Page 122 of Flirting Lessons

As soon as Taylor said she overheard the bet, Erica dropped into a seat at the kitchen table and put her head in her hands. She didn’t look up until Taylor finished talking.

“Shit.” She bit her lip. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you overheard that. It was—”

In her whole previous speech, Taylor had been calm and measured and to the point like she’d wanted to be, but as soon as Erica said she was sorry, Taylor snapped.

“I don’t fucking care about your apology,” she said. “I don’t want you to apologize to me, I don’t care how sorry you are. What I care about is that you’re my best friend, and you think it’s funny to bet with other people about me like that? You sit there at your fucking baby shower all happy and on top of the world because you have everything you’ve ever wanted, and you mock me and what I have and what I want? While I’m carrying your fuckingbaby presents to the car you are actively rooting against my relationship? And you won, congratulations, because when I told Avery about your bet, I found out that she doesn’t really care when we break up, and it feels like you cursed me and I don’t understand any of this.”

She couldn’t help the tears from falling, which made her angrier. She compensated for them by raising her voice. It made her feel like shit to yell at a pregnant lady and make her cry, but hey, at least she wasn’t the only one crying.

“I didn’t mean to…I’m so sor—” Erica stopped herself and took a shaky breath between her tears. “I’m not going to apologize again, but can I explain?”

Taylor felt wildly guilty when Erica took that shaky breath. But wait a fucking second. What the hell didshehave to feel guilty for? Erica was crying for good reason, because she’d done something fucked up and Taylor had found out about it.

“Explain what? Why you told a big group of our friends—and some people who barely know me—that I’m such a joke of a person that it’s fun to bet about my life? And that my love life exists purely to entertain you and give you something to laugh about? Is that what you’re going to explain, or is there more to it?”

Erica looked so hurt, which both gave Taylor a jolt of satisfaction and made her feel like an enormous asshole all at once.

“I don’t blame you for being mad,” Erica said. “But please, can we talk about this? Will you sit down and listen?”

That was what she’d come here for, after all. Not the yelling, which she hadn’t meant to do. Taylor brushed the back of her hand against her face and sat down at the kitchen table across from Erica.

“I know the bet was shitty,” Erica said. “I mean, I didn’t realize you’d care this much, you didn’t tell me you cared about Avery this much, but—”

“You never asked!” Taylor shook her head. “No, I said I’d let you talk, keep going.”

Erica nodded.

“I’m not going to make excuses. But I guess I was just…resentful. You’ve been spending so much time with Avery lately, and I’ve hardly seen you. I’ve been miserable all summer—all year, actually, but especially this summer—and you didn’t seem to care.”

“I didn’t know!” Taylor couldn’t help herself from interrupting. “Yeah, I know you had a hard time earlier this year, with the miscarriage, but it seemed like you were feeling better, and you got pregnant again! I didn’t know you were miserable.”

“You didn’t ask!” Erica said. “Okay, you did ask at the beginning, but then everything seemed to go back to normal for you, when it felt like nothing would ever be normal again for me. You were all normal happy Taylor, dating people and breaking up with them and bemoaning how many people there were in this world who wanted to date you, and it was so hard for me to listen to that. I desperately wanted to have a baby, you knew that, and then I got pregnant and had a miscarriage, which almost broke me. And you were great when I had the miscarriage, you were, but then I got pregnant again, and I’ve been terrified for every second of this pregnancy that something else would go wrong, and you didn’t seem to care that much.”

Taylor hadn’t known any of this.

“I cared. Of course I cared. But I didn’t realize you felt like this.”

Erica sighed.

“I know. It felt irrational, so I didn’t talk about it. I tried to keep my mind off it, but how do you keep your mind off something when your whole body is changing exactly because of thatsomething? The only thing I could try to do was to make plans for the baby, but you absolutely did not care about my plans for the baby; you have no interest in babies. Which is fine, I don’t expect everyone in the world to have an interest in babies, but it was all I could think about. But, like, your punishment for losing our bet was that you had to throw me a baby shower, since the idea of doing that was so repulsive to you; imagine how that made me feel.”

“The baby shower was your idea!” Taylor said. Shit, she was yelling again. She took a deep breath. “I didn’t know it bothered you,” she said. “We always make bets like that. Are you telling me you’ve been mad at me about this all summer? Is that why you made that bet?”

“No!” Erica was crying again. Or still. “That’s not what I’m saying! I wasn’t mad at you, just kind of hurt, but I brushed it off, because you’re right, we always make bets like this, and plus, I know you, and I know you didn’t mean anything bad by it. I’m not trying to excuse myself here, I’m just telling you how I felt. You wanted me to be the exact same Erica I’ve always been, but I’m not that person anymore. I talked about baby stuff with Sloane because she was the only person Icouldtalk about baby stuff with, and you were so snotty and resentful about Sloane and how I was going to turn into a suburban mom just like her, and wasn’t her life depressing, and on and on.”

Well. Erica had a point there.

“Okay, yes, I was a bitch about Sloane, I admit it. But that was…” Fuck, she had stupid tears in her eyes again. “That was because I thought you were replacing me with Sloane. You moved into your cute little house, and you had your perfect relationship with your wife, and you had a baby on the way, and here I am, your fuckup friend over here who still isn’t really sure what she’s going to be when she grows up and doesn’t know how to have anactual relationship. I thought you were…done with me. Or, maybe keeping me around as an example of who you used to be but didn’t want to be anymore. Someone to tell all your rich friends stories about: ‘Let me tell you what my wild friend Taylor did this time, she’s always hilarious!’ ”

Erica got up, grabbed a box of tissues and put it in the middle of the table, then sat back down.

“Tay. I would never.” She shook her head. “My relationship with Sam isn’t perfect. Not even close. That’s another reason this year has been so hard for me.”

Taylor looked up at her.

“What? You guys are having trouble? I didn’t…I had no idea.”

“I just held it in,” Erica said. “It’s been so scary. We both dealt with the miscarriage really differently—I fell apart, and she was stoic through it all. And she’s also been totally stoic and…unfeeling through this whole pregnancy. She’s been out of town a ton for work, and generally just working a lot. I know she has a tough job, and I know she works really hard. But she’s missed a bunch of doctor’s appointments—you saw how she even left the shower early. And we keep fighting about all of that. We finally had a blowout fight after the shower; she said it’s because she’s so worried about the baby and about how childbirth will be for me that she’s trying not to think about it. We’re going to get back into couples therapy, we honestly never should have stopped, but it was one more thing, you know?”

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