2. Betsy
BETSY
T he Italian bistro’s chatter fades into white noise as I stab at my untouched salad, watching vinaigrette pool like tiny amber lakes on the pristine white plate.
Across from me, Della’s blue eyes radiate concern, her slender fingers wrapped around her water glass as if anchoring herself to our table.
“He called me at two in the morning,” I say, my voice barely rising above the clinking silverware around us. “Two in the morning, Della. After he’d been with her.”
"Oh, Betsy.” Della reaches across the table, her touch warm against my cold fingers. Sunlight streams through the restaurant’s window, catching in her brown hair, turning the edges to copper. “You don’t know that for sure.”
"I know Devon’s patterns by now.” The bitterness in my voice surprises even me. “Seven years gives you a Ph.D. in someone’s bullshit. He saves the best for others and gives me scraps.”
Della sighs, her shoulders dropping slightly beneath her cream blouse. “You deserve more than scraps, Bets. You know that.”
"Do I?” I push a cherry tomato around my plate, watching it leave a trail of dressing like a tiny red boat on a flavorless sea. “Sometimes I wonder if this is just... what love is. Messy. Painful."
“That’s not love,” Della says softly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. I’ve seen that gesture in countless conversations about Devon over the years. “That’s just... habit.”
The word stings like lemon juice in a paper cut.
Habit. Like the way I still keep his favorite craft IPA—that pretentious small-batch stuff with the bearded hipster on the label—lined up in my fridge door like tiny amber sentinels.
The way I still sleep curled against the left edge of my mattress, leaving his side pristine and untouched, as if the memory of him might evaporate if I dare stretch out into that sacred territory.
“Says the woman who’s been waiting for Jared to propose for five years.” The words catapult from my mouth like escaped prisoners. Della’s eyes widen—that particular shade of hurt that makes her left eyelid twitch slightly.
“Five years and seventy-three days,” she corrects, twisting that sad little silver band on her right hand—the one Jared presented in a velvet box that cruelly mimicked an engagement ring box. “But we’re dissecting your train wreck, not mine.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, lunging for her hand like it’s a life preserver. “That was a low blow. I’m a first-class jerk for projectile-vomiting my frustrations onto you. You’re basically a saint for putting up with me. ”
“We’re both a little pathetic, aren’t we?" Della’s smile is gentle, forgiving. “At least you get to design beautiful buildings. I just market other people’s dreams while putting mine on hold.”
The restaurant door swings open, bringing with it a gust of autumn air and Liana’s unmistakable presence.
She moves through the space like she owns it, her dark hair cascading down her back, hazel eyes scanning the room until they lock on us.
Men turn to watch her approach, but she pays them no mind, her focus entirely on our table.
“Sorry I’m late,” Liana announces, sliding into the chair beside me. Her perfume – something expensive and subtle – envelops me. “Traffic was a nightmare, and my last client wouldn’t stop talking.” She pauses, studying my face. "What’s wrong? You look like hell."
“Devon,” Della supplies, giving Liana a meaningful look.
“Again?” Liana signals for a waiter without breaking eye contact with me. “I thought we discussed this the last time you entertained his bullshit.”
“It’s complicated,” I murmur, the defense sounding weak even to my own ears.
“No, honey, nuclear physics is complicated. This is just sad." “You’re a successful architect. You’re gorgeous. You could have any man you want, and yet you’re clinging to a guy who treats you like his backup plan.
” No, honey, nuclear physics is complicated.
The Hadron Collider is complicated. Your taxes are complicated.
This is just sad.” Liana orders a martini without looking at the menu, then turns back to me, her eyes softening slightly beneath her perfect winged eyeliner.
"You’re a successful architect who can calculate load-bearing walls in her sleep.
You’re gorgeous in that effortless way that makes women hate you at spin class.
You could have any man with a pulse and functioning frontal lobe, and yet you’re clinging to a guy who treats you like his backup plan—like that wrinkled emergency shirt men keep in their office drawer for when they spill coffee. "
“Liana,” Della cautions, always the peacemaker.
“No, she needs to hear this.” Liana leans forward, her gold hoop earrings catching the light as she moves, her voice dropping to a velvet-edged murmur that somehow cuts sharper than a shout.
“Devon is dead weight, dragging you down like an anchor tied to your ankle. He only feels confident enough to play the field because he knows you’ll be waiting in your apartment with those Egyptian cotton sheets he loves when the twenty-somethings with their perfect bodies reject him.
You’re his safety net, Betsy. His ego boost when the world bruises him.
” The truth of her words burns through me, settling in my chest like hot coals beneath my breastbone, searing away the excuses I’ve been crafting for years.
My throat constricts, eyes stinging with tears I refuse to shed in this crowded bistro where the waiters glide by with steaming plates of pasta.
“I love him,” I whisper, the three words hanging in the air between us, pathetic and small, like a wilted flower I’m still desperately trying to revive.
“No, you love who you thought he was,” Liana counters, her perfectly manicured nail tapping against the stem of her martini glass with surgical precision.
“Or who you hoped he’d become when he finally grew up.
But he’s shown you exactly who he is for seven years, Betsy.
Seven birthdays. Seven Christmases. Seven New Year’s Eves where he might or might not kiss you at midnight. When are you going to believe him?”
Della reaches across the table again, her touch gentle as a butterfly landing on my knuckles, her silver bracelet catching the afternoon light. “What Liana means is that you deserve someone who chooses you first, not last.”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Liana nods, accepting her dirty martini from the waiter with a quick smile that doesn’t reach her hawk-like eyes.
She takes a deliberate sip, leaving a perfect crescent of red lipstick on the rim of the glass.
“Devon is trash, and you need to take out the garbage.
Remember who you are, Betsy. Remember what you want. "
“And what if what I want is him?” I ask, feeling the familiar ache spread through my chest like frost creeping across a windowpane, making it hard to breathe.
“Then you need to want more for yourself,” Liana says, raising her martini glass with its perfect crescent of crimson lipstick on the rim.
“Because you are no one’s second choice.
Not with that brain that designed the Riverside Plaza, those legs that turn heads even in sensible work heels, and that corner office overlooking the Hudson. ”
My phone vibrates against the table, Devon’s name illuminating the screen. The three of us stare at it like it’s a ticking bomb.
“Don’t answer it,” Della whispers.
“At least not right away,” Liana amends. “Make him wait for once.”
The phone continues to vibrate, inching across the white tablecloth like some desperate mechanical insect.
My fingers twitch with the urge to reach for it, to hear his voice, to feel that momentary rush when Devon Cook chooses me, even if it’s just for tonight, even if it’s just because his other plans fell through.
“I can’t,” I whisper, my hand already moving toward the phone.
Liana’s fingers close around my wrist, her grip surprisingly strong. “Yes, you can. You design buildings that touch the sky, Betsy. You can certainly let a call go to voicemail.”
The phone stops vibrating. The silence that follows feels enormous, like the hollow space inside a cathedral dome.
“There,” Liana releases my wrist. “The world didn’t end.”
But something shifts inside me—a tiny tectonic plate moving beneath the landscape of my heart. A text message appears on the screen: Please, Bets. I need you tonight.
The familiar nickname makes my chest tighten. He only calls me Bets when he wants something. When he’s trying to be charming. When he’s slipping back into my life like water finding its way through cracks in concrete.
“What does he want?” Della asks, her voice gentle.
“Me,” I say, hating how pathetic it sounds. “He wants me."
“No,” Liana corrects, her hazel eyes suddenly fierce in the soft bistro lighting. “He wants what you provide—comfort, validation, sex without consequences. If he wanted you, truly wanted Betsy Miller, brilliant architect and loyal friend, he would have committed years ago.”
The answer comes to me with sudden, crystal clarity—a blueprint unfurling in my mind, revealing the foundation of a structure I’ve been building for seven years. “He's going to do what he always does. Apologize. Promise it will be different. Tell me I’m the only one who really understands him.”
And I’ll believe him, because I always do.
Instead of answering his text, I drop my phone into my purse like I’m disposing of radioactive waste.
“There,” I announce to my friends with mock solemnity, “I hereby declare this a Devon-free zone for exactly”—I check my watch—“the next seventeen minutes and thirty-two seconds. A personal record in the making.”