So not-Taylor.
It's lunchtime, and the three of us are sharing three very massive bowls of pasta, because I need to carbo-load before my SAT class tonight, Josey is hungry all of the time, and Theo is also hungry all of the time, because he's a seventeen-year-old boy. We each got a different flavor and now we're pushing everything into some hellish pesto-carbonara-marinara amalgam.
“Who keeps texting you?” Josey says, pointing her fork towards my phone. “Don't they know that's illegal during school hours?”
“We could report you, Cipriano.”
“Have you kicked out of school.”
“Sent to...what's that sea prison?”'
“Azkaban,” I say, just to be annoying, while I pick up my phone.
“Alcatraz,” Josey says. “But they don't use it anymore.”
“They'd open it back up,” he says. “Just for her.”
“It's just Aanya.”
“Isn't she in school too?” Josey says.
“Yeah, won't she have to go to prison now?”
“Oh my God, shut up,” I say. “You two have never shut up once in my entire life.”
“She has a point,” Josey says.
Theo shoves a forkful of noodles into his mouth. “She needs perfect silence for her texting.”
“This actually is kind of complicated, smart ass,” I say. “We're trying to figure out when she can come down, and I'm free for like ten minutes a day and she hates making plans before the last minute, so just the fact that I'm getting her to text me her schedule is some kind of miracle.”
“Aanya knows about us,” Theo tells Josey. “So now she has to come and get acquainted with our wicked ways.”
Josey wrinkles her nose. “Are we talking about courting her?”
I say, “What?? No!”
“Okay, good, because I didn't want to be vehemently against dating your best friend but I'm vehemently against it.”
“She's been with her boyfriend since we were like six weeks old,” I say. “They're in their perfect little thing.”
“That's sweet,” Josey says.
“I guess.”
She laughs. “You too edgy for the couples, now?”
“I don't know.”
'If you don't want her to judge you, you shouldn't judge her,” she says.
“Did I say she was judging you?”
“Didn't have to.” She twirls some pasta around her fork. “I grew up with this, remember? I know the process when someone new finds out about it. I've done the little song and dance so many times I have it memorized. Rushing around to show how noooormal you are.”
“Yeah.”
“Just don't expect her to get it right away,” Josey says. “It's not going to happen and it'll suck for both of you if you hold that against her.”
“She took it okay,” I say. “I mean, she still wants to meet...him.”
She catches the pause. “Yep, she wants to meet him.”
“Shit.” I set the phone down. “No, this is ridiculous. You're going to meet her too. Of course I want you there.”
She shakes her head. “No, she's right, she should meet the two of you alone first. She's your best friend. She wants to see that you're with a guy who's treating you well. And if I'm there she's just going to be analyzing ever interaction Theo and I have for proof that he loves me more than you.”
“You really do know this song and dance,” I say.
She sighs. “I really do.”
Between my schedule and Aanya's refusal to give up a weekend, she lends me a grand total of a couple hours of her time. She thinks she's being very generous, driving two hours—each way, she reminds me—only to stay for two. And that does sound annoying, so I don't argue with her.
Even though I just spent a week at her house. Even though I cleaned my room in preparation of sharing it for a few days, which is kind of a big deal for me because I'm awful about doing that sort of thing.
And she's decided to stay for a long lunch.
I'm not mad, exactly, but I am surprised by the whole thing, that's all.
Except, when I sit down and really make myself think about it, it makes an unfortunate amount of sense. Yes, I spent a week at our house, and I zoomed in on the times when Aanya and I were our old selves because that was easier than addressing that I spent the majority of the week thinking about Theo and Josey, texting Theo and Josey, waiting for Theo and Josey to text me back, planning how I was going to avoid talking about Theo and Josey when they never left my mind. I took stupid selfies with Aanya, like we always do, and pretended it didn't make it at all different that I was sending them to Theo and Josey instead of keeping them just between Aanya and me, and pretended it meant nothing that I sent them out without telling her.
I never wanted to be the girl who changes because she's so wrapped up in her relationship. And I never had been. Maybe one person just isn't enough to consume me; maybe it has to be two.
Or maybe I've never loved anyone like this. Which is very complicated, because a. I've loved Aanya more than anyone for a very long time and b. it doesn't say much about my ability to spread love around as well as a polyamorous person should.
So none of that is very good.
And it makes a lot of sense that no one would choose to spend more than half a day on that person.
But it is four hours of driving, it's true. And it is still me and Aanya we're talking about. Those are pretty hopeful signs.
It's just that I hadn't realized I was at the point of needing those.
I ask Theo where we should meet Aanya, since obviously a meet-the-boyfriend event at my house isn't possible (and Aanya
