Her eyes met mine and whatever Orla was saying to Julia faded into the back of my mind. How long was it since I last saw her properly? Her expression was unreadable, indecipherable, until she turned to Jim and he bent his head for a drawn-out, lingering kiss. I looked away quickly, my heart skipping a sudden beat. I saw them kiss at parties in the long-forgotten past before, of course, and I knew they slept together then too, on more than one occasion. It was different now. Now, he was her boyfriend. I knew that, of course I did—but to see him just casually kiss her like that, like that was part of the norm, surprised me more than I thought it would. I frowned down at my shoes.

This boy can give her all the things I can’t, I reminded myself, and it pierced me, even now.

“Have a good night, gals,” Orla said cheerily, breaking me from my reverie. She threw me a rather ostentatious wink before I rolled my eyes, reaching down for Julia’s wrist to lead her away. As we passed by the small group, I lowered my gaze and dropped her wrist, shoving my hands into my pockets. They said nothing, and neither did we.

We took our seats in the second last row of the empty screen, and I smiled when Julia shifted a little closer to me, her body leaning into mine. Looking around I could see that there was only one other couple in the front row, neither of them talking.

With still a few minutes left before the trailers, Julia took the opportunity to regard me with that same focused intensity I had grown used to. “You must have liked her a lot. Didn’t you?”

“I—what?”

“Connie. You liked her a lot.”

I shrugged, reaching into my bucket of popcorn and shoving a fistful into my mouth. “Why?”

“I could see it when you looked at her outside. That sadness. It’s shit, isn’t it? Liking someone that doesn’t like you back.”

I swallowed back my popcorn. “She was my best friend.”

“Do you miss her?”

I thought about telling her, then. I thought about unloading every burden I bore and placing it on Julia, sharing with her every detail of what had gone on between Connie and I. To reveal the truth—to inform someone that it was never the unrequited disillusion everyone else assumed it to be—it was weighing down on me knowing I had nowhere to turn to with the truth. Not Orla, not Claire—they could suspect, sure, but I could not affirm. I thought about how nice it would be to unleash all of those secrets on someone else, how refreshing. God knows all I wanted was someone else’s perspective. I wanted—needed—affirmation that we had no choice, and that there was no other way. I needed affirmation that Connie cared for me just as I had cared for her, to let someone else know that it was never some unreciprocated fantasy. But I couldn’t, could I? It was my burden to bear, and mine alone. I promised Connie never to tell and who was I to betray her greatest secret to anyone at all, even Julia? As much as I wanted to, I knew that I wouldn’t. At least, not now. In time perhaps I would let her know that it was all so much more than everyone assumed it to be, but for now—acting the supposed victim of unrequited love was the only option.