I remember when we won our first Spartan Press Award. I remember sitting there in that newspaper office, my hand clutched tightly in Laney’s, waiting for the email to arrive.
When the notification finally popped up in my inbox and I opened it to see the words “The Southwest Star from Southwest High School,” I nearly fainted. All the blood left my head. I could barely even stand up. Laney had to help me out of my chair. She kept me from falling.
She was always my rock. I leaned on her daily. For so many things. And yet, she never wanted to share in the glory. After the trophy came in the mail, I offered to let her take it home for the weekend, but she refused. I offered to have them engrave her name alongside mine, but she refused that, too.
She was always so intent on letting me shine. Like a moon circling the earth. Never feeling direct sunlight. Always basking in someone else’s glow.
But not today. Not right now. She’s glowing plenty on her own. In fact, I think I might need sunglasses to protect my eyes from all that glow radiating off her.
For a moment, as I stand there watching them make out in the parking lot, I’m convinced that I’ve fallen back into that other universe. That I’ve been tossed right back into that nightmare where I’m stuck at this school and Laney and Austin cheated on me and I’ve blown my chances at going to Columbia.
But then I glance down and see that I’m still wearing my Windsor uniform. And the questions start to bounce around my brain like pinballs in a machine.
Are they together in this life, too?
How long have they been dating?
How did it start?
Did she steal him from someone else like she stole him from me?
My whole body is numb. My breathing is ragged. My heart is pounding.
When they finally manage to break apart, I duck behind one of the cars, afraid that they might see me. Which, I quickly realize, is actually pretty stupid. Laney doesn’t even know me in this life. She’s not my friend. We never met. Those three and a half years of friendship, when she stood by me through everything, are gone. Vanished. Erased.
Still, I can’t bring myself to come out from behind the cover of this car. Crouched down like a spy, I peer at them over the hood. I watch as Laney whispers something to Austin that I can’t hear.
Then Austin grins and shouts in a booming voice, “Here comes the big one! Here comes the…”
Laney immediately joins in, “Whaaaaammmy!”
They practically fall on top of each other in fits of laughter. I can hear Laney’s signature chipmunk giggle from here.
My stomach flips.
Apparently their taste in television shows hasn’t improved much in this universe. They’re still quoting that stupid How Is This My Life? show.
Still laughing, Laney says, “That last episode was funny as balls!” Then she buries her face in Austin’s chest, and he kisses the top of her head.
I can’t do this. I can’t take this anymore.
I need to get out of here.
Staying in a crouch, I zigzag through the cars until I’m out of the parking lot. Then I sprint the entire way home.
* * *
When I burst through the front door a record eight minutes later, I’m breathless and dizzy. My mom is in the kitchen, yelling at someone on the phone again. I barrel past her and charge up the stairs, past Frankie’s room where he’s working diligently on his What’s the Matter? board game, straight to my bedroom.
“Kennedy!” Frankie jumps up from his desk when he sees me. “I’ve made a new list!”
“I don’t want to hear it right now!” I call back.
But like always, he ignores me, following me into my room as he reads from his notebook. “My obsession with argyle socks.”
I sigh. “The same.”
He frowns and crosses it off his list. “My inability to surrender in Monopoly.”
I roll my eyes. “One time we had a game that lasted twenty-two days.”
His body wilts as he crosses this off, too.
“Frankie,” I plead. “I really can’t deal with this right now.” I grab his shoulders, turn him around, and march him out of my room.
“My fear of barbershops?” he asks, barely looking up.
“The same!” I close the door on him.
“My laptop decal?” he calls from the hallway.
“It’s Newton’s apple falling from the tree!” I yell back.
I can hear him harrumph before stomping back to his room and slamming the door.
With a groan, I toss my bag onto my bed and dig out my phone. I open SnipPic and search for Laney’s profile. I click on it and scan the photos, my heart sinking with a thud when I notice her profile picture.
It’s the two of them. They’re dressed up and posing in front of a fake city skyline. I recognize that backdrop. I once had a very similar picture in front of that backdrop. Except it was a photo of me and Austin. It was taken at prom last year.
They went together, I think with a sudden wave of nausea.
I quickly start scrolling through her feed like a crazy stalker, desperate for more information, more details. It’s overflowing with photographs of the two of them. Laney and Austin skiing together, Laney and Austin at the community pool in the summer, Laney and Austin at Peabody’s café. I scroll back and back and back until I find the very first one of them together.
It’s dated sometime during the second semester of freshman year.
Which means they’ve been dating for the past three years.
As I stare at the photos, I feel a hot, jealous rage rumble through me.
She didn’t just steal my boyfriend. She stole my whole life.
But I can’t tell if I’m jealous of her because she’s with him, because she took him, or if I’m simply jealous of them. For what they have. For what they’re sharing in all these pictures.
They look so dang happy.
Were Austin and I ever that happy? And come to think of it, have I ever seen Laney look that happy?
When I search back through my memories of my former best friend, why do they always seem to revolve around me? Her cheering me up. Her making me feel better. Her telling me the newspaper is going to be amazeballs.
For more than three years, Laney was my rock. My support system. The person I leaned on for everything. But as I continue to scroll through her feed, watching tender moment after tender moment pass by, I suddenly find myself wondering, Who was Laney’s rock? Who did she lean on?
I mean, sure, we were always there for each other. I would have helped her through anything. Except I suddenly can’t recall one time when our roles were reversed. When I was the strong one and she was the one falling apart, freaking out, waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks that the front-page headline is misspelled. She was always the one who answered the phone. Who calmed me down. Who logged in to the server to assure me that the headline was fine.
She was so busy being sturdy and strong for me, who was being sturdy and strong for her?
The answer hits me like a slap in the face.
No one.
Until now, apparently.
Because now she has him. She has Austin. My Austin. My boyfriend.
But as I continue to stare at them, feeling more and more like a creepy Peeping Tom, that possessive word—my—starts to lose its meaning. It starts to feel like a pair of jeans that no longer fit, that you’ve stashed away on the top shelf of your closet, just in case. But every time you bring them down, they never quite look right. And eventually, you have to give them away.
With a lump in my throat, I toss the phone on the bed. I sit in silence for a long moment, listening to the faint sounds of the house. The whir of the heater, the footsteps of people downstairs, the thumping of my own heart banging against my rib cage. And then the sound of my mother’s voice calling me down to dinner.
I push myself from the bed and start for the door. I look back once at the phone still lying on my bed. Then, before I can second-guess myself or overanalyze my actions, I run back, navigate to Laney’s profile again, and click “Follow.”