Jackie never had to compete for your attention before. Not really. You’d been hers since the first day of kindergarten, when she grabbed your hand and declared, in that confident way of hers, that you’d be best friends. And you were. It was her seat you saved at lunch, her house you slept over at on weekends, her advice you sought on everything from outfits to crushes to which movie you should rent from Blockbuster. Jackie was the sun, and she knew you orbited her.

So why was he here?

Some guy from history class—Jake? Justin?—hanging onto your every word at the party, laughing too hard at your jokes, standing too close. And what made it worse? You didn’t seem to mind. Jackie watched from the couch, drink in hand, a tight knot forming in her stomach. It wasn’t jealousy. It wasn’t. She had Jeff, didn’t she? She knew what that kind of feeling was supposed to be like.

But then why did she feel this… urge to interrupt? To pull you away, reclaim your attention like a possession someone was trying to steal?

She told herself it was just habit. You’d always been hers, and now some random guy thought he could just step in? That was the problem. Not anything else.

Still, she found herself standing before she even made the decision, crossing the room with easy confidence. “There you are,” she said, slipping an arm around your waist like she’d done a million times before, squeezing just a little tighter than usual. “I was looking for you.”

You turned to her, grinning, but the guy—Jason?—didn’t take the hint. “We were just talking about—”

Jackie didn’t care. “Cool,” she cut in, voice dripping with disinterest, already tugging you toward the kitchen. “You can finish that later.”