The Next Best Fling

One

A little black box sits in his outstretched hand.

The shape is so recognizable, my breath catches. It could be earrings, I think wildly. His smile is shy, hazel eyes shining with hope at the unspoken question between us. Adrenaline surges in my veins, keeping me at attention. My heart thumps so hard my ears fill with the sound of rushing blood until it’s all I can hear. Thump. Thump. Thump. When he opens the box, I let out a gasp.

Definitely not earrings.

The ring nestled inside is modest and delicate, the diamond elegantly set in a gold band surrounded by a cluster of smaller stones. My mouth opens as if to speak, but all that comes out is a muted noise from the back of my throat. The ring is stunning, but that’s hardly the most important aspect of this moment. His eyes stay trained on my face, analyzing for any clue he can. I hold out my hand for a closer look, and he deposits the box into it.

Dread settles in my stomach as I realize what this means, but I try not to show my emotions on my face. I’ve learned to become good at that when it comes to Ben Young.

“Well?” he asks, no longer able to contain himself. Then, the question that threatens to undo me completely—

“Do you think she’ll like it?”

The chatter of the restaurant dulls to a low register. We’re surrounded on all sides by the early lunch crowd, but I can’t hear a single sound. He means Alice Cho, his girlfriend of eight years and future recipient of this engagement ring. I don’t care how long they’ve been dating or what anyone else has to say about it, but twenty-seven is far too young to be thinking about marriage. But then again, anyone else would argue that I’m just bitter the man I’m pining over is legally binding himself to someone else until death do they part. And maybe I am, despite how close our friendship still is after all these years. I want him to be happy regardless of my feelings. Not that anyone aside from Angela, my other best friend, knows about these feelings.

I haven’t been close with Alice in years so I can’t say if the ring is to her taste, but the style is hardly what matters. It’s the love between them that does, and for all my years of pining, I’ve never been able to question that. I glance across the table at Ben, meeting his hopeful eyes. My mouth turns up into a smile I don’t feel, but it fools him anyway. Hiding your true feelings is easy when the person you’re hiding from has never really seen you to begin with.

“It’s perfect,” I tell him, because it is. The lasagna primavera I just scarfed down churns in my stomach. I swallow hard past a wave of nausea. I can’t tell if it’s nerves or acid reflux making me queasy, or maybe just the diamond staring up at me. Taunting. When I can no longer stand to look at the thing, I shut the tiny box with a loud snap and hastily hand it back to him. He’s too preoccupied to note any sign of agitation on my end.

“You really think so?” Ben asks, guarding the box close to his chest. A lock of light brown hair falls over his brow, making him look boyish and fragile. He glances down at the object his hands are cradling with a wary expression, like he’s looking down at his heart instead. And I suppose, to him, he is. There are enough metaphors out there to make the two synonymous.

“Are you kidding?” I ask with forced cheer, but it comes out so smooth you’d never know that internally I’m quaking. He visibly brightens at my tone. “She’d be a fool to say no.”

His tense shoulders deflate immediately, the edges of his mouth turning up as he returns my fake smile with one that is undeniably real. He flashes a full row of straight, shiny white teeth, and the sight makes me smile brighter. A hint of real amid the plaster because his happiness is ultimately what I want most for him. Even if it’s at the expense of mine.

“You really think so, Marcela?” he asks.

“She’s going to love it,” I say with as much assurance as I can muster. If I ever had another chance with Ben, that time is long gone, and has been for a while. Years, probably, if I’m being honest. Still, I’m ashamed to admit just how much time I’ve spent holding out hope that one day he’ll see that he was an idiot to ever say we were better off as just friends. God, it should feel like a lifetime ago, but our freshman year at the University of Texas at San Antonio still feels like just yesterday.

Wishful thinking.

Now, with the engagement ring between us, I’m struck by just how long it’s been. The years wear on me all at once, a wave of exhaustion crashing over me.

“Stop worrying,” I tell him, reforming my supportive-friend facade. “When are you gonna pop the question?”

“I was thinking this weekend. I have a reservation at Whiskey Cake on Friday night. I’m just not sure if I should ask during dinner or wait until after when we’re alone.”

“Whatever you choose, just please, for the love of God, don’t put it in her wineglass.” He laughs, probably thinking of the way she’d downed shots throughout college. We all went pretty hard back then, but Alice could drink us all to shame. The girl can chug a full keg of beer without thinking twice. “Otherwise, y’all will be celebrating the rest of the night in the emergency room.”

“You might have a point.” He smiles, his eyes lighting up with unbridled happiness. “I can’t believe this is really happening.”

You and me both.

“Well, believe it!” I exclaim with feigned enthusiasm. “And tell me all about it on Monday. I wanna hear every detail.”

I most certainly do not, but what else can I possibly say? The truth I haven’t once dared to utter out loud? Doubtful. We spend the rest of lunch chatting about all possible outcomes, how his parents will respond to the news when (he says “if,” but I already know it’s a forgone conclusion) she says yes, until the check arrives and we part ways in the parking lot.

Once I’m safely tucked away in my car, I allow the emotions I’ve been holding off to finally crash over me. I had no idea until today what Ben’s been planning. That he and Alice have talked about building a more permanent life together. Tears sting my eyes, but I’m too stubborn to let them fall. So stupid.

This shouldn’t have been a surprise to me. They’ve been together since they were nineteen. Nearly a decade. It’d be weird if marriage wasn’t on their minds. But even still, this, an honest-to-God engagement ring, is a gut punch I never saw coming.

I’ve known for a while now that I have to get over this silly crush, but today was a wake-up call. If Ben and I were ever going to happen for real, it would’ve happened already. Now I can move on. After a pumpkin empanada or six.

Friday night, I arrive back at my apartment from work with my second box of pan dulce this week to drown my feelings in. Stress-eating is my time-honored tradition, and pumpkin empanadas are my kryptonite. Consequence of having a Mexican mother with an all-powerful sweet-tooth gene. I’ll feel guilty in the morning but will do nothing about it until Sunday, when my best friend, Angela Gutierrez, comes over for our weekly morning walk on the trail outside my building. It’s the only exercise we get since neither of us can afford gym memberships with our salaries. Not that I would ever step foot inside a gym willingly.

My two-bedroom apartment is tiny, but it’s all I need. A plush, heather-gray couch is pushed in the corner of the living room facing a small black TV stand, where my twenty-inch smart TV resides. I’m not even sure my apartment comes with cable, but there’s no need for it when a good chunk of my paycheck is divided among three different streaming sites. The living room and kitchen are separated by this weird half wall that transitions into the dining bar past the couch. I keep most of my library books along the half wall, as well as on the antique entrance table by the front door. If I keep them with the books I already own, they’ll never get returned and I’ll be the first librarian to ever get their library card permanently confiscated.

My best friend arrives moments after I do, announcing herself by ringing the doorbell five more times than necessary. When I let her in, she’s carrying a familiar, nondescript white paper bag I immediately recognize from our favorite panadería downtown. Bless her.

“Oh, shit, you beat me!” Angela exclaims when she spots the equally nondescript white box sitting on my coffee table. “How are you already here when I got off an hour before you?”

“Erica let me go early. Apparently, I’ve been nothing but useless to myself and others all day.” Those weren’t her exact words, but I wouldn’t have blamed her for saying them. My boss was much nicer when she sent me home, telling me to sleep off my “mind fog” when the third person I’d checked out left the building to the blaring sound of alarm bells. There’s a reason we bump the books before handing them off to patrons, and three is too many times to forget in one day. Angela was buried in shelving all day, so I’m not surprised she didn’t notice.

“It was a slow day, anyway.”

“You need to get out of this funk, Marcela,” Angela says. Then she holds out her hand. “All right, let’s see it.”

I hand over my phone with a dramatic groan. Her expression turns contemplative as she reads over the profile I’ve just updated. Underneath my name and age—Marcela Ortiz, 27—is my job title and a list of my favorite authors, quotes, and drinks. Her eyes narrow the longer she reads, until finally she shakes her head in disapproval.

“No.” She hands me my phone back. “Absolutely unacceptable.”

“Oh, come on! I thought I did a pretty good job this time.”

“You cannot put an obscure quote from An Ember in the Ashes in your Tinder bio.” She rolls her eyes at my pout. “Read the room, Marcela.”

“What? I thought it was fitting, considering the circumstances.”

She rolls her eyes again so hard that I’m surprised she doesn’t get brain damage on the spot. “Your subliminal messaging is positively uncanny.”

I look down at my phone and read over the quote in my bio.

“There are two kinds of guilt: the kind that drowns you until you’re useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose.”

It had been Angela’s idea to revive my dating accounts when I told her all about my painful lunch with Ben. She wasn’t nearly as surprised as I was to learn that Ben was taking the next big step in his relationship with Alice, which only shows how far removed from reality my own feelings have made me. Loving someone you can’t have is exhausting. But loving someone who’s in a committed relationship crushes you under a thousand-pound weight of guilt and shame until it bleeds you dry. Living under that weight isn’t just unsustainable, it’s also lonely and heartbreaking and unbearable and I can’t do it for a second longer.

So, in choosing Tinder, I’m choosing the latter. Fire my soul to purpose, baby.

“Sabaa Tahir is too wise for this world,” I say, almost wistfully. Then I glance over my shoulder at my friend with an innocent look. “Too deep for Tinder?”

“I really don’t think I need to answer that.”

She snatches the phone out of my hand before I can blink, fingers darting across the keyboard to rewrite a half hours’ worth of thoughtful consideration. Angela finishes typing in under two minutes, and when she hands my phone back to me, I guffaw as my eyes trail down the screen. Apparently, I live for spontaneous adventure and am NOT looking for anything serious. She even changed two of my three profile pictures, and my teen librarian title is gone.

“Casual.” My brain sticks on the word, refusing to make sense of it. “I really don’t think I’m a ‘casual’ kind of girl.”

“No better time to start than now. You should be using Tinder for what it’s intended for.” Her curly hair bounces off her shoulders as she leans forward to grab a bright yellow concha from the box on the coffee table. “One-night stands.”

Angela, ever the commitment-phobe. She has her pick of romantic interests, being beautiful, willowy, and tall, with gorgeous hazel eyes and olive-toned skin. Although she’s quick to dole out relationship advice, she’s never actually had one of her own. Not even a fling, for as long as I’ve known her. The girl can expertly flirt her way to free drinks for an entire table, but she rejects every single advance that comes her way. I’ve always wondered if there was a reason for that.

“When have you ever used Tinder for a one-night stand?” I shoot back, raising my brows at her.

“I’ve never used dating apps in general. I have no interest in them.” I’ve always suspected as much, but I’m still a bit surprised by the confirmation. “My time will come when it comes. But you”—she shakes a bony finger at me—“you need all the help you can get.”

I heave a sigh. She’s not wrong about that.

“I still don’t think a one-night stand is the answer.”

“Not according to every rom-com out there,” she insists, voice slightly garbled around a mouthful of pan. Once she swallows, her expression turns serious. “They’ve been together a long time, Marcela. You can’t keep doing this to yourself.” I look away from her, not wanting to go down this rabbit hole again. “I know it’s tough, but you should’ve done this a long time ago.”

“It’s not like I haven’t tried. I don’t like the idea of random hookups. It all seems too nerve-racking.”

I’ve been on a string of failed first dates, enough talking phases to test my sanity, and exactly two relationships (if you could call them that, given that both fell apart almost as quickly as they came) since Ben. Maybe if any part of me found dating exciting, I wouldn’t have so much trouble. As it is, my body confidence is in constant fluctuation depending on the day and dating only adds more pressure to that. Sure, when I’m feeling particularly confident, I can appreciate the hourglass figure my soft curves form—a large bust that dips into a slightly tapered waist before widening into rounded hips and thick thighs. My butt, however, is surprisingly flat. Of all the departments to fall short in, it would be the one area I wish a little more fat would travel to.

But I never know how the men I date, and potentially become intimate with, will react when they see my body. I’ve been burned before, the few times I actively participated in hookup culture. And that was with men I spent time getting to know, only for them to turn around and treat me like crap in bed. They got what they wanted from me, but what did I get? Certainly not what I’d (ahem, didn’t) come for. Not decency, not respect. Not even a call or text back after, though the ghosts were almost preferable to the ones who’d attempted to let me down easy directly after sex. As if telling someone you’d just been inside that you never wanted to see them again wasn’t gross enough, there aren’t enough showers in the world to wash off the shame of hearing I wasn’t their “usual type,” or even worse, that they weren’t attracted to me. That one was a head scratcher until I realized it was a coded way of saying what they were too afraid to.

Score one for fatphobia, followed by another point for every time I internalized that shit. Which is why until now, I’ve practically given up on dating entirely. I’m able to love my body so much more when I’m not bombarded with the reminder that there are plenty of men who don’t. I’m not interested in putting myself in that position again.

“Okay, then how ’bout a fling?” Angela suggests instead, brows waggling suggestively. “Get to know the guy a little bit before jumping into his pants, and then never speak to him again.”

I scrunch up my face. “That sounds mean.”

“Or let him loose gently into the wind for the next girl to find,” she amends. “Happy?”

“Not particularly.” I let out a sigh, knowing I don’t have much of a choice if I’m serious about getting over Ben. “But I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

Angela finds the vodka stashed on top of my refrigerator as I swipe left and right with no real meaning. I take a shot when I get my first match, and then another when the guy never responds to my message. When the bottle is halfway gone, Angela takes my phone and sticks it with hers inside the lock case under my TV stand. The two of us have too many shared secrets not to secure our phones somewhere far, far away when the booze comes out.

By midnight, we’re both trashed and laughing for no reason. It’s the best I’ve felt all day, which I drunkenly gush to her.

“This is how I know it’s time to cut you off.” She snatches the bottle out of my hand. When I pout, she says, “Pobrecita. You’ll get over it.” I’m not sure if she’s talking about the vodka or Ben. Either way, I don’t believe her.

She crashes onto my bed right beside me, fast asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow. Her soft snores fill the bedroom, keeping me up. I lie awake next to her, my head swimming with thoughts of diamond rings and randomized Tinder profiles.

The next morning, after retrieving my phone from the lock case, my first text message of the day is from Ben.

She said yes!!!

I type out a quick reply, “Knew she would!” and roll over with a loud groan. Angela remains fast asleep, and I envy her. My head is pounding from last night, and my heart is pounding for reasons too early in the day to abuse myself with. But what’s done is done. Yet another outcome I can’t change.