(Alphabe-Thursday: B) B is for Betrayal

(Note: I am writing this for a blog prompt on Jenny Matlock’s Blog. I missed the letter ‘A’, so I am starting with ‘B’)

B is for Betrayal

“You’re going to hate me,” Tiffany said with a pout, “I just know it.”

Carly, eyebrows raised, looked over at her best friend. “Oh really? And why is that?” Carly waited for a response, but Tifffany sat fidgeting and not talking. Not talking? Tiffany never stops talking. She must be serious. “Tiffany, what happened?”

“Well . . .,” Tiffany stretched out the word, delaying the inevitable. “Mike and I were talking. And, well, we decided that we like each other.” She bit her lip and looked up at Carly through her eyelashes.

Mike?! As in the Mike I am dating?! As in the Mike I have had a crush on for as long as you have known me? That Mike? “So you . . . talked.”  Breathe Carly, breathe.

“Yes. We talked and decided that we wanted to, you know, try out ‘us’.”

Us? What am I supposed to say? I think I’m in shock. And why is she crying?! It’s my life she is destroying. “How?”

Tiffany looked up quickly, brow furrowed. “How? What do you mean how?”

“I mean, how did it get to the point where you two would have this ‘talk’?”

“Oh. I guess I hadn’t told you. I have been going over to their apartment almost every night and hanging out with Mike and his roommates.”

“The nights you and I would go dancing?”

“I would drop you off and go over to his place.” Tiffany was looking at the ground now, softly sniffing.

“And my date nights with Mike?”

“I was at his place when he would come home.”

My best friend and the boy I had wrapped all of my heart into? This has got to be a joke. Are there cameras somewhere?  She knows how much he means . . . meant to me. Is the room spinning?

“Carly? Carly. Say something.” Tiffany slowly reached out and softly touched Carly’s hand.

Carly sat. Her shoulders slumped. “What do you want me to say?”

“Aren’t you mad? Aren’t you going to yell at me?”

Carly looked up at her best friend. “No. I’m not going to yell.” That’s what you want. You want me to yell and scream. Then you can sit back and be self-satisfied that I’m a jerk that doesn’t deserve him and you had every right to take him. No. I will NOT give you that out. You will choke on your guilt. “I don’t own him. I obviously don’t control him.”

“I would have yelled.”

“That’s where we are different.” I am screaming- on the inside. I’m bleeding and breaking and collapsing on the inside. But I won’t give you the satisfaction.

“You are a better person than I am.”

You better believe it. “So you guys had this talk and then he sent you to talk to me?”

“Yeah, because we’re friends.”

“Too bad you two didn’t think about that before you decided I was only worth betrayal. Do me a favor.” Carly stood, wiped imaginary crumbs from her lap, and rubbed the back of her neck.

“Yes?” Tiffany looked up with hope of redemption in her eyes.

“When he betrays you with the next girl – which he will – don’t come crying to me.”