Best I Never Had

Chapter 1

1

Natalia

past - senior year

I fidget in my seat as the hard stool underneath me grows uncomfortable. The classroom, decorated with various atomic models and a poster of a sad animated cell holding a phone with the words “no cell phones” in block letters, starts to slowly fill with students. One by one, they take their spots as our teacher, Mr. Khan, points to the assigned places on his seating chart.

“Okay, class. You’re going to grab your microscopes from the cabinets. The slides for the cells are sitting on each of your tables for you and your assigned lab partners.” Mr. Khan’s voice rings through the classroom now that everyone has settled into their seats. I notice Hayden Marshall to my right eyeing the slides sitting between us as we play a silent game of who’s-going-to-get-our-microscope before I start to stand.

“I’ll get it.” His low voice rings calmly .

I tilt my head up, meeting his eyes while making sure to smile, not wanting to come off as rude or unfriendly. His eyes, light with the tie-dye effect of olive and copper, look down at me as the wavy locks of his hair curl along his forehead and earlobes. His hands are tucked into the kangaroo pockets of his black hoodie, slightly faded, showing its comfort and use, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. I swivel back onto my rusty stool, turning to face the black surface of our lab table.

Why did I decide to take AP Bio? A class that I have no use for, will probably pass with a mediocre B, and will cause me unnecessary stress the entirety of my senior year. And now, I’ve been officially assigned Hayden as my lab partner.

Hayden Marshall. The jock whose interest in science shouldn’t have extended beyond learning which starch source was most efficient in fermenting beer or exactly what about the female anatomy attracts their sexual counterparts. Yet here he was, ready to differentiate squamous cells and basal cells.

I watch from my periphery as Hayden stalks back with one hand gripping the arm of the microscope and the other supporting the base. He slides the microscope across the counter, the rounded tip of his thumb brushing against the tabletop, before unraveling the thick cord and plugging it in.

“I’m Hayden, by the way,” he offers, his voice cool and collected as he steps half a step back, enough room for me to fill the space he was occupying in front of the microscope. Almost as if his plan is to follow my lead, his unfamiliarity in a lab setting showing through the cautious hesitance in his body language.

I don’t offer my name. Instead, I nod as I flick on the light source and position the first of our slides over the mechanical stage.

“You’re Natalia?”

“Nat,” I answer too quickly, pulling away from the eyepiece long enough to correct him.

“Nat,” he repeats.

Considering we’ve been going to the same schools since we were in eighth grade, it’s unbelievable that this is the first real interaction we’ve ever had. Maybe it’s the fact that our social circles run differently or that it’s obvious even to us that we would get along as well as oil and water. But the reasoning behind why we’re lab partners isn’t some cosmic alignment or a sudden realization that we’ll make the best of friends. It’s simply the most original order of sequence known to mankind: the alphabet. When our last names come right after the other, Marquez and Marshall, it was only a matter of time before we were brought together in a way that wasn’t our yearbook pictures sitting side by side.

I flick my pencil against the eyepiece, a hollow clink-clink filling the awkward silence between us. “That’s simple squamous.”

He steps in front of the microscope. His tan arm brushes against my shoulder as I lean away. I start filling out the worksheet that was passed around at the start of class while I wait for his observation of the slide. He nods as he pulls away and removes the slide for the next one with a scowl on his face that lingers between frustration and determination.

The rest of the class continues. I correct Hayden when he mistakenly identifies a pseudostratified columnar epithelium as a simple columnar, something Mr. Khan warned us of. He asks multiple times where in our text these epithelial cells can be found after finding that he had been going over the wrong chapter in our reading assignment.

After we’ve placed our equipment back to the correct spots, with Mr. Khan hovering over us like a hawk to make sure we handle everything with care, we hook our backpacks onto our shoulders and watch as the rest of class files out of the room.

Hayden turns to face me with his index finger scratching the small plane of smooth skin in front of his ear. “I swear, I’m not some dumb jock that’s hoping to skate along on my lab partner’s good graces,” he says apologetically. I look up at him, his height stretching toward the porous tile ceiling, as he waits for me to say something, anything.

“It’s fine,” I say, sounding too timid.

“Yeah,” he answers. “I’ll be more prepared for the next class.”

I give a sympathetic nod while realizing maybe this perception of Hayden Marshall that I’ve had over the years is completely wrong. Maybe those superficial titles like “jock” or “flirt” I mentally assigned to him are inaccurate in describing the Hayden Marshall standing in front of me now.

“I really don’t mind until you catch up to the current chapter.”

He smiles at me. “Thanks.”

present – eight years later

I’ve always wanted a puppy. Growing up, my sisters, Carmen and Lucy, and I begged our parents for a dog, but they never budged. Responsibilities and whatnot. So whenever I see one, their furry tails wagging side to side and ears perked up in overzealous excitement, I find it hard to ignore them. As a result, I always give in, even if the owner is a stranger. Just a light scratch behind the ears, allowing a warm lick into the palm of my hand, or sometimes, if the moment allows, reducing myself to baby talk.

But right now, as the fluffy ball of eagerness begs for my attention, I’m left dumbfounded. Gobsmacked, befuddled, flabbergasted. All of the adjectives I can scour from my brain to define the effect of this bombshell that’s been dropped in front of me. So instead, I watch blankly as the owner, an elderly woman with a full head of silver hair, tugs at the dog’s bright-yellow collar as she gently coaxes it to follow along. Both dog and owner scurry off into the busy sidewalk, oblivious to the numbing shock coursing through my limbs.

“Sorry, Nat.” Lucy’s voice rings through the dull city sounds. “I probably should have waited till we got back to your place to tell you.”

Matteo’s getting married.

He’s getting married. He’s getting married.

I whisper a faint “it’s fine” through my lips, but the words feel weak. And rough. Like it’s been finely grated against the rough side of sandpaper before trickling through my lips. I continue to walk, my steps slow and sluggish. I don’t need to look to my side to know that Lucy is watching me to make sure I don’t pass out or do something absolutely crazy like run into traffic.

Her warm, comforting hand smooths against my chenille-covered forearm. “Nat, I really am sorry.”

She’s not sorry that she told me. Not anymore. She’s sorry that the man I loved— still love—has moved on. The same man who decided I wasn’t the one that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with and found someone else to share that future with instead. That my mending heart is no longer healing but has returned to a state of defeat, all within a matter of minutes and a few words.

“Matteo doesn’t know what he wants,” she offers, a small sigh of frustration blowing through her nose from her repressed anger toward my ex-lover. “Even Mom said so. He’s just hurt, and this woman is the next best thing he was able to find.”

But that isn’t true. Because he broke it off. He was the one who told me he couldn’t do this anymore. Us, planning a future, deciding if we wanted to venture down a path where we vowed to love each other in sickness and in health. It was all too much for him.

My heart clenches. It actually squeezes just the tiniest bit before I remind myself how far I’ve come since our breakup. How the nights spent wallowing in my sorrow as I cried myself to sleep wearing a dress shirt that belonged to Matteo was for something instead of having to circle back to how it felt when the heartbreak was freshest. My teeth gnaw on my lower lip, and my gaze zeros in on the cracked sidewalk before Lucy takes my hand in hers and squeezes it.

“Come on, Nat. Let’s get some lunch, and we’ll stock up on some goodies for tonight.”

I smirk, unable to hold back my smile as Lucy leans her head against mine. “And by goodies, you mean liquor?”

She shrugs with a sly smile. “I mean, if that’s what works for you.”

I envy her at this moment. Twenty-five with a heart that hasn’t yet been splintered in two by heartbreak. Her normally dark hair, now light with the magic of bleach and toner, is perfectly coiffed and held together in a gold claw clip. After a six-hour flight from Seattle that included a one-hour layover in Minneapolis, she looks flawless. Her casual wear clings to her slender body, and her makeup looks smooth and untouched. As if it were done by a professional, not by herself using a small compact and her meal tray on the last leg of her flight into JFK.

When I look at myself in comparison, I look exactly how I feel: tired and rejected. Like I’ve been living in the same clothes for a week instead of the full day I’ve been relaxing in my fuzzy sweatsuit set. And my dark hair, untouched by the same magic Lucy paid an arm and a leg for, is barely being held together by the worn-out elastic I stretched out to fit all of my long, full hair in.

We continue, sidestepping a man with an adult ferret on a leash, which elicits a double take from Lucy, as we finally arrive at our destination. My stomach turns with the reminder that it’s lunchtime and this will be my first meal of the day. Our entrance into the small sandwich shop is announced with the twinge of the copper bell hanging at the top of the doorframe. Muffled pop music plays over the single speaker mounted next to the convex security mirror as a lone fluorescent light flickers in the opposite corner of the cramped store.

“They have a really good BLT here. Or if you’re not in the mood, their pastrami is good too,” I inform Lucy. “What do you want?”

Her nose scrunches as she considers her options. “I think I’ll just have the grilled chicken salad. With the vinaigrette dressing.”

“Just a salad?”

She nods, her forlorn eyes leaning toward the glass display case holding a large assortment of cakes and other pastries.

“At least split a brownie with me,” I request, coaxing her to give in to her obvious desire for a treat.

Her mouth twists to one side in a half smile. “Fine,” she caves. “I’m on vacation after all.”

I turn to the cashier, place our order, and pay.

“So who else is coming tonight?” Lucy asks as we step away from the register to the long pick-up counter.

I stare at her blankly, slightly confused by her question. The last time I spoke with her, on speakerphone with Carmen in the same room, we agreed on a welcome party for Lucy in the small apartment Carmen and I share but discussed no further than the fact that we would have plenty of alcohol and that Carmen would be managing the playlist. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t invite anyone,” I elaborate.

“What?!” She crosses her arms and lightly huffs, annoyed that our night may be limited to the three of us, plus Carmen’s boyfriend, David. “So it’s just the four of us?” Her bottom lip juts out, pouting like a child. And I can’t help but notice the light stomp of her right foot, a habit that she hasn’t grown out of since she learned it got her what she wanted at the age of four.

“David might have some friends he can invite,” I finally offer when the furrow in her brow doesn’t relent. “We can ask Carmen when she gets home.”

“Are they cute?” she inquires a little too eagerly. When I look at her with an expression that borders judgment, she smiles coyly. “What?”

“Nothing,” I answer, teasingly rolling my eyes at her. “I just didn’t know you were looking to meet someone while you were here.”

“Nat, I am not looking to meet anyone. But a girl can have a little harmless fun on vacation.”

The cashier standing a couple of feet away raises his brows as he overhears our conversation before placing our order on the pick-up counter and calling out our number. We take our lunch placed neatly in a brown paper bag, along with the large brownie that I can’t stop thinking about, and head toward the doors.

I smile at Lucy. I’m glad that she’s visiting for the weekend, even if she brought with her the grim news of my ex’s relationship status strapped onto her carry-on. The last time I saw her was over the holidays, when Matteo and I were still together, and I can’t believe how much I miss spending time with her. I miss having Twilight marathons on our squishy living room sofa back home or lying on my childhood bedroom floor, as hers was always scattered with wrinkled clothes and dirt-covered sneakers, while we listened to the latest One Direction album.

The sad look of rejection that was on my face is now fully replaced by an eager, hopeful smile as I look at Lucy over my shoulder. “Are you excited for this mini vacay away from school?” I ask.

Her nod is vigorous, excited with the anticipation of getting drunk off whatever hard liquor we have access to. “I really needed this trip. School has been horrendous. Why I thought grad school was a good idea is beyond me.”

A light laugh slips through my lips as we open the door, and I crash into a cardboard box held up at eye level. “Oof!”

The box nearly drops to the floor before the person carrying it manages to balance it with their knee. I smile apologetically, consciously keeping my eyes zoned in on the floor while rubbing the spot on my chest where the hard corner of the box poked me. I turn my body sideways, awkwardly squeezing through the narrow opening between the box and the doorframe.

“Natalia?”

My gaze shifts up, following the edges of the wide box gripped by large hands that look tan not only by the sun but by genetics as well. When I get to the stranger’s face, there’s something oddly familiar. Tall, dark-haired, and eyes that light up through a smile that’s all teeth and dimples.

My brow furrows as I finally place the stranger to a point in my mind that I’ve long left behind but never fully forgot about.

“Hayden?”

I spent a lot of my senior year at Coolidge View High worrying about trivial things. Like making sure my grades were good enough to land me an acceptance letter to NYU, passing my driver’s test after failing twice my junior year (it’s not my fault the stop sign was strategically placed behind a tree branch!), and begging my mom to buy me a pair of Doc Martens when everyone else wore ballet flats and knee-high pirate boots.

But I also had my Advanced Placement Biology class and Hayden Marshall. While our brains worked through the various stages of cell division, our hearts were poured onto that contaminated black tabletop, and we were able to forget for the entirety of fifth period that we came from two different social pods .

“Hayden Marshall!” The loud, high-pitched squeal of excitement isn’t coming from me. It’s coming from Lucy. “Nat! It’s Hayden!”

I nod, eyeing her as if I hadn’t already acknowledged his presence when he crashed into me.

“What are you doing here?” Hayden asks, directing his question to me while shifting the box from one arm to the other.

“I’m visiting for the weekend,” Lucy answers.

“It’s…Lucy, right?” he says, his eyes narrowing as he tries to place her.

“Duh, silly!”

Hayden smiles politely, then looks back at me. “Do you live in the city?”

“Um, yeah,” I answer, still a little shocked that I’ve run into a Coolidge View High alumnus hundreds of miles from home. “Just around the corner. You?”

“I live in Brooklyn. I’m just here making a delivery.” He holds up the box. “The restaurant I work for does deliveries for their desserts.” He tilts his head in the direction of the glass display I was just ogling.

My eyes widen. “So I have you to thank for those brownies?”

He laughs. “Among other things.” He shifts the box again. “Hey, listen. Let me get this inside. Don’t go anywhere.”

I nod and look over at Lucy, who’s grinning from ear to ear.

“Nat, it’s Hayden Marshall!” she whispers sharply as soon as he’s out of earshot.

“Yes, we’ve established that,” I whisper back, giving her a look of disapproval. Geez , you’d think we just ran into one of the Ryans. Gosling or Reynolds, of course. Now those men are worthy of this level of raucous excitement.

“He is so hot!” she exclaims, smiling eagerly while ignoring the sarcasm in my tone.

“Lucy!”

“What?” she defends herself. “ He is.”

I stay silent, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with her. Our heads turn toward the inside of the store, both observantly watching as Hayden hands over the large box to an employee while smiling and nodding a quick exchange.

One of the best things about being an adult well past the legal drinking age is that your past self starts to blur. Those cringe worthy memories as a teen start to fade and become replaced by new ones of adjusting to being an adult in the real world. But sometimes, those memories come back to you in human form. In my case, through Hayden Marshall.

He’s no longer dressed in his black Adidas hoodie, faded jeans, and Jack Purcells. Instead, he’s wearing an open chef’s jacket with a yellow bandanna loosely tied around his neck. His hair is tousled, long enough for it to be called shaggy and somehow evident that he doesn’t usually wear it as long as it is now.

“Tell me you didn’t have a crush on him in high school,” Lucy deadpans, expecting the obvious: that everyone in our high school, not just the ones in my and Hayden’s graduating class, thought he was attractive. “I’m going to invite him tonight.”

My head swerves to face her. “What? Why?”

“You said it yourself, it’ll most likely be just you, me, and Carmen. It’ll be fun!”

Before I can change her mind, Hayden reappears. He smiles at me and Lucy through the scattered water spots staining the glass door as he pushes it open to greet us once again.

“So, you moved all the way to New York City,” he says, his smile curving up as he looks at me.

“Yeah,” I answer with a timid voice. “I’ve been here since college.”

“Wow, that long?” He whistles. “I moved here from Chicago just before the summer. I’m still getting used to the city.”

“It takes time.” I smile sincerely .

“So,” Lucy interrupts, “we’re having a party tonight. Would you like to come?”

“Oh…”

“You don’t have to,” I add.

“But it would mean a lot if you did,” Lucy adds, side-eyeing me with a glare. “I’m only here for a couple of days.”

“Yeah, I’d love to,” Hayden answers with a smile.

“Are you sure?” I ask. Lucy not so discreetly nudges my side.

“Yeah,” Hayden affirms sincerely. “I don’t really know anyone in the city, so it would be nice to be around a familiar face.” His smile deepens, his eyes leaving Lucy’s to linger on me for a bit longer. I tilt my head to the side when I smile back, remembering how comfortable I used to be around him. Poking fun at his quirks and casually making jokes that led to learning a language of sarcasm only he and I seemed to understand.

Lucy clasps her hands in front of her. “Great! It’ll probably start around…ten?” She looks at me for confirmation, and I nod. “And if you have any cute friends, they’re welcome to come too.”

I suppress an impulsive eye roll as Hayden reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He unlocks the screen and hands it to me. “Here, put in your number.”

“Oh yeah. Sure,” I say. I take his phone and do as I’m told, Lucy’s eyes practically glued on Hayden as he patiently waits for me.

Hayden looks down at his phone screen once it’s back in his hands. His hair hangs loosely across his forehead as he punches his fingers along the keyboard before a swish noise emits from his phone. My phone pings from my back pocket.

“That’s me.”

I slide my phone out of my pocket and see a row of ten digits lighting up the screen with a new message. “So we’ll see you tonight?” I ask, smiling up at him .

“Yep. I’ll be there.”

Lucy smiles proudly at me with her chin tilted upward and lips pursed together in silent approval.

“See you tonight!” Lucy exclaims as she lightly shoves me in the direction of my apartment. “Come on,” she says in a hushed tone even though Hayden is out of earshot. “I have to look extra sexy tonight.”