I thought the hardest part of loving two people was learning how to share them. I was wrong. After one ordinary trip home, I discovered that my best friend and my brother had been keeping something from me for months — and the reason hurt almost as much as the secret itself.
The first thing I found in my best friend’s suitcase was a red sweater.
The second was a photograph of my brother proposing to her three months earlier.
By then, Mia was already on the phone telling me not to look.
I wish I could say I listened.
***
Mia and I had been best friends for almost 15 years.
We met at 15 and survived bad haircuts, worse boyfriends, college, job changes, and one awful apartment before agreeing we loved each other more with separate bathrooms.
At 30, she was still the person I called before I’d even decided how I felt.
Our five-day girls’ trip should have felt easy.
Mostly, it did.
Except Mia kept almost telling me something.
The first time happened our first night.
We were eating takeout on our hotel beds when her phone lit up. She smiled before checking it.
I didn’t need to see the screen.
“Daniel?”
She turned the phone facedown.
“Um… maybe.”
Daniel was my older brother and, for the past 11 months, Mia’s boyfriend.
I’d needed a week to adjust. After that, two people I loved making each other happy wasn’t something I needed to complicate.
“You two are disgustingly cute,” I said.
Mia folded her napkin in half. Then in half again.
“You’re really okay with us being together, Karen?”
“Mia, it’s been almost a year. If I wasn’t okay, you’d know.”
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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