Girlfriends
Maggie
Five Years Ago
“Say you’ll be my girlfriend, Maggie.” Brody pleaded over dinner about a month into whatever it was we’d been doing. “I think I’ll die if you say no.”
“I don’t know.” I looked down at my plate to avoid his gaze. “I’ve never been a girlfriend before.” I paused, feeling stupid. “I mean, I have, but—”
Not in the way it would be with him, I could already tell.
“We’ll figure it out together,” he said.
I liked that. We. Together. I wanted it. And it scared me, because if I wanted it, it meant it could be taken away. And I didn’t want to hurt. I wanted the path that guaranteed I could avoid it ending badly.
“What about you?” I deflected. “Have any serious girlfriends?”
“Serious?” he mused. “A few here and there, but I guess the longest was Abbey.”
I felt rigid at another girl’s name on his lips.
That wasn’t right. He was mine. How could there have been a time when he wasn’t? When he was some other girl’s Brody?
It was ridiculous, but I couldn’t help it.
“Abbey?” I asked casually, inviting him to tell me more.
Even though I didn’t think I really wanted to know.
“My high school girlfriend. Dated for two years. Broke up when we went away to college but, uh”—he scratched his head, looking embarrassed—“we were sort of on and off during breaks.”
Tense, I nodded.
“What was she like? Did you love her?”
“I don’t want to talk about her,” he said. “I want to talk about you and me.”
But I needed to know. I didn’t want to, but I had to learn every last detail, so if he ever referenced her in the future it wouldn’t feel like a sting of jealousy each time I encountered a new memory from his life that I hadn’t been a part of. That some other, faceless girl had with him.
Abbey, I frowned.
Why did his past feel like some sort of betrayal? He was twenty-five years old; of course he’d had girlfriends before. I could hardly expect to be the first.
But I wanted to be the most important. I knew it with a certainty above all else. Because I’d had lots of boys before. Some who even claimed to love me.
But none of them had been Brody.
So, when he asked again if we were together, really and truly—I didn’t hesitate this time when I told him yes.