[FULL] My best friend forced me to wear plain clothes to the ball selection so I wouldn’t outshine her.
The Gray Sweater
Chapter One: Three Years in the Making
My best friend forced me to wear plain clothes to the ball selection so I wouldn’t outshine her. She completely lost it when the most gorgeous man in the room walked past her and chose me instead.
Every year, the Naval Academy cadets traveled to our university to choose dates for their winter ball. It was this enormous tradition where they’d march through our main quad in their dress whites and formally ask a girl to be their date for the evening. My best friend, Camila, had been fixated on this day since our freshman orientation. She’d spent three full years planning exactly what she’d wear when they arrived, exactly where she’d stand in the quad, and she’d even rehearsed her gasp of surprise in front of her bathroom mirror. She was absolutely certain that several cadets would fight over her, and that she’d generously choose the most handsome one.
When senior year finally rolled around, she made me get up at 4:30 in the morning to curl her hair and do her makeup. She wore an emerald green gown she’d been saving for months, having spent almost $250 on it. She insisted I wear my old gray sweater and jeans, because she said she didn’t want the two of us competing for the same attention. And anyway, she said, cadets never went for girls like me. She actually told me straight to my face that I was the supportive friend type, not the chosen type, and that I should learn to be grateful for that role.
We stood in the quad with maybe 180 other girls, and Camila positioned us dead center where nobody could possibly miss her. When the cadets came through the archway, the whole crowd fell silent. There were around twenty-five of them, all in their crisp uniforms, and walking at the front was a man who honestly looked like he’d stepped off a movie poster. Six-foot-two, shoulders like a swimmer, deep gray eyes you could pick out from clear across the quad.
Camila dug her nails into my arm so hard she left little crescent marks and hissed that he was hers. No question. She started tossing her hair and shifting her weight so he’d be sure to see her. He walked directly toward us, and Camila stepped forward with her rehearsed, startled face all ready to go. But he moved right past her and stopped in front of me. He said his name was Bennett and asked if I would do him the honor of being his date to the naval ball.
Camila let out a loud gasp and tried to wedge herself between us, saying, “I think there’s been a mix-up.” Bennett calmly stepped around her and kept his eyes on me, waiting for me to answer. When I said yes, he broke into a warm smile and handed me a printed invitation with his phone number written on the back. Camila just stood there frozen while cadets picked their dates all around us. Not one of them came near her.
Chapter Two: Stolen
For the rest of that day, Camila wouldn’t say a single word to me. When we got back to our apartment, she finally erupted. She said I must have done something to trick him — maybe I’d secretly talked to him beforehand. She accused me of quietly planning the whole thing and only pretending not to care so she wouldn’t catch on. She said I knew exactly how much this meant to her and that I’d stolen her moment on purpose. She actually used the word stolen, like Bennett was some prize she’d already put her name on.
She demanded I text him and tell him I couldn’t make it — that I was sick, or had a boyfriend, or anything at all to get out of it. When I refused, she told me I was the worst friend she’d ever had and that plain girls like me didn’t deserve men like Bennett. She said he probably just felt sorry for me, or maybe he’d lost some kind of bet and had to pick the ugliest girl there.
She spent the next two days freezing me out while texting everyone we knew that I’d betrayed her. She told people I’d been scheming for months and had deliberately wrecked her chances. Then she did something I could never forgive. She grabbed my phone while I was in the shower and texted Bennett pretending to be me. She told him I’d changed my mind and didn’t want to go, that I’d only said yes to be polite and that I really wasn’t into military guys. Then she deleted the whole conversation so I’d never see it.
When Bennett didn’t text me for three days, I assumed he’d lost interest — until his roommate messaged me asking why I’d been so harsh in the way I’d turned Bennett down. That’s when the whole thing finally came out. I called Bennett right away and explained everything. He was actually relieved, because he’d been genuinely excited about taking me. He told me he’d noticed me tutoring kids at the campus reading program and thought I was beautiful and kind. He said he’d specifically requested our university, hoping he’d get the chance to ask me.
We made our plans for the ball, and I decided not to tell Camila I’d smoothed things over. Instead, I told her she’d been right all along, that Bennett hadn’t reached out again, so I probably wasn’t going to go. She immediately brightened up and started acting like my best friend again, saying she’d known all along that he didn’t really want me.
Chapter Three: The Night Camila Missed
The night of the Naval Ball, Camila was curled up in our apartment watching movies and eating ice cream, completely convinced that I was also home sulking in my bedroom. In reality, I was at the ball in a stunning midnight blue dress my older sister had loaned me, dancing with Bennett, who turned out to be hilarious and thoughtful and honestly interested in every word I said.
I got back to the apartment around 10:00 the next morning, still feeling like my feet weren’t quite touching the ground. The ball had been perfect. Bennett had been perfect. My feet were sore from my sister’s heels, and I had little flecks of silver glitter from the decorations stuck in my hair. But I didn’t care one bit.
I unlocked the door as quietly as I could and saw Camila exactly where I’d left her the night before — on the couch in her pajamas, wrapped in a blanket, watching some romantic comedy and eating straight out of a pint of ice cream. The whole apartment smelled like popcorn, and there were crumpled tissues scattered across the coffee table, like she’d been in the middle of a good long cry over some movie.
My stomach knotted up with guilt, even though I knew what she’d done to me was so much worse.
She looked up when I walked in. “How was your sad little evening?” she asked in this fake, dripping sympathetic voice that made my skin crawl. I clutched my little purse behind my back where she couldn’t see it. Inside was my phone and the invitation Bennett had handed me at the ball, his number written on the back in neat, careful handwriting.
“It was fine,” I said, heading straight toward my room. “Just watched some stuff on my laptop.”
“I knew you’d get over him eventually,” she said, turning back to her movie. “Guys like that don’t actually go for girls like us. They just do the whole formal asking thing because it’s tradition.”
I shut my door and leaned back against it, my heart hammering. The blue dress was still folded up in my car where I’d hidden it that morning — I’d changed back into my regular clothes in the parking lot before coming up. I sat down on my bed and pulled out my phone. Bennett had already texted me twice, asking if I’d made it home safe and telling me what an amazing time he’d had. I smiled and texted him back, then shoved the phone under my pillow the second I heard Camila moving around in the living room.
Chapter Four: Meeting Three Miles Off Campus
The next several days were strange. I texted with Bennett constantly, but I had to hide every message like I was doing something criminal. He wanted to see me again, wanted to take me to dinner or just meet up somewhere on campus, but I kept inventing excuses. Every time I imagined running into someone who might mention the ball to Camila, my stomach twisted into knots.
We finally agreed to meet for coffee at a little place three miles off campus that no students ever went to. It was mostly older folks and people on their lunch breaks. I got there first and slid into the back corner booth where nobody could spot me through the windows. Bennett showed up about ten minutes later in jeans and a plain t-shirt instead of his uniform. He slid into the booth across from me, smiled, and reached across the table to take my hand. I pulled it back and glanced around to make sure nobody from school was there.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just being careful.”
He ordered a coffee and we talked for a while about nothing in particular. Then he got quiet and looked at me seriously. “Can I ask you something?” He stirred some sugar into his coffee. “Why are we meeting three miles off campus like we’re having some kind of secret affair? I want to take you out for real. You know, actual dates where we don’t have to hide.”
So I explained everything — the whole story about how Camila had sabotaged me by texting Bennett from my phone, how I’d quietly fixed it without telling her, how I’d let her believe he’d ghosted me so she wouldn’t blow up. I told him how I’d lied about not going to the ball and how she still thought I’d spent that entire night alone in my room. Bennett listened without interrupting once, his coffee going cold in front of him.
“That’s really messed up,” he said when I finished. “What she did with your phone. That’s not what a friend does.”
“I know,” I said, picking up my napkin. “But if I tell her now that I went to the ball and that we’re seeing each other, she’ll completely lose it. She’ll make my life miserable. We live together and we share all the same friends.”
Bennett was quiet for a moment. “So you’re just going to keep lying to her. For how long?”
“I don’t know. Until I figure out what to do.” He reached across the table again, and this time I let him take my hand. “I get it. Toxic friendships are hard,” he said. “I had a guy at the academy who was exactly like that. Always competing with me, always finding ways to make me feel small. But here’s the thing — you’re letting Camila control your whole life, even though she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. You’re sneaking around and hiding, and that’s not fair to you. And it’s not fair to me.”
Honestly, that hit me harder than I expected. He was right. I was still letting Camila decide what I could and couldn’t do, exactly like I had for three years.
Chapter Five: Meeting Ren
A week after the ball, Bennett texted me saying his sister was visiting campus for the day. Her name was Ren, three years older than him, working as a nurse and staying over that night. He really wanted me to meet her, and he suggested lunch at the student union. I almost said no because the student union sat right in the heart of campus where absolutely everyone ate, but something about the way he asked made me agree.
I met them at noon. Ren had the same gray eyes as Bennett but lighter hair, and she hugged me like we’d known each other for years. We grabbed food from the cafeteria line and sat at a table by the windows. I kept scanning the room nervously, half expecting Camila or one of our mutual friends to walk in.
“Bennett says you two had a great time at the ball,” Ren said, taking a bite of her sandwich. “He wouldn’t stop talking about you for weeks before it.”
“Really?” I looked over at Bennett and he just shrugged with a shy little smile.
“He told me about seeing you at the reading program. He’d apparently noticed me there months ago.” Ren listened closely and asked all these questions about my major and my plans after graduation. She was so easy to talk to, the kind of person who made you feel comfortable right away.
Then she caught me checking the entrance again. “You okay? You seem nervous.” So I explained the Camila situation — the whole thing from the very beginning up to now. Ren’s expression shifted as I talked, going from curious to concerned to something close to angry.
“Let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” she said when I finished. “This girl made you dress down so you wouldn’t compete with her. Then when a guy chose you anyway, she sabotaged you, and she spent years making you feel like you’re not good enough — and you’re still worried about protecting her feelings?”
When she laid it out like that, it sounded completely insane. “I know it’s complicated,” I said.
“It’s not complicated,” Ren said, setting down her fork. “Real friends don’t spend years making you feel like less than them. They don’t manipulate you or tear you down. And honestly, sometimes the trash takes itself out. You just have to stop carrying it around.” Bennett nodded in agreement. I sat there feeling like they’d both just said something so obvious that I’d been refusing to let myself see for years.
Chapter Six: The Slip
We finished lunch and I walked out with them, and that’s exactly when I ran into Elliot from my dorm building. He was with his girlfriend Priya, both of them heading into the union just as we were leaving.
“Hey,” Elliot grinned when he spotted me. “You looked incredible at the ball the other night. I didn’t even know you and Bennett were together.” My stomach dropped. I could feel Bennett and Ren both watching me, waiting to see what I’d say. Priya nodded along enthusiastically and said something about how adorable we’d looked dancing.
“Thanks,” I managed. “Could you maybe not mention it to anyone, though? It’s kind of private.”
Elliot looked confused. “Why would it be private? Everyone thought you two looked amazing together. Half the people there were talking about it.”
“I’d just really appreciate it if you didn’t bring it up, please.” He shrugged. “Okay, sure, whatever you want. But it’s not exactly a secret. People were posting pictures and everything.” They walked into the union, and I stood there feeling sick to my stomach.
Ren touched my arm gently. “It’s going to come out eventually. You know that, right?”
I knew. I just wasn’t ready for it yet.
Chapter Seven: Twenty-Two Texts
Two days later, I was sitting in my biology lecture trying to concentrate on cellular respiration when my phone started buzzing in my bag. I ignored it at first, but it just kept going — buzz after buzz after buzz. I slid it out under my desk and saw fourteen texts from Camila. My hands started trembling as I opened them.
The first one just said, Are you kidding me? The second was a screenshot of an Instagram post from someone at the ball — a group photo, and there I was in the background in my midnight blue dress with Bennett’s arm around my waist. We were both laughing. The photo had both of our names tagged in it. The next dozen messages got angrier and angrier. She demanded to know why I’d lied. She called me a snake. She said she couldn’t believe I’d betrayed her like this. The last one just said we needed to talk immediately.
I couldn’t focus for the rest of the lecture. The professor’s voice faded into background noise while I stared at my phone, watching new messages keep landing. By the time class let out, there were twenty-two texts.
I walked back to the apartment slowly, taking the longest possible route, knowing exactly what was waiting for me. Camila was standing in the middle of the living room with her arms crossed when I opened the door. Her face was flushed and her eyes had this wild look.
“Why did you lie to me?” She didn’t even say hello. “You went to the ball. You went with Bennett, and you let me sit here thinking you stayed home feeling sorry for yourself.”
I tried to explain. I told her about finding out she’d texted him from my phone, about fixing things with him, about how scared I’d been of how she’d react. But she talked right over me before I could get three sentences out.
“You humiliated me on purpose. You snuck around behind my back and made me look like an idiot to everyone who knew the real story. Do you have any idea how many people must have seen you there, and then watched me go around saying Bennett didn’t want you?”
“You’re the one who texted him from my phone,” I said, my voice getting louder. “You sabotaged me first.”
“Because you stole my moment,” she was shouting now. “You knew how much that ball meant to me. You knew I’d been planning for it for three years, and you just took it.”
“I didn’t take anything. Bennett chose me. That’s not something you can steal.”
Chapter Eight: What Snapped
The argument dragged on for a good twenty minutes. She kept insisting I’d been plotting against her from day one, that I must have contacted Bennett ahead of time to arrange the whole thing. She called me a snake and a fake friend. She said I’d been playing the supportive friend while stabbing her in the back the whole time.
I tried to keep my voice steady, but eventually I lost it. “You sabotaged me first,” I said again. “You texted Bennett from my phone and told him I didn’t want to go. You deleted the messages so I’d never find out. And you’ve spent three years chipping away at my confidence, calling me the supportive friend type and acting like I should be grateful you even let me hang around you.”
Camila went completely silent. For about ten seconds, she just stared at me. Then her expression turned cold. “You’re delusional. If you actually think Bennett likes you, he probably felt sorry for the sad girl in the plain sweater. Or maybe it was a dare. Pick the ugliest girl you can find. That’s probably what really happened.”
Something inside me snapped, but not the way it usually did when she said things like that. This time, instead of hurt, I felt this strange clarity. I could suddenly see the whole pattern so plainly. Years of little comments engineered to keep me small. Years of her casting herself as the pretty one, the chosen one, while I was expected to accept being the backup.
“I’m done,” I said. “I’m done listening to you tear me down. I’m done pretending this is a normal friendship. You don’t treat people you care about like this.”
She laughed. “You’ll come crawling back. You always do. Because without me, you’re nobody.”
Chapter Nine: The Thread
I walked to my room and shut the door. I could hear her stomping around the living room, slamming cabinets. Then my phone started buzzing again. I looked and saw that she was posting on social media. I opened Instagram and there it was — a long, detailed thread about how I’d betrayed her by secretly going to the ball after she’d been so gracious about Bennett choosing me. She made it sound like she’d been nothing but supportive and that I’d snuck around behind her back for no reason at all. She’d carefully cut out the part where she’d sabotaged me, painting herself as the innocent victim of my cruel little scheme.
My phone exploded with messages. Mutual friends asking what had happened, people picking sides, some believing her version, some asking for mine. I sat on my bed watching the notifications pile up and realized she was forcing my hand. I could either publicly defend myself or let everyone believe I was the villain in her carefully crafted story.
I sat on my bed staring at my phone until 3:00 in the morning. The notifications kept rolling in like waves, and every time I thought they’d finally stopped, another round would start. I opened a blank post and started typing. My hands shook as I tried to find the right words to explain everything without sounding cruel or defensive. I deleted whole paragraphs and rewrote them over and over. I wanted people to understand what had actually happened, but I didn’t want to completely destroy Camila in public, even though she’d tried to do exactly that to me.
Around 4:00 a.m., I finally had something that felt honest. I explained how she’d texted Bennett from my phone while I was in the shower and then deleted the conversation. I attached screenshots showing the message she’d sent pretending to be me, along with the timestamp proving I’d been in the shower when it was sent. I wrote about how she’d spent three years telling me I was the supportive friend type and not the chosen type. I kept everything factual and did my best not to make it sound like I was attacking her. I read it over twelve times before I finally hit post at 5:00 in the morning. Then I switched off my phone and tried to sleep, but my brain refused to shut down.
Chapter Ten: The Aftermath
When I woke up three hours later, my phone had blown up with responses. Some people were shocked about the text message sabotage and said they couldn’t believe Camila would do something like that. Others said I still shouldn’t have lied about going to the ball, and that deceiving her made me just as bad. A few mutual friends said we were both being dramatic over a guy and needed to grow up. I felt sick reading through all of it because, no matter what I said, some people were always going to think I was the villain.
My phone rang around 2:00 that afternoon and Bennett’s name lit up the screen. I almost didn’t answer because I was so embarrassed about the whole mess being splashed everywhere online. He asked if I was okay, and his voice sounded angry, but not at me. He said he’d seen everything on social media and couldn’t believe Camila had sabotaged me like that. He asked why I’d never told him about all the other things she’d said over the years about me being the supportive friend type. I explained that I’d gotten so used to her comments that I didn’t even register them as insults anymore.
Then it got quiet for a moment, and then he told me about his old best friend from high school who used to compete with him over everything — grades, sports, girls, even dumb stuff like who could do more pull-ups. He said it took him two years after graduating to finally understand that real friends don’t make you feel like you’re constantly losing some invisible competition. We talked for over an hour about toxic friendships and why people stay in them. He said something that stuck with me — that sometimes we accept treatment from friends we’d never accept from a stranger because we confuse history with loyalty. I felt less alone after that call, because someone finally understood why this whole thing was so complicated.
Chapter Eleven: Real Friends
That evening, someone knocked on my bedroom door. I opened it expecting Camila but found Nour Hadad standing there instead. She lived in the room next to mine, and we’d always been friendly but never really close. She asked if she could come in, and I stepped aside to let her.
She sat down in my desk chair and told me she was glad I’d finally stood up to Camila. I must have looked surprised, because she laughed and said she’d been watching the dynamic between us for three years. She told me Camila treated me badly and that she’d wanted to say something before but hadn’t wanted to stir up drama. She said she’d noticed how Camila always positioned herself as the pretty one and made these subtle little comments that kept my confidence low. She offered to be a witness if I ever needed to go to housing about the hostile living situation. I thanked her and felt so grateful, because I usually kept to myself and had no idea anyone had even noticed. She hugged me before she left and said, “Real friends build you up. They don’t tear you down.”
The next week was exhausting. Our mutual friend group basically fractured into factions. Some people sided completely with Camila and stopped talking to me in the dining hall. Others thought her text message sabotage was far worse than my deception and made a point of sitting with me instead of her. Most people just seemed worn out by the whole thing and avoided both of us. I lost a few friends I’d had since freshman year who believed Camila’s version, that I’d been plotting against her from the start. But I also grew closer to people like Nour and Elliot, who told me they’d always sensed something was off about how Camila treated me. The social fallout felt like middle school drama, but it was real, and it genuinely hurt to lose people I’d thought of as friends.
Chapter Twelve: A Hostile Kitchen
Living in the same apartment as Camila became unbearable. We barely spoke except when it was absolutely necessary. She’d make pointed little comments about “fake friends” every time I walked through the living room. She’d crank up the TV volume when I was trying to study. She’d leave her dirty dishes piled in the sink for days, knowing it drove me crazy. I started spending nearly all my time at the library or over at Bennett’s place just to avoid being home.
I went to the housing coordinator’s office and explained the situation. The coordinator was sympathetic and said I could request a room change for spring semester, but nothing was available until then. She told me I was stuck in this hostile environment for another six weeks.
Bennett invited me to a Naval Academy event three weeks after everything blew up. I was nervous about meeting more of his friends because I worried they’d all heard about the drama. But when we got there, everyone was welcoming and treated me like I completely belonged. Bennett introduced me to Theo Vance, one of his closest friends from the academy. Theo’s date was so friendly, and she mentioned that Bennett had talked about me for weeks before the ball selection. She said he’d been planning exactly how he was going to ask me and had been worried I might say no.
I looked over at Bennett and he just smiled and squeezed my hand. Being around people who didn’t know a thing about the Camila situation and just saw me as Bennett’s girlfriend felt incredibly refreshing. Nobody was judging me or picking sides. They just accepted me as part of the group. Theo’s date also mentioned that Bennett had told everyone I volunteered at the reading program, and that that was what first caught his eye.
Chapter Thirteen: A Partial Apology
I was making coffee in the apartment kitchen one morning when Camila walked in. We’d been avoiding each other for three weeks, and the sudden closeness made me tense up. She stood there for a second and then said we needed to talk like adults. I cautiously agreed and turned to face her.
She said she’d been thinking about everything and that she was sorry for texting Bennett from my phone. My hope lifted for just a second, until she immediately added that I still shouldn’t have lied about going to the ball. She said we’d both made mistakes, but that mine was worse because I deliberately deceived her. I realized this was as close to an apology as she was capable of giving — one that still somehow made everything partly my fault. She couldn’t just apologize without tacking on conditions and spreading the blame around.
I took a deep breath and told her I appreciated the partial apology, but that I couldn’t go back to a friendship where she needed me to be less confident so she could feel better about herself. I told her that her years of subtle little insults about me being the supportive friend type had really damaged me, even if she never meant them that way. She looked genuinely baffled, like she had no idea what I was even talking about. She said she’d just been honest about our different social roles — that some people are naturally more outgoing and attractive, while others are better suited to supporting roles. She said I was being oversensitive and reading way too much into normal friend observations.
That confirmed everything I needed to know. She fundamentally didn’t understand how her words had affected me and probably never would.
We reached an agreement to be civil roommates for the remaining weeks of the semester. No more pointed comments about fake friends. No more social media drama or public arguments — just polite coexistence until the housing change went through in January. It wasn’t friendship and it wasn’t the tidy closure some people expected, but it was livable. I felt relieved to finally have clear boundaries, even if they weren’t the reconciliation everyone thought we should have.
Chapter Fourteen: Winter Break
Finals week came and went. I got my approval for a room change to a single for spring semester. I packed up all my stuff the day after my last exam and moved everything to my parents’ house for winter break. My sister picked me up, and on the drive home, she asked how I was doing. I told her everything that had happened since the ball. She was quiet for a while and then said she was proud of me for standing up for myself. She said watching me accept Camila’s treatment for three years had been hard, but that she’d known I had to figure it out on my own.
My parents were supportive when I got home, even though they’d always liked Camila and seemed a little sad the friendship had ended. My mom said, “Sometimes friendships just run their course, and that’s okay.” My dad asked if I was sure I’d tried everything to fix it. I explained that you can’t fix a friendship where one person needs the other one to stay small. They both hugged me and said they understood.
Winter break arrived with the quiet relief of distance and space. Bennett and I started doing video calls every few days, and those conversations felt different from any friendship I’d ever had. He’d ask about my day and actually listen to my answers without steering the conversation back to himself. When I mentioned feeling nervous about a family dinner, he didn’t tell me I was overreacting or that other people had it worse. He just said my feelings made sense and asked what would help me feel better. I kept noticing how different this was from years of Camila brushing off my worries or turning them into openings to talk about her own problems.
One night, we were on a call and I mentioned missing the campus reading program where we’d first crossed paths, and Bennett smiled and said he’d been hoping I’d bring it up. He told me he’d visited three separate times before the ball selection, always timing it so he could watch me work with the kids. He said he’d been working up the nerve to introduce himself for weeks. Hearing that made something shift in my chest, because Camila had spent years convincing me that guys like Bennett never noticed girls like me unless they felt sorry for us. But Bennett had noticed me specifically because of who I was — my character, my kindness — not in spite of some imagined flaw.
We made plans for spring semester, including study dates at the library and weekend trips to nearby hiking trails, and I realized I was building something real with someone who genuinely wanted me to succeed and feel confident. My sister came into my room one afternoon and caught me smiling down at my phone during a text conversation with Bennett. She sat on the edge of my bed and told me she was glad I’d finally found someone who treated me the way I deserved. That validation from her meant everything, because she’d watched the friendship with Camila chip away at my self-worth for three years.
Epilogue: A Polite Little Nod
Spring semester started with me moving into my single room in a different building. The freedom of that space felt incredible. I could decorate it however I wanted without worrying about Camila’s opinions. I could study without her pointed comments about how “some people just have to work harder than others.” I could simply exist without constantly monitoring whether I was being too confident, or too successful, or too anything.
Three weeks into the semester, I was grabbing lunch in the dining hall when I saw Camila at a table across the room with some girls from her communications class. Our eyes met for a brief second, and we both gave a polite little nod before looking away. No dramatic confrontation, no tears or apologies or attempts to rehash everything — just two people who used to share everything and now shared nothing at all.
I sat down with Nour and Theo, who’d become real friends over the past few months, people who celebrated my wins instead of finding ways to shrink them. Bennett joined us a few minutes later and kissed my cheek before sitting down, and I caught Camila watching from across the room with an expression I couldn’t quite read. I turned back to my friends and focused on the conversation happening at my own table instead of worrying about what she thought.
Sometimes I still felt a little sad about losing what I thought Camila and I had. But mostly I just felt relieved to finally be free of always feeling like I wasn’t enough — free to be the girl someone actually chose, in a room full of people, exactly as she was.
