Tyler Gilbert and my best friend Isabel Sanchez shared the same zodiac sign.
The two of them always had this natural, effortless understanding.
They were both top students. Their SAT scores landed at exactly the same near-perfect mark.
They went to the same university, too.
While I was at the school next door, and even seeing them once meant messaging ahead to book a time.
Later, after graduation, I said I wanted to catch a midnight movie.
The two of them said, in the same breath, that they'd already seen it.
Then they started picking apart the details of the film, and I couldn't get a single word in.
I sank into that hollow feeling, and Tyler reached over, touched my cheek, and said,
"It's fine. You never really liked movies anyway."
"No point putting yourself through it just to fit in with us."
And then Tyler decided to go abroad, and Isabel just happened to pick the same country.
Watching the two of them lined up to even leave the country together,
I offered to go abroad with Tyler.
He turned me down with a frown.
"Elaine Fox, this part was never in your life. You shouldn't change yourself for my sake."
My eyes went red, and I lost it.
"Then why does Isabel get to?"
"You two are shut in a lab together every single day."
"Eating together every day, laughing together."
"Why not me?"
He let out a soft sigh.
"Because that's the path she was always going to walk."
"But you're not."
"You shouldn't sacrifice so much of yourself just to keep pace with my life. That's not fair to you, and I couldn't carry that either."
He was leaving in three days, and he didn't need me along.
Watching him laugh with my best friend as they went over the details of their trip,
I turned away and dialed someone else.
"I broke up. Didn't you say you wanted to marry me?"
"……"
On the other end, when Raymond Simmons took the call, he went quiet for a few seconds.
He didn't ask why I'd broken up, and he didn't sound thrilled about marrying me.
Instead, the first thing out of his mouth was,
"Did he… did he hurt you?"
"Tell me."
"If that Tyler kid dared to hurt you, I'll fly back right now and settle it with him."
I looked up at the two of them, laughing away in front of me, and my mouth twisted into something bitter.
"No. There are just some things I've only now seen clearly."
"The wrong person is always the wrong person."
I used to think that if I just tried hard enough, I could close the gap between us.
One of them was my boyfriend, after all, and the other my best friend.
They were my closest people.
And even as they moved ahead, they'd be willing to bring me along.
But the truth was always a little worse than what I imagined.
They ran experiments together, with an endless supply of things to talk about.
Every time I bounced up and invited them out for a spicy noodle hot pot,
they'd both pinch their noses, thoroughly put off.
"Elaine, only you would love something that reeks like that."
So they'd leave me alone in the noodle shop.
And go get a barbecue cookout next door instead.
Most of the time when Tyler and I were together,
he'd queue up a show for me and tuck me into the couch to watch it like a good girl,
while he sat beside me, buried in his laptop, writing reports, working.
We weren't like other couples with a bottomless well of things to say.
Yet with Isabel it was somehow different.
Whether it was serious conversation or just goofing around, the two of them could go all day without a break.
Even for going abroad to study,
they'd chosen the same country and bought tickets to leave on the same day.
Every time, so perfectly in sync it was as if they'd planned it.
Thinking back over all of it, I drew a breath and asked Raymond, firm now,
“I just want to ask you one thing. Do you still want to marry me?”
My voice was thick and nasal when I asked him.
“Elaine, are you crying?”
Raymond went straight into a panic.
“I'm still overseas right now, setting up a project.”
“Wait for me. Two days at the most, and I'll fly home to you.”
I gave a small laugh.
“Okay.”
After I hung up, I looked up again, just in time to see Isabel tucking a half-folded umbrella into a suitcase.
“Leave it, I'll do it.”
Tyler walked over on his own, folded it away for her without a second thought, and zipped the suitcase shut.
“Don't worry about me, go comfort Elaine.”
Isabel noticed me standing there in silence, and did her best to signal him with her eyes.
“She couldn't come abroad with you in the first place, she's already upset. She's your girlfriend.”
Tyler gave me a cool glance.
“It's fine. Elaine handles pressure well, she'll get over it on her own.”
Hearing that, I laughed.
I wiped my tears, turned around, hailed a ride, and went home to pack.
I was just hauling my bags, big and small, out the door for shipping when the door was pushed open.
Tyler froze.
Then he came over, frowning, and said to me,
“Didn't I already tell you? I'm not letting you come abroad with me.”
“You've got a good job here at home.”
“You can't give up everything you have just because I'm your boyfriend. That isn't fair to you.”
“And it's a lot of pressure on me too.”
I stopped packing, straightened up, and looked at Tyler.
“I'm not going abroad with you.”
He stared at me, thrown.
“Then what are you packing for?”
I scoffed.
“Clearing things out. When something's no longer needed, you throw it out.”
“I don't buy it.”
Tyler frowned, walked over, and picked out the shirt from my suitcase that I wore most often.
“This is your favorite. How could you bear to throw it out?”
He sighed, at a loss.
“Elaine, can you not be like this?”
“I told you, not letting you come abroad with me is for your own good.”
“This job of yours pays well, your parents are here at home. Running that far away for me, is it worth it?”
Tyler had always been gentle with me before. Even the time I accidentally spilled coffee on his laptop,
he had only smiled, indulgent, and said, “Leave it to me, I'll take care of it.”
It was only about coming abroad with him.
On that, he pushed back hard.
I looked at Tyler.
“Then tell me. Why is Isabel going to the exact same country as you?”
Tyler froze for a second, then lifted his eyes to me.
“It's just a coincidence.”
“She……she has her own plans, and it just happens to be the same country I chose.”
“With her major, the schools over there are good, going will really help her.”
I laughed.
“Her plans just happened to land on the country you're going to?”
“Just happened to be the same city?”
“Just happened to book the same flight?”
“Tyler, do you believe that yourself?”
Tyler didn't argue back, he only stared at me quietly, a flicker of impatience passing through his eyes.
“Elaine, Isabel and I are just friends.”
“Besides, weren't you the one who introduced her to me in the first place?”
“She's your best friend, so I looked out for her a little more, that's all.”
“We get along, we think alike.”
“But that doesn't mean anything.”
“If you insist on fixating on this, there's nothing I can do about it.”
I looked down and gave a small laugh, then pulled an old movie ticket out of my pocket.
"So how do you explain this?"
Tyler glanced at it, and his face shifted at once.
"You went through my pockets."
His hand came up on reflex to snatch it back.
But I only stared at him, cold.
"I said I wanted to see that movie. You and Isabel had already seen it."
"I told myself it was a coincidence. That the two of you just happened to have the same idea."
"It never crossed my mind."
"That you were the one who asked her to go with you."
Under what circumstances does a man skip over his own girlfriend to go see a movie alone with his girlfriend's best friend?
I couldn't think of one.
But once he was caught, there was no panic on his face at all. His brows only knit tighter.
"It was just one movie."
"Yes, I asked Isabel to come. So what does that prove?"
"Her advisor had assigned a reaction paper on that exact film."
"A friend had given me a ticket, so we went. It's that simple."
I froze for a moment.
Tyler, always so terse, never bothered with long-winded explanations like this.
Except when it came to Isabel.
For her, he always made an exception.
I had nothing left to say. I turned to leave, and he caught me by the wrist.
"Elaine, can you please stop letting your mind run wild?"
"You're my girlfriend."
"Your best friend and I just share the same sign, that's all, so our personalities and ideas and interests happen to line up."
"At most she's a close friend."
"Or another version of me."
"You're the only one I love. It won't be anyone else."
My steps only paused for a beat, and I walked out anyway, without looking back.
At the door I ran straight into Isabel, her face full of surprise.
"Elaine?"
"It's so late. Where are you off to?"
My eyes dropped to the two cups of coffee in her hands.
Starbucks.
Most of the times I wasn't around, Isabel would bring two, one for her and one for Tyler.
"Isabel, shouldn't I be the one asking you?"
"It's this late. What are you doing at my place?"
I smiled, and took one of the cups from her hand.
"You brought me coffee, right? I'll take it."
"Hey—that one isn't for—"
Isabel caught the look on Tyler's face and shut her mouth instantly, forcing on a smile.
"Oh, Elaine, it's just a cup of coffee. Look at you, my little glutton, fighting your own boyfriend over it."
"I only figured you usually don't have to stay late running experiments, so I didn't get you any food."
"Since you want it, then this one of mine can go to Tyler."
But she'd clearly already taken a sip from that cup's straw, a faint trace of lipstick still on it.
Tyler, who was always so particular, didn't mind in the least. He took it right from her.
"Thanks."
"Those experiment files you wanted, I'll send them to your email later."
"No rush!"
Isabel waved a hand, then turned and crouched down to pet the cat Tyler kept.
The motions easy, familiar, as though she were back in her own home, stroking her own pet.
"Tyler, why is your cat still so skinny?"
"Didn't you feed it that cat food I bought last time?"
Tyler laughed too.
"Of course I did. It just won't put on weight."
He leaned in toward her without thinking, and the two of them fell into their back-and-forth.
And in an instant, I was air again.
