Page 31 of You Will Never Be Me

“Hah! I am very familiar with that feeling.” I raise my glass, and he meets it with a satisfyingclinkonce again.

“When I first met her, she was so different.” His eyes get this faraway look and I know what they’re seeing: Aspen eight years ago, girlish and—not so much naive but fully aware of her naivety, happy to look up to everyone else and play submissive follower. Her eyes and smiles were always open and trusting.Whatever you think is best, Mer!she’d say. “I felt like—” He grimaces. “This is going to sound really stupid, I know, feel free to give me a hard time over it, but…I felt like a man. Like I was there to protect her.” He takes another gulp of wine. “How’s that for some alpha male bullshit, huh?”

I laugh. “Wow, Ben. That is indeed some alpha male bullshit. Never took you for that kind of guy, honestly.”

“I’m not. I swear, I’m not some chest-thumping, gun-toting meathead. But I just—in some small way, I liked feeling like I could shield Aspen from whatever bad stuff’s out there.”

You could protect me. Luca and I are all alone in the world.The words pop into my head out of nowhere. Fortunately, they don’t make it through the filter between my brain and my mouth, but I feel guilty anyway, as though he can read my shameful thoughts. “It’s not as ridiculous as you think it is,” I mutter, then quickly swallow more wine before I say anything else.

“Well I sure as hell don’t feel like that anymore. Not nowadays.I’m just one of the millions of chores that Aspen has to tick off every evening.” Ben leans closer to me, close enough for me to smell the spicy scent of his aftershave. “What happened between the two of you?”

“She didn’t tell you?”

“Aspen? She’s a closed book. And even if I did manage to pry the book open, it would be written in Russian or something.”

I can’t tell if the fact that Aspen hasn’t told Ben means our fight shattered her the same way it did me or that it meant nothing to her. Maybe she’s forgotten about me entirely. “Like I said, she got too big for me. We used to talk every day. Like, from the moment we got up, we’d—”

“Oh, trust me, I know,” Ben laughs. “I was so sick of you, Mer.”

I grin ruefully. “Sorry, not sorry. We were tight. But then she got big, and she found other big influencer friends, I guess. Our chats became more sparse. I would message her, and it would be hours before she responded. I’d ask if we could hang out—I mean, you know better than anyone else, we used to hang out every day! But she started giving these bullshit excuses. ‘Sorry, Mer, I have a meeting to get to.’ ‘Oh no, Mer, I’m going to be so swamped today!’ And on and on. A million reasons boiling down to the same damn thing: that she no longer had time for me. I wasn’t important enough for her.” I can’t bear to look at Ben as I spill the truth, so I train my gaze at my glass of wine. “I tried to be okay with it for the longest time, I really did. But then one day I just…snapped. I exploded on her. I told her she was the fakest friend I’ve ever had.”

Ben sucks in his breath through his teeth, and I grimace. “Yeah, it was bad. I was screaming at her, and she looked so—” My breath catches in my throat, and I have to pause to keep my voiceeven. “She looked anguished. But also like she pitied me. I couldn’t stand having her look at me that way. Who the hell does she think she is? I told her never to call me again and I stormed off.” I’m burning with shame now, so I try to lighten the mood by adding, “It was super dramatic.” I laugh to hide how much telling the truth has wounded me, but Ben doesn’t join in.

“That’s messed up,” he says.

“I know, I’ve always had a bad temper, I—”

“No, Mer,” he says quietly. “I mean the way Aspen treated you. That’s messed up.”

I finally look up at him and immediately get lost in his aquamarine eyes. There is a connection here, a surprisingly deep one, forged through both of our bitter experiences with Aspen. Here is the one person in the world who understands completely, without reservation, how I feel.

But—god—haven’t I done enough to Aspen already? The worst thing she ever did to me was to outgrow our friendship. What am I doing? Stealing her husband? Am I really going to stoop that low? Be The Other Woman?

But maybe it’s the wine or the unbearable loneliness gnawing at my heart ever since I lost Aspen, or maybe it’s the falling-off-a-cliff feeling that I get when I think of a life with nobody but Luca. One day he’ll turn eighteen and leave me, too, and I’ll be all alone. Maybe it’s all of these things and none of them. Maybe, maybe.

Whatever it is driving that need, the same force lifts my hand and places it on top of Ben’s. He shifts, and for a horrifying second, I think he’s going to pull his hand away. Instead, he flips it over so it is palm up, my hand now in his, and his fingers wrap around mine and squeeze. I can feel the thump of his heart in thewarm palm of his hand, and it is as though we’re holding the entire universe together. The space between us thrums with electricity. I’m seeing Ben in a whole new light: not as my best friend’s husband, or her irritating boyfriend, but as his own separate entity. A man.

I notice, now, how his left eyebrow slopes ever so gently downward, just a little. The asymmetry gives his face more depth. I take in the aquamarine of his eyes and the way his brown lashes catch the light, turning them golden. My gaze settles on the curve of his lips, the little notch in his bottom lip that highlights their plumpness. Ben isn’t just pleasant looking; Ben is handsome. He’s very handsome.

And his eyes are drinking me in, too, as though, like me, he’s seeing the person for the first time. Inch by inch, we close the space between us. All of my senses are heightened. I feel superhuman—so sensitive that I can practically feel every air molecule grazing my skin. Then our lips meet, featherlight, and a soft whimper escapes me because it’s been so long since I was touched like this. Then harder; a longer, deeper kiss. I’m kissing Ben. I’m—

What are you doing?

I jerk back a split second before the front door opens. In my sheer panic, there is a dreadful moment where I think the person standing at the doorway is Aspen. Then my senses return, and I see that it isn’t. In fact, her height and build and the way she wears her hair are probably more similar to mine.

“Liv!” Ben cries, jumping to his feet. He looks about as horrified to see her as can be possible. I mean, the way he’s reacting, she might as well be Aspen. “What are you doing here?”

I wince. His voice is too shrill, guilt coursing through it in palpable waves. Come on, Ben. You need to be better at this.

Liv’s gaze ping-pongs back and forth between Ben and me, an awkward smile plastered on her face. She looks beautiful in a way that I’m familiar with. There’s a very specific type of beauty that TikTokers have—uber plumped-up lips and eyelashes that graze the eyebrows. So, a TikToker. I stand and offer her my hand. “Hi, I’m Meredith Lee. And you are?” I hope I’m coming off a lot more confident than I feel.

“I’m Liv. Aspen’s PA.” Her grip is strong, her expression knowing.

Behind me, Ben is shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The familiar irritation that I used to feel when it came to anything involving Ben rises up. I feel an inexplicable urge to smack him and snap,Stop fidgeting.

I force myself to keep my attention on Liv. “Oh, right! Of course. It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Hmm.” Liv nods with a close-lipped smile. Then she turns to face Ben. “Aspen thinks you took her iPad by mistake. I’m here to pick it up.”

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