Page 77 of Best I Never Had

He smiles softly at me, his warm hand gently squeezing my forearm before he breaks free of my grasp and turns to walk away, leaving me to face his backside.

“Is that a friend of yours?” Shawn asks, looking up from the menu once I settle back in my seat.

“Yeah, we went to high school together.”

“Oh,” he exclaims, surprised. “That’s great you two have kept in touch all this time.”

I stay quiet, considering correcting him but not wanting to confirm the inaccuracy in his observation. We continue our lunch as I steal glances toward the kitchen, hoping to see Hayden again. He looked so upset, and it worries me. I wonder if something happened. Maybe something with his parents or here at work. But when we spoke, just briefly, he gave nothing away, leaving the gnawing feeling that I want to right whatever wrong caused the tightness radiating off of him.

José’s sharp elbow to my side brings me back to the table, the mouthwatering scent of bouillabaisse and croque monsieur drifting into the space between us as Shawn’s courteous expression sits across from me. He lets out a short huff of laughter, more from embarrassment rather than something actually being funny.

“I was just asking how long you and José have known each other.”

“Oh!” I exclaim a little too loudly. “Um, we’ve been working together for about…three years now?” I turn to José for confirmation.

José nods, agreeing. “And I’ve been trying to get her laid since herfeoass ex-boyfriend dumped her.”

“José!” I hiss as my face turns hot with embarrassment. Even if he threw in a tacky insult meant for Matteo in an attempt to defend me, this man I just met doesn’t need to know my history of past relationships.

But Shawn politely chuckles, more laughing with José than at me. “It’s fine,” he answers. “I just got out of a long-term relationship, so I get it.”

I smile at him before glaring at José. Unaffected by my silent threat to trash his office and mold his stapler in Jell-O, he smiles proudly. I suppress the urge to flick his forehead and turn my attention back to Shawn instead.

He’s very handsome, just like José said. He’s also very kind and polite. And funny in the way that he knows when to say the punchline and how to gauge the conversation to slip in a witty yet inoffensive joke. He’s perfect. Yet I can’t bring myself to show interest.

Even as we settle our bill after our short lunch, having to make it back to the office before a meeting with Mark, I don’t give into José’s glare urging me to offer my number or a possibility for a future meeting. For some reason, I can’t shake the lingering guilt that settled in the pit of my stomach as José keeps pushing me to go on a date with Shawn.

As we walk out of the restaurant behind Shawn as he hurries back to his office in the Financial District, not too far from our own, I turn back to look for Hayden. I can’t help but wonder if this pang of hesitance has anything to do with him. The reason he remains a constant in my life, only a press of a button to wash away my loneliness, is because we’re both actually lonely. Take that away and there would be no reason for me to call him in the middle of the night to discuss why we both equally adore Winston Schmidt but can’t stand Nick Miller. Or if it was worth it to trudge out of our warm beds and into the late New York City night just so we could meet up over a cup of hot chocolate and fresh donuts. I would have to give all of that up, and I don’t know if I’m ready to let go of my best friend. To let go of the one person that never once thought that I was “too much.”

When I was with Matteo, I did a lot of tiptoeing, always feeling as if I was too much. And maybe having Hayden by my side, reminding me that I would never be too much to him, is the reason I’m finally able to see how preoccupied I was in my relationship.

There were so many things that I masked through the blindness of love when I was with Matteo. When I would laugh a little too loudly, he would roll his eyes and turn the other way out of embarrassment. When I would skip or dance because something excited me, he would tell me to calm down. When I reached out to him affectionately, requesting to hold hands or a kiss out in public, he would deny me. As if my overabundance of affection was out of place for an adult. Now, as I look at the rubble of our relationship from the outside in, I feel freed from being that embarrassed girl who felt shunned from being too happy or excited.

When Hayden told me I shined, I realized that I really did. Without Matteo’s narrowed eyes and pursed lips looking at me, wishing I were different, I turned into someone who didn’t have to hide under a shadow. I don’t have to look over my shoulder when I feel every single emotion course through me, worried that I may be too expressive, too eager. Because Hayden doesn’t force me to stow away that side of me. Instead, he encouraged me to be me.

When I laugh too loudly, he piles on to the jokes, making my laughter ring even louder and longer. When I skip, he joins me. And when I do things that Matteo would normally turn away from like forcing him to blow out a candle when it wasn’t even his birthday or trying avocado-flavored frozen yogurt, he does so willingly. With a smile and words that make me feel like I’m not too much. As if I’m exactly the person he needs in his life.

I’m not ready to let all of that go.

“Natalia,” José scolds when we walk back into our office building. We’re standing in front of a closed elevator door, waiting patiently for it to take us back to the buzz of the workday. “Please say yes if the man asks you to dinner.”

I sigh. “José?—”

“Just hear me out,” he interrupts. “No pressure. Just a dinner to get to know each other. You two don’t even have to call it a date.”

I throw my hands in the air, giving in. “Fine.”

José squeals, clasping his hands in front of him just as the elevator ding announces its arrival. “I’ll give him your number.”

29

Hayden

senior year

I pulledinto the school parking lot Thursday morning with Jenny sitting in the passenger seat.She texted me the night before, asking if I wouldn’t mind picking her up since her car was in the shop. While that may have been true, it was obvious she wanted to make a point by coming to me instead of one of her friends.

“I have to meet Tina before first period,” she announces, her door opening a few inches before she starts to exit the car. “She wanted to talk about something.”

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