Falling for My Ex’s Best Friend
I don’t know the exact moment I fell in love with him.
It was probably some tiny thing, like the way he always walked on the side of the sidewalk closest to the cars, or how he never looked at his phone when I was talking.
But one night, we were sitting on my crappy thrift store couch watching some stupid action movie, and there was this quiet moment where he looked over at me, and I felt my whole body say, “Oh.”
Like my heart had been tilting toward him for months and finally just gave up and fell.
I panicked, obviously.
I told myself it was rebound, or gratitude, or loneliness.
But then Jake kissed me first and ruined my theories.
It was so gentle I almost missed it.
He leaned in, paused like he was giving me a chance to move away, and when I didn’t, he pressed his mouth to mine and let out this tiny, broken sound like he’d been holding his breath for years.
Afterward, he pulled back, eyes wide, and said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I just, I can’t keep pretending I don’t care,” and I laughed because I was so relieved.
I grabbed his shirt and kissed him again and said, “Maybe stop apologizing and do that again,” and he did.
So we became us.
It was weird at first, sure.
There were whispers, and a few friends who said things like, “Isn’t that messy?” or, “What will Ryan think?”
Jake always answered the same way, calm and steady.
“Ryan made his choices,” he would say.
“Harper deserves to be happy.”
And the part of me that still felt like a discarded toy would go very quiet inside when he said it.
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