The Best Thing

by Mariana Zapata

Noah had been my best friend. We’d grown up together. We’d studied judo together at the same club for fifteen years. And for a couple months, I had thought I’d been more than half in love with someone who couldn’t see me as more than what I had been to him: the girl who he’d grown up with. His kind-of sister. His friend. Then one random day, I had taken a look at him and decided yeah, no. It might have been the day after I overheard him bragging about having sex with one of my friends, but it happened. Just, nope. Nah. And as I’d gotten older, I had realized that I hadn’t loved him. Not like that. It had just been… a lapse of judgment. Hormones maybe. But I had stuck around after I’d come to my senses. Because maybe he could be a douchebag, but he’d been my friend. He’d known me back then better than just about anyone other than Peter and my gramps. He’d been my friend. Or so I thought. Then, many years later, after we had both grown up, I got pregnant, and he suddenly lost his shit and left. And now he was here. Calling me, asking about something that had nothing to do with him. Not anymore.

cunt