Page 35 of Don't Puck Your Best Friend’s Girl

I walk past Saylor without looking at her, my voice flat. "Come on. I'm taking you home."

I don't wait to see if she follows. Don't turn back to check if she's okay. The numbness spreading through my chest leaves little room for concern about her feelings right now. Byron's words echo in my head, each one a hammer strike against whatever stupid fucking hope I had.

She told me you were nothing but a pathetic, insecure little boy hiding behind your grades...

The car door opens and closes as I slide behind the wheel. I stare straight ahead, wiping my sweaty hands on my pants. After a moment, the passenger door opens. Saylor gets in without a word, her movements hesitant, uncertain. The scent of her shampoo fills the enclosed space.

I start the engine and pull away from the curb, leaving Byron and whatever he is going through behind.

Said you probably had a tiny dick to match your tiny ego, and that's why Hannah cheated on you.

My jaw clenches so tight it sends a dull pain radiating through my temples. I take the next turn too sharply, the tires squeal.

"I wish we hadn't told him," Saylor says quietly, breaking the suffocating silence between us.

I don't respond. What is there to say? That she's right? That we should have kept our hook up a secret, spared ourselves this pain if not his? The thought leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

"We didn't need to do this," she continues, her voice gaining an edge. "He never would have found out if you hadn't insisted on being so righteous about it."

I shake my head. After everything — after convincing her to do the right thing, to face the consequences of our actions together — she's trying to make this my fault? A humorless laugh escapes me before I can stop it.

"Why did you make me do this?" she demands, turning in her seat to face me. The tears are gone from her voice now, replaced by something harder, defensive. "Everything was going to be fine, and you had to play the good guy, which we both know you are not."

Fuck off, I want to say. I glance at her, wanting to tell her that she is the fucking bad guy, not me.

I think about Hannah and Sanderson, about how navigating an accidental hookup is different than a deliberate one. Byron's face is seared into my memory — the betrayal, the hurt, the disgust. I know that feeling intimately, have lived with it for months. But there's a crucial difference that makes what we have done a thousand times worse. Sandy never deliberately went after Hannah.

What Saylor and I did was different. I knew who she was. I knew what it would mean. And I did it anyway because in the moment, I only cared about fucking her. I hate myself even more knowing I would fuck her right now if she came onto me.

Said you deserved to get cheated on because you're the kind of narcissistic asshole who makes everyone around you feel small just so you can feel big.

The words cut deeper than they should because part of me knows it's true. The cocky exterior, the academic arrogance, the need to be better than everyone else, the manipulation tactics I use — it's all armor, protection against the fear that I'm exactly what Byron said: second-best, insecure, unworthy.

And now I've proven it. With spectacular, friendship-destroying efficiency.

"You know what, Saylor?" I finally respond, my voice unnervingly calm. "You're right. We shouldn't have told him. I shouldn't have talked you into doing the right thing. My mistake for thinking you actually cared about being a good fucking person."

The words hang in the air between us, sharp-edged and unretractable. I can feel her shock without looking at her, the sudden stillness in the passenger seat more telling than any response.

"That's not fair," she says after a long moment, her voice smaller than before.

"Isn't it?" I keep my eyes on the road, the familiar streets passing in a blur as we approach her apartment complex. "You agreed we should tell him. You agreed it was the right thing to do. Then the second it got hard, you lied. Right to his face. Right to mine."

"I never said those things," she insists, but there's a hollow quality to her denial that confirms everything.

I let her words hang in the air between us, testing their weight against what Byron revealed. The realization settles over me, cold and undeniable… I don't know this girl at all. Whatever connection I thought we shared last night was a drunken illusion, a temporary alignment of loneliness and alcohol. Nothing more.

Who is she, really? The girl who whimpered my name as I came inside of her last night? The one who spent the last year apparently dissecting my every flaw behind my back? Or this version of her beside me now, arms crossed protectively over her chest as if I'm the bad guy?

Maybe we're all just collections of contradictions, showing different faces to different people. The thought provides little comfort as I pull into her apartment complex, morning sunlight glinting off rows of parked cars.

I find a visitor spot and slide into park, leaving the engine running.

When she finally speaks again, her voice is softer, almost hesitant. "I guess I'll see you later?"

The question mark hangs in the air, an offering I'm not ready to accept. What exactly does "later" mean after something like this? After what we just did to Byron, after hearing what she really thinks of me, after knowing that she would rather lie and deny than tell the truth?

"I guess," I reply, serving her words back to her with the same deliberate vagueness. The petty satisfaction I expected to feel doesn't materialize — just more emptiness.

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