Elyse and I stood in the driveway of my empty home, surrounded by suitcases. “I can’t go with you to the airport. It’ll make me too sad,” she cried. I nodded, choking back sobs. I was moving countries to be closer to my long-distance boyfriend. Saying goodbye to my best friend hurt worse than any previous heartbreak. She and I were so close — we could make eye contact across a crowded room and know exactly what the other was thinking.
“Nothing is going to change,” I blubbered.
For a while (aside from being 2,500 miles apart), nothing did. We talked all the time, continuing to divulge every aspect of our inner emotional worlds. Then, three months post-move, my phone rang.
“I had sex with Brooke. Please don’t be mad,” Elyse said, her voice shaky. “I’ve been so scared to tell you.”
My stomach churned as she explained how she’d run into my ex-husband, Brooke, at a party the previous weekend. He’d flirted first.
“Do you like him?” I asked. Surely, they’d made a drunken mistake.
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“Yes,” she whispered. “But if it bothers you, I won’t see him any more.”
“I don’t care,” I lied. “Go for it.”
In my 20s, I would’ve thrown my phone across the room. The unwritten tenets of ‘girl code’ mandated one never hook up with their bestie’s ex. As Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls succinctly explained, “Ex-boyfriends are off-limits to friends. That’s just, like, the rules of feminism.”
But now, I bristled at the notion of implied ownership over another person. Years had passed since my decade-long relationship with Brooke ended. No unresolved feelings lingered. I wanted Elyse to be happy. Him, too. Besides, I was deeply in love, and had been with my boyfriend for a year. So, why did the thought of them together make me want to projectile vomit?
I’d been 22 when Brooke and I got married. We had moved so he could pursue a career in conservation. But our vows were short- lived. Six weeks after we said ‘I do’, I had an affair, blowing up our relationship. Nine months later, we signed our divorce papers.
That morning, I’d arrived, bereft, at my job at a clothing boutique. My new colleague, Elyse, listened, without judgement, as I trauma-dumped. It was our first shift together. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s all going to work out the way it’s meant to.” She suggested we don the shop’s finest garments and drink champagne to toast this new chapter of my life. We could only afford cans of sparkling wine, which we drank dancing to music at full blast. Tipsy, we closed the store early to eat sandwiches on the floor, crying with laughter as confused tourists knocked to be let inside.
Several months later, Brooke and I reconciled. Although we never remarried, we moved back in together for another four years. Our second chance wasn’t enough for us to make it work long term — my affair still loomed heavy over our relationship. In the aftermath of that final break-up, I spiralled. I didn’t know how to be without Brooke. He’d been my first experience of unconditional love.
But Elyse was my second. She pulled me from my burning pile of self-destruction. The sharp ache of my break-up was blunted by her steadfast companionship.
Now, my past had become her present. In the weeks after Elyse admitted her feelings for Brooke, I listened to her palpable giddiness on the phone as she recounted their budding courtship. I wanted to share in her excitement. But whenever she said his name, my chest tightened. Why were we pretending this man and I didn’t share an intimate and complicated history? Had she forgotten her pivotal role in helping me move on from him? How did I fit into the picture now? Did they talk about me? Even worse, did they not talk about me at all?
Instead of asking her these questions, I hid behind a smile, desperately wishing for everything to return to normal. To our friends, I’d say with a nasty smirk, “I give them a month. Tops.” Within three, they catapulted from casual dating to fully fledged monogamy. The closer they got, the further I grew from Elyse.
Information she used to confide in me first now trickled in from other sources. I stopped reaching out to her in moments of joy and sadness. When my boyfriend proposed on a beach in Mexico. When I became pregnant. When I suffered a miscarriage that landed me in A&E.
That spring, Elyse met Brooke’s family. I flinched at the social media photos — the flowers in his mother’s garden, Elyse’s face pressed adoringly to his. I’d lost her to him.
In a way, I grieved for him again, too. I liked all the pictures, of course, proving with a digital heart that I was the bigger person. I wasn’t. That summer, my boyfriend and I decided to forgo a traditional wedding, opting to throw a small garden party with our closest friends. Part of me longed for Elyse to be there. In the end, I didn’t invite her.
This was the slight that broke the dam of our repressed silence. In a heated email, she accused me of pushing her away first.
“You said you were okay with us from the get-go,” she wrote. “Are you jealous?”
Reading it, I spat out my coffee. Me? Jealous? Of what?! I had zero desire to be with my ex-husband again. I wanted an acknowledgment that she knew sleeping with Brooke could irrevocably alter our friendship. That, in that moment, she’d chosen him over us. As soon as I thought it, I realised she was right. I was deeply jealous — not of Elyse but of Brooke.
It’d been easier to focus on Elyse’s alleged disloyalty than it was for me to look inwards. When I did finally accept my jealousy, I saw it stemmed from fear and anxiety. I didn’t see a world in which the three of us could be friends, so I was afraid I would lose her altogether. But by gossiping behind her back and being dishonest about my true feelings, I’d made that world a terrible reality. I destroyed one of the most important friendships of my life.
My reckoning came too late. I tried to apologise for my behaviour, but Elyse wasn’t ready. For three years, we existed on the periphery of friends. Then, early in the Covid pandemic, I picked up the phone. As the line rang, I chewed on my lip, unsure she’d even accept my call.
“Hi!” Elyse answered. She sounded tentative but happy.
“I’m pregnant,” I said. “We’re having a baby girl.”
It was the first of many phone calls to come. Slowly, we rebuilt our communication and trust. And now, when I look at Brooke, I don’t see my ex-husband. Instead, I see a devoted, adoring partner to a woman I cherish.
I recently co-hosted Elyse’s baby shower. I stood in front of the guests to offer a toast. Elyse was resplendent in fuchsia, her belly draped in strands of flowers. I raised a glass, my voice breaking as I tried to convey my love and happiness for her. We locked eyes, and she smiled. I didn’t have to say anything. She already knew.
Kimberly Bridson is a Mexican American writer from Seoul, Korea, by way of Lacey, Washington. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Off Assignment, Los Angeles Times, Vogue, Slate, and other publications. Her writing mainly covers the messiness of love, parenting, and life in general. Find her on Instagram @kimberlybridson.
