It meant I wasn’t paying enough attention to Luke. If I wasn’t careful, I was in danger of driving Luke away just as I had done briefly with Nate all those years ago. I’d started saying “I love you” every day to Luke, because I did. He was the one I was with, the one I’d chosen to be with and I was going to prove that to both of us. I’d decided upon the perfect way to do that.

  “This is like being proper boyfriend and girlfriend,” Luke said. We’d snuck out of work separately to meet up for lunch down by the river. We’d gone away from the main drag so we wouldn’t be seen by anyone from Angeles. Although most people suspected we were together—Betsy was waiting for the day when she’d be allowed to gossip about it with the girls on the shop floor—we liked to keep it quiet. Separate our work persona from the dating one. Neither of us could have worked effectively if we were constantly worrying that everyone was watching to see how we reacted to each other vetoing an idea or pointing out a mistake. “It’s like we’re on a proper date.”

  “I know.” I smiled. I’d asked him to come out to lunch because I wanted to talk to him, wanted to do the thing that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was him I wanted to be with.

  My boss checked around for any Angeles staff before kissing me, his lips salty from his beef and horseradish sandwich.

  “We should do this more often,” he said, stopping in front of me. “We don’t spend enough time together, you know. Just you and me. Do you reckon your parents would come up and stay with Tegan one weekend while we went out for the night?”

  “Probably. Or Nate could do it.”

  “Yeah,” Luke mumbled and looked away. “He might even sign those papers.”

  When it came to this subject my boyfriend was like a person hanging onto a cliff edge—no matter how weary he got, he wouldn’t let it go, because he thought it’d kill him. “Do you really mind him being around?” I asked. “Really and truly?”

  “Don’t Teganize me, Ryn. It’s not easy having your ex practically living with us. T is the image of him. I look at her, I see his face. And if that’s not bad enough, I know that he spent years fucking you.” Luke said “fucking” deliberately. He was trying to diminish what Nate and I had by making it sound sordid and emotionless—the only way he could cope with regularly seeing the man I almost married.

  “I can’t get away from him. Show me any other bloke who has to spend time with his girlfriend’s ex. If you were me, would you be able to do it?”

  “I understand it’s not easy, but he’s so much better now and you must have noticed he’s started coming over less as a result?”

  “Here’s to a speedy recovery, so he can disappear completely.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Luke, you know you’re a good person. And if you don’t remember how good you are, I won’t tell you why I asked you to lunch.”

  He glowered like the dying embers of a coal fire for a few seconds, then curiosity doused his fume. “Yeah, I have noticed that he’s been coming round less.”

  “OK, Mr. L, I was wondering if you fancied moving in with us? I know you live with us anyway but what if we make it official? Then you can give up your other place and if you’re up for it, we could start saving together and buy a bigger place. Maybe even a house? With a garden for Tegan.”

  Luke’s reply was to glance away and retreat into silence. A quiet that deepened into a hush that promised to haunt our relationship for years to come. I’d messed up, I realized, as his silence continued and my heartbeat slowed and slowed, threatening to stop at any moment. I’d messed up by bringing this up. “This is a big step,” Luke finally said. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  That’s it? I thought. After asking something so important, after all my recent efforts, that’s all I get? It was the whole, “I love you”/“That’s good to know” scenario all over again; another slap in the face when I showed him my heart. “OK,” I mumbled. How many times was I going to let Luke do this before I accepted that I wasn’t meant to be opening up to him? That maybe he wasn’t thinking we’d last the distance.

  “That’s not a no,” he added, “it’s just, well, it’s a big step.”

  “You said.”

  “Ryn, there are lots of things to consider.”

  “I know.”

  “I do see my future with you and T.”

  “So what’s the issue?”

  “We’ve been together less than a year.”

  “But when you know, you know,” I blurted out. Did I really say that? Me? Adele said that sort of thing, not me.

  Had I changed that much since Adele’s death? Had I become a swoony woman with a sense of destined romance? No, I realized. I was as romantic as I had always been. What I said could mean only one thing: I was begging. I shuddered. Luke was making me beg for his affection.

  “I do know,” Luke began. “I just need to—”

  “It’s OK,” I interjected. “You don’t have to give me an answer straightaway. Take as long as you want.”

  “Sure?” he replied.

  “Positive.”

  As far as I could see, this meant one thing: Luke wasn’t in love with me. He adored Tegan, he’d die for her, there was no doubt about that, so it was me, wasn’t it? He wasn’t in love with me. I never knew where I stood with Luke. He was so transparent in his affection for Tegan, but I never knew what he truly felt about me. That scared me. I had invested a lot of emotion in him and it wasn’t even a sure thing.

  “You’re very quiet,” Luke stated.

  “Just thinking,” I replied.

  Luke sighed, dropped his half-eaten sandwich in a nearby trash can, then rested his hands on my shoulders as he pinned me to the spot with the weight of his gaze.

  An expression crossed his face and his hazel eyes clouded over for a moment. “You wouldn’t want me to agree to something I wasn’t sure of just because it’s what you want to hear, would you?” Luke asked.

  I shook my head. “Course not. But I am allowed to be disappointed and hurt that you’ve not jumped at the chance to make things permanent,” I pointed out.

  “I…” he began, stopped. The expression crossed his face again. I couldn’t read it. Didn’t understand what he
was thinking but not saying. “Ryn, I’ll be honest. I’ve been thinking about asking you to marry me. Every time I pass a jewelry shop I go in to look at rings, but then…We’ve been together less than a year. We can’t be getting married after less than a year. It’s not the sort of thing I do, I’m not that impulsive. So you springing this on me…I need to think about it. Us buying a house together would be a halfway step but I don’t know if I want to do things in half measures. Which brings me back to getting married…Which is impulsive. Do you understand why I need to think about this? It’s not that I don’t love you, it’s not that I don’t see my future with you, I’ve just got to work out what’s best. I’ve done this before, remember, and it didn’t exactly work out.”

  “Yes, Luke, I remember you’ve done this before. And so have I. I almost got to the altar so I’d have thought you’d at least have thought to talk to me about marriage if you were thinking about it.”

  “You didn’t talk to me about buying a house.”

  “What do you think I was just doing? I haven’t been looking at houses, or planning where we should live, I brought it up so we could talk. Do you realize what marriage will mean for adopting Tegan? Who does she change her name to? What will it look like for the social workers and judge who decide these things? It’ll make me look impulsive and flighty when I need to come across as steady and stable and suitable to bring up a bereaved child. If you’d mentioned marriage to me at an earlier stage I could have told you these were the things we need to think about. Buying a house together was some way down the line, like I said, we’d save up. And, let’s be honest, it’s no different to how things are now. All it’d be is that you’d be with us all the time and that’s what Tegan and I both want. And the fact you’re there ninety-nine percent of the time suggests that’s what you want as well.”

  “If I had proposed, you would have said no?”

  I nodded. “I’d have thought you’d know by now that I’m someone who needs to talk about these things. It’s my future too and you being ready for marriage, doesn’t mean I am. Especially when I’ve got a child to consider.”