“Ten Years Wasted”
“What on earth are you on about, Emily?” shouted Sophie, grabbing her lukewarm coffee from the table. “Ten years! Ten years we’ve been friends, and you—”
“And I what?” interrupted Emily, jumping up from the sofa. “Was I supposed to report my every move to you? You said yourself you were done with James!”
“I did! But not so you could throw yourself at him the second I turned my back!” Sophie slammed the cup down so hard coffee sloshed onto the saucer. “God, how am I supposed to look either of you in the eye now?”
Emily sank back onto the sofa, twisting her dark hair in her fists. She’d known this argument was coming, but she still wasn’t ready for the storm.
“Soph, just listen to me,” she said quietly. “We’re adults. You and James split up a year ago. A whole year! And all that time, you kept saying you were free of him, that you’d never go back—”
“Yes, I said it! So what?” Sophie paced the kitchen, yanking cupboards open and shut. “Doesn’t mean I’m ready to watch him with my best friend!”
“Former best friend, by the look of it,” Emily muttered bitterly.
They’d met at uni, first year in the Economics department. Sophie had been all fire and laughter, a whirlwind of red curls, while Emily was the serious bookworm behind thick glasses. On paper, they had nothing in common, but something had clicked instantly.
“Em, d’you even know how to do makeup?” Sophie had asked after their first lecture, eyeing her new acquaintance.
“No. Why would I?”
“I’ll teach you! And you can explain derivatives to me, yeah? Numbers might as well be hieroglyphics to me.”
And so their friendship began. Sophie transformed the mousey Emily into someone who turned heads, while Emily dragged her mate through exams. They were inseparable—studying, dating, dreaming of the future.
“You know, Em,” Sophie sighed one night in their cramped dorm beds, “I want to marry a proper bloke. Someone strong, handsome, the type who makes your knees wobble with one look.”
“And I just want to be understood,” Emily replied. “Someone who gets me without words, who I can sit silently with and still feel happy.”
James 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 Sophie spotted him first.
“That’s it, girls—I’m done for!” she’d gasped dramatically. “There’s my prince!”
Emily had just smiled. James was handsome, sure, but something about him felt too… rehearsed. Like he always knew the right thing to say.
“Sophie, hey!” he’d called after class. “Fancy showing me where the decent cafés are round here?”
“Of course!” Sophie beamed. “Em, you coming?”
“I’ve got office hours,” Emily lied. “You two go ahead.”
Sophie fell hard and fast. James seemed smitten too, and within a month, they were official. Emily became the awkward third wheel, though both pretended otherwise.
“Don’t sulk, Em!” Sophie would nudge her. “We’re like sisters! 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—the only one who truly cared about Emily’s thoughts, who’d discuss books and films for hours. With him, she could talk about things she never shared with Sophie.
“Emily, ever considered academia?” he asked once over coffee. “You’ve got a brilliant analytical mind.”
“Oh, rubbish!” Sophie laughed. “Em’s going corporate—gonna make stacks of cash!”
“Maybe,” Emily murmured.
James looked at her then, really looked, and her pulse hammered. His gaze held something—understanding? Interest? She couldn’t decipher it, only that her skin burned under it.
“Soph, could you—” James started, but Sophie cut in:
“Blimey, I forgot—dentist appointment! Em, walk James back to halls for me?” And she was gone before they could protest.
They walked through the uni park in silence. Early October, leaves crunching underfoot, the air sharp with autumn.
“Emily,” James stopped suddenly. “You know you’re beautiful, right?”
“What?” She nearly tripped.
“Just saying. Sophie’s dazzling, sure, but you… you’re *real*. Your eyes, the way you think—”
“Don’t,” she turned away, heart thrashing. “You’re with Sophie.”
“I am,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t see other women. Don’t see *you*.”
“Sophie’s my best friend.”
“I know. So nothing happens. But if—”
“If doesn’t count,” she snapped. “Let’s just go.”
They walked the rest in silence. At halls, James tried to speak, but Emily ducked inside.
That evening, Sophie returned puffy-cheeked but glowing. “EM!” she bellowed, flinging the door open. “Turns out my tooth wasn’t rotten! Dentist said it’s stress! Know why I’m stressed? Because I’m *mad* for James! He’s so… *manly*! Tonight he gave me this *look*—”
“What look?” Emily tensed.
“Like he *sees* me, you know? Reckon he’ll propose soon!” Sophie spun, hugging a pillow. “Imagine—I’ll be a wife! You’ll be my maid of honour!”
Emily listened, stomach knotting. That look wasn’t for Sophie. But how could she tell her?
Two years later, they married. White dress, speeches, beaming parents. Emily stood stiffly as maid of honour, avoiding the groom’s eyes.
“Em, thank you!” Sophie sobbed in the loo, reapplying lipstick. “You’re the best mate ever!”
“Be happy,” Emily said, hugging her. While thinking: *How will I bear this?*
But time numbed the ache. Emily buried herself in work, climbed the corporate ladder, moved across London. Dated, but no one measured up.
Sophie and James seemed happy. They hosted dinners, shared holidays. James was always polite, but distant—like glass walls stood between them.
“Em, when’ll *you* settle down?” Sophie prodded. “Nearly thirty!”
“Haven’t met my person.”
“Rubbish! You’re too picky! James knows a nice divorced bloke at his firm—”
“No,” Emily cut her off.
The cracks appeared in year five. Sophie complained James had grown cold, withdrawn.
“Comes home and goes straight to his laptop!” she fumed. “I talk about my day, and it’s ‘mhm’, ‘mhm’! Like talking to a brick wall!”
“Maybe he’s tired,” Emily offered.
“Tired? At weekends too? He’d rather read than talk to me!”
Emily stayed silent. James had always loved books, deep conversations. Sophie thrived on shopping and gossip.
“Em, could you talk to him?” Sophie begged. “You get his brainy stuff. Maybe he’ll listen to you?”
“Why me?” Panic flickered.
“Please! You’re my best friend! I’m lost!”
They met at their old student café. James arrived weary, flecks of grey at his temples.
“Emily,” he said the moment they sat. “I know why you’re here.”
“You do?”
“Sophie sent you. Thinks I’ve changed.”
“Have you?” she whispered.
He stirred his coffee. “Know the worst part of marriage? Realising you wed the wrong person. That you fell for an idea, not them.”
“James—”
“Ten years, Em. Ten years with a woman I *thought* I loved. But it’s always been you. Since uni.”
Her breath hitched. She’d waited a lifetime for these words—now they only ached.
“Too late,” she said.
“I know. But I can’t pretend anymore. Can’t force interest in our life. I’m suffocating.”
“And Sophie? She loves you!”
“She loves who I pretended to be. Not who I *am*.”
They sat, drowning in unsaid words.
“What do you want from me?” Emily asked.
“Nothing. Just needed you to know. To apologise for stealing ten years.”
“You didn’t steal them. I chose silence too.”
A year later, Sophie filed for divorce after discovering James with a colleague—a sharp-eyed journalist with a bob haircut.
“Ten years, Em!” she wailed over the phone. “And he replaces me with some bespectacled cow!”
Emily listened, thinking how twisted it all was. Sophie mourned a man who’d never truly been hers. James sought love elsewhere because he’d lacked the courage to fight for the right woman. And she—And as Emily walked away into the London drizzle with James, hand in hand at last, she wondered if some loves were simply meant to arrive late, weathered by time but sturdier for the wait.
