The Girl Next Door

Zane Mercer and I had grown up together.

Both our families took it for granted that we would end up together after graduation.

He never bothered to hide it, either. Whenever someone brought us up, he would say, “Vivian gets scared so easily. She can’t manage without me.”

I believed him for over a decade.

Until the first department dinner at college.

The prettiest girl in our department carried her drink over and sat beside him, smiling as she asked, “I heard you have a childhood sweetheart. Is she your girlfriend?”

Amid the teasing and excited chatter, my cheeks flushed. I waited for him to nod.

But Zane hesitated.

“No. She’s just the girl next door.”

Someone nudged the girl beside him. “Then you’ve got a chance!”

She smiled brightly. “I’ll be counting on you to look after me from now on.”

Zane didn’t pull away. Instead, he smiled back.

“Sure.”

In that moment, I remembered how he’d worried about me getting sunburned during the summer camp and gone out in the middle of the night to buy me sunscreen. I remembered how he’d held my hand while we filled out our college applications and promised we’d keep walking through life together.

So all those years of affection meant nothing compared to one smile from her.

On the way back, he caught up with me to explain.

“Selene’s pretty straightforward. I just didn’t want to embarrass her.”

I asked, “So it’s fine to embarrass me instead?”

He frowned. “Vivian, since when did you get so sensitive?”

I said nothing more.

That night, I changed all our photos to private.

From then on, I would be nothing more than the girl next door.