When My Boyfriend Let His Coworker Replace Me

The rooftop smelled like grilled corn and cheap sparklers. Someone had strung fairy lights along the railing, and below us, downtown Seattle blinked awake as the sky went purple. Fourth of July always brought out the whole group — twelve of us, give or take, sprawled on borrowed lawn chairs, waiting for the fireworks over the water.

Donovan stood near the cooler, laughing at something, a beer sweating in his hand. Five years, and he still had that easy way of taking up a room without trying. I used to love that about him. Tonight, I just watched him laugh and felt tired.

"Okay, okay, everyone up!" Marcus Elliot clapped his hands like a camp counselor. "Couples game. Red string. You know the drill — tie it on your partner's wrist, make a wish, don't let go till midnight."

Someone passed around little spools of red thread. Kiara, my cousin, caught my eye across the roof and mouthed, *this is so dumb,* but she was smiling when she said it. Kiara never met a tradition she didn't want to make fun of first and participate in anyway.

Donovan came over, string looped around two fingers. "C'mere, Ross."

I held out my wrist. The string was warm from his hand. He looped it once, twice — and then Aylin's voice cut through the noise, high and breathless. "Donovan, wait, can you help me with mine? I can't get the knot."

Aylin Castillo. Twenty-four, always in something soft and pastel, always slightly overwhelmed by whatever was happening around her. She'd been orbiting our group for about eight months, ever since Donovan's coworker brought her to a dinner. She had a laugh like a wind chime and a talent for needing things at exactly the wrong moment.

Donovan glanced at me. I thought — stupidly, hopefully — that he'd finish tying my string first. He didn't. He just let go. The thread slipped off my wrist and dropped, curling on the rooftop concrete like something already dead.

He crossed to Aylin in two steps and took her wrist like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Hold still," he said, grinning, and tied the string around her, and she giggled and leaned her shoulder into his chest like she belonged there.

I stood there with my hand still out. Empty. The fairy lights blurred a little.

"Wow." Kiara's voice, flat and loud, cut through the party chatter. "Donovan. You are actually — you are pathetically blind. You know that?"

A few heads turned. Somebody's laugh died halfway out of their mouth.

Donovan waved a hand without even looking at her. "Kiara, don't be dramatic. It's a game." He pulled Aylin a little closer, like proving a point.

I didn't say anything. I crouched down, picked up my string off the concrete, and folded it into my palm. It was still warm. I don't know why that detail stuck with me — that it was still warm from his hand, even after he'd let it fall.

"I'm gonna head out," I said to no one in particular, and nobody stopped me.

---

In the cab, the city smeared past the window in long gold streaks. My phone buzzed against my thigh, over and over. Kiara.

*are you okay*

*Steph answer me*

*I swear to god I will end that man*

Forty minutes after I left the roof, one more message came through. Donovan.

*Don't be dramatic. It's just a game.*

I read it twice. Then I turned the phone face-down on the seat beside me and looked out at the lights again. My thumb moved on its own, drifting over my left wrist, over the place where a fraying red cord had sat for three years — the one he'd braided himself back when he had nothing, when a bracelet was the biggest thing he could give me. I didn't even notice I was doing it. I never noticed I was doing it. That night was the last time.

---

Kiara ordered two lattes the next morning and didn't touch hers. She just talked, hands flying, voice low and furious in the corner booth of the coffee shop we'd been going to since college.

"March. He canceled on your birthday dinner in March because Aylin 'had a panic attack.' April, he skipped your dad's gallery opening for the exact same reason. June, he forgot your anniversary and then acted like *you* were the one being unreasonable for bringing it up." She ticked them off on her fingers like she'd been keeping a list. Maybe she had. "And now this. In front of everyone, Steph."

I stirred my latte. Watched the foam spiral down into brown.

"You're not going to defend him?" Kiara said, and there was something in her voice I'd never heard before. Not anger this time. Something closer to fear.

I didn't have an answer ready. That scared me more than anything Donovan had done the night before — that I opened my mouth to say something in his favor, the way I always did, the way I'd done for five years, and nothing came out.

The silence sat there between us, heavier than any fight we could have had.

"Steph," Kiara said quietly. "Say something."

I looked up at her. "I don't know yet," I said. "But I know it's not nothing anymore."

Outside, the sky was clear and bright, like nothing had happened at all.