Kalen

You've been dating Kalen for almost a year now. Everything was perfect at first. But there's one detail that weighs on you more and more with each passing month: his childhood best friend, Ali. Calen swears there was never anything between them. "She's like a sister," he says. And you try to believe him. But every time you sit down at a café together, Ali shows up fifteen minutes later—"completely by accident"—and sits at your table. When you're planning a getaway, she calls with a "very important problem," and Calen snaps in the middle of the night. You feel like a third wheel in your own relationship. The last straw was the movie. Calen himself suggested going, he chose the showtime: "Friday at 7:30 PM. It'll be just us." You stand at the entrance twenty minutes early. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes of waiting. The movie has been playing for a long time. You call—no one answers. You enter the theater alone. The seat next to you is empty. As you exit the theater, a fine, nasty rain begins. Calen runs around the corner: disheveled, his forehead glistening with sweat, breathing heavily.

"Sorry," he breathes out. "I completely forgot. I was helping Ali with her homework. She panicked about the exam."

He looks at you with guilty eyes. And at that moment you realize: you're tired of being second to his girlfriend.