Chapter 27
Nadine
So.
James and Mika broke up.
If you could even call what they had being together.
“It doesn’t even make sense,” Mika is saying, tapping her pen furiously against her notebook as she sits next to me in the conference room. “We didn’t even…”
She glances around at the still mostly empty room.
“You know.”
I try to ignore the thrill that this news gives me.
James and Mika never slept together.
It shouldn’t matter to me, but it matters so damn much I can barely breathe.
“Maybe because he respects you more than all those other girls,” I say kindly. “Knows that you deserve more than wham bam thank you ma’am.”
Her pen taps even faster. “But if that’s true, then why did he end it? Like, he didn’t see me as the good-time girl or the long-term girl.”
I purse my lips. “Tell me again what he said, exactly.”
She gives me a strange look. “I’ve told you like two times already. Honestly, you’re supposed to be the one doing the talking. He’s your BFF. Explain him to me!”
I hesitate. I’ve yet to tell Mika that James and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms, and I’m a little surprised she hasn’t seemed to pick up on this. Neither has Paulo. It makes no sense to me. I’ve never felt more alone, more lost, and two of the people closest to me don’t even notice.
And the person who’s supposed to be closest to me—my best friend—isn’t even kind of my friend anymore.
“He just said I deserved more,” Mika says with a shrug, after it becomes obvious that I have nothing to add to the conversation.
“I don’t even know what that means,” she continues. “More what? Then he started talking about his job, and his family, and something about how his older brother just got some sort of public service award that he’ll never get, and he’s saying all of this, and all I can think is, wait, so I’m not even going to get laid?”
Mika is sitting to my right, and a dramatic sigh comes from my left. We both turn to give an irritated look to Yassi.
Too late, I realize that while our conversation started as a whisper, it got increasingly louder as Mika got more and more upset.
Yassi confirms that she overheard everything with a snide remark. “You do know there are better places to talk about your love life than the conference room?”
Mika lifts a finger, and I can tell she’s getting ready to go all diva, but I gently push her hand down. “Eavesdrop much?” I ask Yassi.
She doesn’t look even remotely sheepish as she turns to face us more fully.
Yassi gives a quick glance around to ensure our boss still hasn’t shown up, and that the only two other people in the room are at the far opposite end of the enormous conference table, one talking on her phone, the other playing what seems to be Words with Friends.
“You guys are talking about James Reid, right? Nadine's bestie?”
Neither Mika nor I confirm, but she keeps prattling on anyway. “It’s so obvious what’s going on with him. Inferiority complex.”
I scoff. “You’ve met him, what, like, five times at company functions?”
“Yes. And all the times he’s tagged along as your plus-one at team happy hours, or whatever. I have to do something while you guys are all ignoring me, so I watch.”
I feel a little sting of guilt. Yassi's so flipping annoying that it’s never really occurred to me that maybe part of the reason she’s so obnoxious is because she’s always on the outside.
I wonder which comes first…someone being left out in the cold because they’re annoying, or someone becoming annoying because they’re left out.
“Look, you said he just got promoted, right?” Yassi asks.
Mika's eyes bug out. “Exactly how often do you eavesdrop?”
Yassi waves at this. “Oh, all the time. You guys talk super loud, and keep in mind our cubicle walls only come up to boob level. Not exactly soundproof. Anyway, so James' recently been promoted but refuses to tell anyone about it, which means he thinks he doesn’t deserve it. He also has, like, an endless string of bimbos, and then he finds someone he thinks is nice”—Yassi gives a skeptical once-over of Mika here—“and he dumps her because she deserves more?”
I stare at her, my mind racing.
Yassi gives one last snotty little shrug. “Like I said. Inferiority complex. The guy thinks he’s no good at anything—that he doesn’t deserve better.”
Mika starts to lay into Yassi about how she doesn’t know crap and how she should get her own life, but I sit back in my chair, taking in everything Yassi just said.
Because while Mika's right—Yassi doesn’t know James—I think she might actually be right about this.
Oh my God.
Mika and Yassi's catfight is interrupted by the appearance of our boss, and I try to focus on the meeting. I really do.
But I keep hearing Yassi's words over and over. He thinks he’s no good at anything—that he doesn’t deserve better.
Suddenly I’m replaying everything.
The way he denied deserving that damn promotion.
The way he refused to tell anyone about it.
I replay the way he clams up every time he has to go home to visit his all-star family.
The way he plays down everything important about himself, and instead jokes only about his Call of Duty skills or his prowess in the bedroom.
And then, worst of all, I replay the fight we had the day before I moved out.
The one where I’d all but laughed out loud at the thought that he could actually be somebody’s boyfriend.
My reaction had been borne out of shock—maybe even jealousy—but what if James saw it differently?
What if he thinks I think that he’s not capable of being a good boyfriend?
What if he thinks I think that nobody would want to date him?
The thought makes my heart hurt, because as at odds as we are right now, I know that James cares what I think, just like I care what he thinks.
I am—I was—important to him, and I’d all but told him he was good for nothing more than a roll in the hay.
And this thing with Mika…
Does he think he’s not good enough for her?
I start to get angry the more that I think about it, because James is good enough for anybody.
James is the freaking best.
But just as I start to get really good and fired up about this, I deflate.
Once upon a time, I could have been his champion. The one who’d go find him right this second and give an animated monologue about how he was being an idiot and that any girl would be more than lucky to have him love her.
I could have done that once. But not now. Because I’m too afraid that I’ll slip up. Say something I shouldn’t.
Something like I want to be that girl.
