Girlfriend's Best Friend

Chapter 27

         Carter and Graham came back after that and we walked back to the pizza shop now that things between me and her were straightened out. Now we just had to fix things between her and Brooke, if they could even be fixed at all.

            We walked in to see Brooke already at a table with Jace, Mattie, and Duke, her face changing from carefree to irritated in just a matter of seconds, as if that was going to make us not try to settle all this out.

            We all sat down at the same table; Brooke crossed her arms, Kelli grabbed my hand, neither broke their eye contact with each other.

            “Brooke, do you want to say anything?” Graham tried.

            “No,” she answered.

            “Kel?” he asked.

            “No,” she repeated.

            “Want to know what I think the problem is?” Carter asked, clearly showing how annoying this was.

            “No,” they both answered in unison.

            “I think the problem,” he continued anyway, “is that Kelli’s jealous that Brooke’s a huge flirt and gets a lot of guys but Brooke is jealous that Kelli’s the one who actually has a boyfriend. And because you each know that that makes the other jealous, you both go out of your way to try to seem better to the other one. And I know girls are really into drama but guys hate it so if you guys can just end this and be friends again that would be ‘perf’.”

            “Ew, don’t say ‘perf’,” they said at the same time again. They laughed a little that it was the second time they did that, but once they realized they were both laughing, they both stopped.

            “See, you even say the same things at the same time and it’s because you’re so similar. You’re too good of friends to let this shit get in your way. We like hanging out with you guys when you’re friends. Just stop fighting, it’s stupid,” Carter couldn’t have explained it better.

            “I’m sorry, Brookie,” Kelli was the first to apologize, after a moment.

            “I’m sorry too, Kel,” Brooke finally said, but her piercing stare never left my eyes.

            And there she went again, giving unclear signs of what she really meant that only I would notice. Was she actually sorry for being just as mean to Kelli as Kelli was to her? Or was she sorry for hooking up with her best friend’s boyfriend, although she’d never tell her that? Or was she sorry that Kelli was with me in the first place, and was apologizing to Kelli that she had to put up with me—a soft boyfriend who can’t stand up for what’s really right because he’s too afraid—all the time?

            I would never know.

            But one thing was clear—she was losing her patience. She couldn’t keep the secret much longer, and I really couldn’t either. It was tearing us apart and ruining a lot of things, yet neither of us could let it go. Why?

            I don’t know.