Then You Saw Me by Carrie Aarons

22

Taya

“Ithink I’m going to throw up.”

Amelie leans on me, her head on my shoulder, as I drape my legs across Bevan’s lap. We’ve always watched TV like this since we were kids, all over each other. Bevan usually scratches my arm with her blood red, coffin-shaped nails, and I’m in heaven. Is there a better feeling than someone softly tickling your arm or back? Sex be damned.

“You’re not. He’s a douchebag. Just think of him as a douchebag.” Bevan flicks off Gannon’s face on the TV screen.

I’m not sure why we’re watching this or why we agreed to let Amelie watch the entire season of the reality dating show Gannon left college to go on. They started filming weeks ago and still are, since we can’t reach him by phone or email thanks to production’s rules. But they’re now airing the first episodes, and it’s brutal on Amelie.

So we decided we’re all going to watch together. That means viewing a shitty reality show on a Thursday night when we could be out, or I could be up in Austin’s bedroom. Which is where I’d rather be, no offense to my best friends, but I’ve had years with them. Austin and I are just discovering our groove … and his moves. Wink face. I could discover that guy all day long.

But Amelie is so shook by this. Imagine being the girl who has been head over heels in love with her best friend, who leads her on in terrible fashion, for more than half her life. Then imagine that said love of her life decides to date a woman on TV, professing his attraction to her every other scene when he barely knows the girl.

On the screen, Gannon is blathering on about falling for some girl who looks like a Kardashian-replica Instagram model. She’s draped all over his lap in a bikini bottom that can only be classified as dental floss, and I’m pretty sure he’s three shots in.

Then he drops the line.

“I think I’m falling in love with you. I could spend my life with you,” says an on-screen Gannon, and then the upcoming scenes after the commercials flash to him looking at diamond rings.

Bevan actually sits up and sprays the drink of soda she just took all over the room. “I’m sorry, what the fuck did he just say?”

My ears are ringing, and I have to shake off my shirt sleeve from where she just soaked it in Diet Coke.

“He’s thinking about proposing to her! Proposing? He’s twenty fucking years old. What’s he going to say next? ‘I could see myself marrying her.’ Is he fucking serious?”

Tears stream down her face, and I can honestly hear the cracks fracturing her heart right now. Bevan and I exchange a look, knowing we should put a stop to watching this. But at the same time are completely aware that Amelie will just go to her bedroom and watch endless clips of this on YouTube.

“Come here.” I pull her into a hug, and she begins to sob into my sweatshirt.

I have to hand it to Gannon, though. The guy is good. He’s going to get his fifteen minutes and more, which is what he’s always wanted. Gannon is the flashy star that was way too big for Webton even when we were eight. He was voted “most likely to be famous” in our senior year yearbook. The guy is charming, gorgeous, has this wicked little smile, and knows exactly how to turn on his best self for a camera.

Yeah, I have no doubt he’ll be the darling of this franchise in no time. Meanwhile, I’m going to have to pick my best friend up off the floor each day for years to come. So, I fucking hate the guy right now.

“Aimer, ce n’est pas se regarder l’un l’autre, c’est regarder ensemble dans la même direction,” I tell her, enunciating each word.

“When you speak French, it helps a little.” She wipes a tear from her cheek. “What does it mean?”

“Antoine de St-Exupéry wrote it. It means ‘Love doesn’t mean gazing at each other, but looking, together, in the same direction.’ I think it fits with you. You’re only gazing at Gannon, blinded by the man you want to see. But he isn’t looking in the same direction. He’s not even looking, he’s got his head buried so far up his own ass—”

“We get it, you poet.” Bevan chuckles. “But she is right, Am, no matter how harsh it sounds. You deserve someone who looks in the same direction with you, at you. Believe me, I know how fucked up love is. But you, out of all of us, deserve happiness. Gannon is a pig. Let’s leave him in the shit and move on.”

Amelie seems to be digesting the truth, and I hate having to be so direct, but she needs to hear this.

“But look at Taya. She got her happy ending.” She points to me.

“First of all, I’ve been seeing Austin on consistent, good terms for like a week. I wouldn’t call that a happy ending.” But in my heart, I know how happy I am and how much I’m counting on this to last.

“Exactly,” Bevan says. “Plus, remember that movie? He’s Just Not That Into You? Taya is the exception, not the rule. And she may become the rule. Hell, she was the rule for like a billion years before he even noticed her.”

“Thanks, Bev.” I roll my eyes, a little hurt at her insinuation that Austin and I are just a fling.

“You know what I’m trying to say. This is about Amelie.”

I love Bevan to my core, but sometimes her dismissiveness can cut deep. I try to focus on our friend though, and what we’re trying to get across to her.

“All I’m saying,” Bevan continues, “is maybe it’s time to get on some dating apps. At least talk to another guy. Text flirt. It’ll improve your mood.”

Amelie looks back at the TV, where Gannon’s face appears again. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s time to move on and look for someone who actually wants to be with me.”

There is a note of hope in her voice, so I’ll take it. But as we settle back into our typical positions to watch the rest of the show, I can’t help but think about what Bevan said and that I was nearly in Amelie’s position just weeks ago.

I can’t forget that. For as much as I’m living in the honeymoon period of hooking up with Austin and hoping for a lot more than that, I can’t let myself get carried away. The trip to Webton was a decent turning point, and I think we saw a side of each other that neither of us previously knew. But I got swept up in his aura before, before I even really knew him, and I have to put that age-old crush in the back of my mind.

Because Bevan could be right. This could dissolve between us because of either party. And while that makes my heart ache, I can’t put all of my eggs in one basket.

I’ll end up like Amelie, sobbing over a boy who will never feel the same way about me.