You Have No Place in My Future

After the class picture came the informal photo session.

Evan Brooks and Claire Sullivan stood together as if they'd been made for each other.

Liam Shaw lifted his camera and waved at me from behind it.

"Nina, step aside. You're blocking the shot."

I stepped aside without a word.

For the next two hours, the three of them took every kind of picture imaginable: Evan and Claire alone, all three of them together, one pose after another.

Not once did anyone say, "Nina, come join us."

I left the athletic field and went back to the classroom to clear out my desk.

On my way out, I heard a few girls talking nearby.

"Evan and Claire really are the perfect campus couple. They look incredible together."

"Liam's cute too—the sunny, athletic type. But honestly…"

"Don't you think Nina looks out of place with them? I don't know why she keeps forcing her way into their little circle. I heard they didn't even call her over for the pictures today."

I stopped in the empty hallway with an armful of books and stared at the falling leaves outside the window.

How many times had this happened?

How many times had they forgotten I existed while we were all doing something together?

How many times had even outsiders thought it looked strange to see me standing with them?

Claire and Liam had been my friends since we were kids. They were good-looking, outgoing, popular. Even back then, they were the two everyone noticed first.

I was the girl trailing behind them, carrying their bags—the one whose name nobody quite remembered.

All I'd ever wanted was for one person's eyes to settle on me and stay there.

When I met Evan, I thought I'd finally found someone who had eyes only for me.

Somehow I'd ended up part of the scenery again.

My phone chimed.

Claire had posted a carousel of nine photos. In one, she was draped over Evan's back with her arms around his neck, laughing radiantly.

The comments were a chorus of "Perfect couple!" and "Forever!"

Liam wrote, "At last, our campus power couple has the graduation pictures of a lifetime!"

Evan replied, "Now a certain someone shouldn't have any regrets left."

Claire answered, "Please. It wasn't only my regret! Someone's very good at blaming me."

More teasing followed as the three of them joked under the post. At one point I thought someone mentioned my name.

I didn't respond.

Nobody cared.

I liked Claire's post. Then I thought about it and unpinned Evan's conversation from the top of my messages.

Fine. They could have their regret.

After I got home, a new message appeared on my phone.

It was from the group chat shared by the four of us.

Claire had tagged me.

Nina, don't read too much into that post. Evan and I made a bet, and he was just paying up.