**Ten Years Wasted**
“Bloody hell, Emily!” shouted Charlotte, grabbing her cup of cold coffee from the table. “Ten years! Ten years we’ve been best mates, and you—”
“And I what?” Emily cut in, jumping up from the sofa. “Was I supposed to report every move I made? You said yourself you were done with James!”
“I said it! But not so you could throw yourself at him the second I turned my back!” Charlotte slammed the cup down so hard coffee splashed onto the saucer. “Christ, how am I supposed to look at either of you now?!”
Emily sank back onto the sofa, gripping her dark hair in her fists. She’d known this conversation was coming, but she still wasn’t prepared for the storm.
“Char, just listen…” she began quietly. “We’re adults. You and James divorced a year ago. A whole year! And all that time, you swore you were free of him, that you’d never go back—”
“Yeah, I said it! So what?” Charlotte paced the kitchen, yanking cupboard doors open and shut. “That doesn’t mean I’m ready to watch him with my best friend!”
“Former best friend, by the looks of it,” Emily muttered bitterly.
They’d met at university, first-year Economics students. Charlotte had been all fire and laughter, with a wild mane of auburn curls, while Emily was the serious, bespectacled bookworm. On paper, they had nothing in common—yet somehow, they’d clicked instantly.
“Em, do you even know how to put on makeup?” Charlotte had asked after their first lecture, sizing her up.
“No. Why?”
“I’ll teach you! And you can explain macroeconomics to me, yeah? Numbers might as well be hieroglyphics to me.”
And so their friendship began. Charlotte transformed the quiet Emily into someone who turned heads, while Emily dragged her mate through exams she’d have otherwise failed. They were inseparable—studying, dating, dreaming of the future together.
“You know, Em,” Charlotte had sighed one night in their cramped dorm, “I want to marry a proper man. Strong, handsome, the kind who makes your knees wobble just by looking at you.”
“I just want someone who gets me,” Emily had replied. “Who I can sit with in silence and still feel happy.”
James had entered their lives in third year. Tall, athletic, with an easy smile and confidence that drew every girl’s eye. He’d transferred from another uni and immediately stood out.
“That’s it, girls, I’m done for!” Charlotte had declared dramatically the first time she saw him. “There’s my prince!”
Emily had only smiled. James was handsome, yes, but something about him felt too… polished. Like he always knew the right thing to say.
“Charlotte, hey!” he’d called after a lecture. “Mind showing me where to get a decent coffee round here?”
“Course!” Charlotte beamed. “Em, you coming?”
“No, I need to see my tutor,” Emily lied.
Charlotte fell hard and fast. And James? He seemed equally smitten with her bold, bright energy. Within a month, they were dating, and Emily became the third wheel—though none of them ever admitted it.
“Em, don’t sulk!” Charlotte would urge. “You’re like my sister! James adores you too!”
“It’s fine,” Emily would brush her off. “Just swamped with assignments.”
But it wasn’t fine. Because James *was* different. He was the only one who ever asked Emily what she thought, who could talk for hours about books and films she’d never mention to Charlotte.
“Emily, ever thought about academia?” he’d asked once over coffee. “You’ve got a brilliant mind.”
“Oh, shut up!” Charlotte laughed. “Em’s going into finance, gonna make bank!”
“Maybe,” Emily had murmured.
James had looked at her then—really looked—and she’d felt her face flush. There was something in his eyes… understanding? Interest? Her heart hammered.
“Charlotte, could you—” he started, but she cut in:
“Oh god, I forgot! I’ve got a dentist appointment! Em, walk James back to halls, yeah?” And she bolted before either could reply.
They’d walked through the autumnal campus in silence, leaves crunching underfoot.
“Emily,” James said suddenly, stopping. “You know you’re beautiful, right?”
“What?” She nearly tripped.
“Just saying. Charlotte’s vibrant, sure, but you… you’re *real*. Your eyes, the way you think—”
“Don’t.” She turned away, pulse roaring in her ears. “You’re with Charlotte.”
“I am. But that doesn’t mean I don’t see you.”
“She’s my best friend.”
“I know. So nothing happened. But if—”
“If doesn’t count.”
That night, Charlotte returned from the dentist, cheek swollen but radiant. “Em! Guess what? The tooth wasn’t even bad! Dentist said it’s stress! And you know why I’m stressed? Because I’m mad for James! He’s so… *proper*. Today he looked at me like he *sees* me—”
Emily’s stomach twisted. Those weren’t Charlotte’s eyes he’d been looking into. But how could she say that?
Two years later, they married. White dress, proud parents, Emily smiling stiffly in every photo.
“Em, thank you!” Charlotte sobbed in the loo, fixing her makeup. “You’re the best! I’d be lost without you!”
“Be happy,” Emily said softly—while her heart ached at the thought of watching them together.
But time numbed the pain. Emily buried herself in work, built a career, moved across London. Dated men who never measured up to the ghost in her heart.
Charlotte and James seemed happy, hosting dinners, celebrating anniversaries. James was always cordial with Emily, but distant—as if an invisible wall stood between them.
“Em, when are *you* settling down?” Charlotte would ask. “Clock’s ticking!”
“Haven’t met my person yet.”
“Oh, stop being picky! James says his colleague’s decent—”
“No thanks.”
The cracks appeared in year five. Charlotte complained James had grown cold, buried in books instead of her.
“Talk to him?” she begged. “You’re clever, he’ll listen to you!”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re my best friend!”
The conversation with James happened in their old student café. He looked tired, older, streaks of grey at his temples.
“Emily,” he said quietly. “I know why you’re here.”
“Do you?”
“Charlotte thinks I’ve changed. That I don’t love her anymore.”
“And have you?”
He stirred his coffee, silent for a long moment.
“Know the worst part of marriage?” he finally said. “Realizing you love the *idea* of someone, not who they really are.”
Her breath caught.
“Ten years, Emily. Ten years pretending. I can’t do it anymore. I fell for *you* at uni. Never stopped.”
Her hands trembled. Words she’d waited a lifetime to hear—now they only hurt.
“Too late,” she whispered.
“I know. But I had to tell you.”
A year later, Charlotte filed for divorce—after discovering James was seeing a colleague, a sharp-eyed journalist.
“Ten years, Em!” she wailed over the phone. “Wasted on that bastard!”
Emily listened, struck by the irony: Charlotte mourning a man who’d never truly been hers; James chasing love elsewhere because he hadn’t fought for the right one; herself, alone with decades of unspoken feelings.
Another year passed. Charlotte moved on—new haircut, holiday plans. James remarried. Emily stayed single, meeting Charlotte for occasional coffees.
“Em,” Charlotte said suddenly one day, staring out the café window. “Is that… *James*?”
Emily turned. There he was, across the street, smoking under the awning. Watching them.
“What’s he doing here?” Charlotte frowned.
Emily lied: “No idea.”
Because James had called her last night. Said his new marriage had failed. Said he still loved her. Asked for one more chance.
And she’d said yes—because she’d spent a lifetime doing the “right” thing. Now, at 40, she wanted to try being happy.
“Charlotte,” she said softly. “I’m seeing James.”
Now they stood in the kitchen, shouting as dusk fell outside.
“Ten years, Em!” Charlotte cried. “Ten years you hid this!”
“I didn’t hide it,” Emily said wearily. “I *sacrificed* it. For you.”
“For what? He never loved me!”
“No. But that’s not my fault. I stayed away for a decade.”
“And now you’re taking what’s yours?”
“Now I’m choosing *me*.”
Charlotte sank into a chair, face in her hands. “I don’t know if I can forgive you.”
“That’s fair.” EmilyAs Emily stepped out into the street and took James’s hand, she realized that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is finally choose yourself.
