Something Borrowed - Emily Giffin [141]
"Wow," he said in a heavy Queens accent. "Your girl really sucker-punched you good, huh?"
"Yes," I cried, all but licking my wounds. "She certainly did."
Loyal, reliable Rachel, my best friend of twenty-five years who always had my interest ahead of, or at least tied with her own, had WHAM! POW! sucker-punched me. Blindsided me. The surprise element of her betrayal is what burned me the most. The fact that I never saw it coming. It was as unexpected as a seeing-eye dog willfully leading his blind, trusting owner into the path of a Mack truck.
Truth be told, things weren't quite as simple as I made them out to be to my cab driver. But I didn't want him to lose sight of the main issuethe issue of what Rachel had done to me. I had made some mistakes, but I hadn't betrayed our friendship.
It was the week before what would have been my wedding day, and I had gone over to Rachel's to tell her that my wedding was called off. My fiancé, Dex, had been the first to say the difficult words—that perhaps we shouldn't get married—but I had quickly agreed because I'd had an affair with Marcus, one of Dexter's friends. One thing had led to another, and after one particular steamy night, I had become pregnant. It was all hugely difficult to absorb, and I knew the hardest part would be confessing everything to Rachel, who, at the start of the summer, had been mildly interested in Marcus. The two had gone on a few dates, but the romance had petered out when, unbeknownst to her, my relationship with Marcus began. I felt terrible the entire time—for cheating on Dex, but even more for lying to Rachel. Still, I was ready to come clean to my best friend. I was sure that that she would understand. She always did.
So I stoically arrived at Rachel's apartment on the Upper East Side.
"What's the matter?" she asked as she answered the door.
I felt a wave of comfort as I thought to myself how soothing and familiar those words were. Rachel was a maternal best friend, more maternal than my own mother. I thought of all the times my friend had asked me this question over the years: like the time I left my father's sunroof down during a thunderstorm or the day I got my period all over my white Guess jeans. She was always there with her—"What's the matter?" followed by her "It's going to be all right" in her competent tone that made me feel sure that she was right. Rachel could fix anything. Make me feel better when nobody else could. Even at that moment, when she might feel disappointed that Marcus had chosen me over her, I was sure she'd rise to the occasion and reassure me that I had chosen the right path, that things happened for a reason, that I wasn't a villain, that I was right to follow my heart, that she completely understood, and that eventually Dex would, too.
I took a deep breath and glided into her orderly studio apartment as she rattled on about the wedding, how she was at my service, ready to help with any last-minute details.
"There isn't going to be a wedding," I blurted out.
"What?" she asked. Her lips blended right in with the rest of her pale face. I watched her turn and sit on her bed. Then she asked me who called it off.
I had a flashback to high school. After a breakup, which was always a very public happening in high school, guys and girls alike would ask, "Who did it?" Everyone wanted to know who was the dumper and who the dumpee so that they could properly assign blame and dole out pity.
I said what I could never say in high school because, to be frank, I was never the dumpee. "It was mutual… Well, technically Dexter was the one. He told me this morning that he couldn't go through with it. He doesn't think that he loves me." I rolled my eyes. At that point, I didn't believe that such a thing was possible. I thought the only reason Dex wanted out was because he could sense my growing indifference. The drifting that comes when you fall for someone else.
"You're kidding me? This is crazy. How do you feel?"
I studied my Prada pink-striped jeweled sandals and matching pink toenail