We Dated the Wrong People for a Year

We were playing truth or dare when Travis said the day he most wanted to go back to was December 3rd of last year.

Everyone assumed that was the anniversary of the day he and I first met in person, and they teased him for loving me too much.

Only my best friend and I knew that on that day the two of us had mixed up our date addresses. And with the addresses, we mixed up the men we'd each met online.

We each dated the wrong person for a full year. After the truth came out, the man I'd originally met online was willing to go on loving her. But Travis said to me, "Sorry.

I don't want to keep the mistake going anymore." Chapter 1 In the back room of the restaurant, Travis sat as far away from me as he could get.

At every party before this one, he'd insisted on sitting pressed right up against me. He didn't want to be away from me for even a minute.

When people teased him for being clingy, he'd sling an arm around my shoulders and answer like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I'm clingy with my girlfriend.

What's the problem?" My best friend, Caitlin, couldn't sit still.

Finally she leaned over and asked me under her breath, "Did you two have a fight?" Travis and I had broken up a week earlier. Nobody knew yet.

When I didn't answer, her whole face tightened. "You really did, didn't you?

Is it because of the mixup, because we got the wrong guys?" "If you two are like this, how are Sebastian and I supposed to live with ourselves?" "I told Sebastian a while back that if things went wrong for you two, I wasn't going to keep dating him either." Sebastian was the man I'd originally met online.

He was also Caitlin's boyfriend now. The two of them were good together, and I didn't want to be the reason that changed. So for now, I kept it from her. "No, we didn't fight.

He's just in a bad mood." Only then did she let out her breath. As the party broke up, Caitlin had had too much to drink and stumbled on her way to the door.

Travis's hand shot out and caught her, and there was real concern in his voice. "You've had too much.

Let me drive you home." Caitlin shook off his hand like she'd touched a live wire, and her brows drew together. "That's okay.

Sebastian's coming to get me." "The one you should be driving home is Nat." Travis didn't answer. He just walked off to the side and lit a cigarette without a word.

Headlights swept across the curb. It was Sebastian's car. He got out and said hello to us, then took Caitlin from me and eased her carefully into the passenger seat.

I watched him lean across her to buckle her seat belt, every movement gentle, like he was afraid of hurting her.

Caitlin was beautiful, with the kind of figure that meant she had never been short of men chasing her. Next to her, I came off as plain and washed out.

So we'd both spent the same year loving the wrong person. Sebastian had fallen for her over time.

Even knowing he'd ended up with the wrong woman, he was willing to love her all the way to the end. Travis, on the other hand, had cut it off with me.

The day we broke up, he said he didn't want to keep the mistake going. Right. Once you know the rose was supposed to be in your hand, who's willing to settle for second best?

The deepwinter wind came through and cut straight to the bone. I pulled my coat tighter and started to order a car on my phone. Travis's voice came from beside me. "Come on.

I'll take you." "That's all right. I'll get my own ride." He crushed out the cigarette. There was something worn down in his eyes. "Natalie.

Even if we don't work as a couple, we're still friends." "It's late. Caitlin's worried about you.

Just let me take you home." Chapter 2 I looked up at him for a second, and in the end I gave in and got into his car.

I pulled the door shut, and the dark gray Porsche Panamera slid smoothly onto the main road. A song was playing over the speakers.

It was one I'd sent him back when we were together. His fingers paused on the wheel for a beat, and then he skipped to the next track.

That was the moment I finally couldn't hold the question in. "Why didn't you tell them we broke up?" After a long silence, his voice came out rough. "Can we keep it quiet for a while?" "If it's out in the open, I don't have a reason to see her anymore." "I want to wait for her a little longer.

Maybe she'll break up with Sebastian." It felt like worms had eaten my heart hollow, an empty kind of ache. I'd thought he hadn't said anything because he was still torn about it.

I'd been betting that he didn't want to let go either, even a little. Instead he told me it was so he could keep seeing her.

I turned my face toward the window so he wouldn't see my eyes go wet. "Why should I go along with that?" He didn't answer me directly.

He changed the subject instead. "Have you thought about giving it another try with Sebastian?" "What's that supposed to mean?" There was a tremor in my voice.

He kept his eyes calmly on the road. "Nothing. It just seems like the two of you were supposed to end up together. It's a shame." "No.

I'm not going to wreck what he and Caitlin have," I said, one word at a time. Both of those relationships had settled into place a long time ago.

And somewhere in that year, I had handed Travis my whole heart. I had no other thoughts about Sebastian, and he had none about me.

Travis's mouth twisted, and he let out a small, bitter laugh. "If you hadn't gotten the address wrong back then—" He stopped and didn't finish it.

But I finished the rest of it for him in my head.

What he wanted to say was: if I hadn't swapped that address note with Caitlin's, then today Caitlin would be his girlfriend, the way it was supposed to be. That lost year was on me.

He weighed it for a moment before he spoke again. "Help me keep it quiet for three months. Call it making it up to me.

Okay?" He blamed me for holding up what he and Caitlin should have had. He wanted three months from me to pay back his year.

If it could actually be paid back, I was willing to call us even. "Fine. Three months." By the time I said it, the car had stopped in front of my building. I unbuckled my seat belt.

As I got out, I heard him say a low "Thank you." I shut the door and a hard gust of cold wind went straight through me. It was the coldest moment of the winter.

Back inside, the apartment was dead quiet. I didn't turn on the lights. I lay down on the couch, tired all the way through. And then I remembered something Caitlin had told me.

She'd asked Sebastian the same question once. "What day would you most want to go back to?" She said Sebastian smiled and answered without a second of hesitation. "The day I sent you my first message." She hadn't understood at first, and she'd pressed him on it.

He said, "I just wish the person I'd sent it to that day had been you." I understood as soon as I heard it.

He wanted to go back to the day he sent me that first message, and this time not send it to me at all. Send it straight to Caitlin.

He was willing to set it right for her, and stay hers from the start.

Caitlin had been so sure of herself that night. "Travis will say the same thing, guaranteed." After all, he and I had spent a real, actual year together.

Half a year through a screen against a year of the real thing. Anybody would know which one you keep. But what Travis said was December 3rd.

Chapter 3 In the dark, everything I'd been holding down came back at me like a ghost. I curled up on my side and finally cried out loud.

The next afternoon, Caitlin sent out a birthday invitation in the group chat.

She tagged Travis and me specifically. [You two better show up early!] The message had barely landed before Travis answered, ahead of me. [Yeah.

For sure.] Not long after, I got a call from him.

He wanted me to come along and help him pick out a birthday present for Caitlin. "It's the first birthday present I'm giving her." "I'm worried I'll pick something she doesn't like." "You know her better than I do.

Come help me choose." I didn't want to go, so I grabbed the first excuse I could find. "Just go pick it yourself.

I've got things to do tomorrow." He seemed to have expected me to say no, and he took his time answering. "That money I paid off for your dad.

I never asked you for any of it back." "So now you help me pick out a gift, and we'll call it square. Fair?" That sentence left me sitting there for a long time.

Six months ago my dad's business went under and he ended up a hundred thousand dollars in debt.

He swallowed his pride and went around asking people for money, and every single door closed on him. I spent that stretch just as frantic as he was.

I never said a word about it, but Travis noticed something was off anyway. He handled the debt for my dad without telling me.

Afterward, every time I sent him money on Venmo, he sent back the full amount. He'd pull me into his arms, his voice indulgent and a little helpless. "Baby, I'm your boyfriend.

I don't want to be your creditor." "Besides, helping out my future fatherinlaw is part of the job, isn't it?" Times had changed.

The long way around, and he'd ended up my creditor after all. I was quiet for a moment. Then I said, "Okay." The next day I met Travis to shop for the gift, the way I'd promised.

He took me to a highend jewelry boutique. It was the brand he used to give me all the time. The sales associate spotted him and came right over. "Mr. Vandergriff.

It's been a while." "Bringing your girlfriend in to pick something out today?" He didn't bother explaining. He just gave her a slight nod.

I walked the cases with him, and we finally settled on a fourthousanddollar necklace.

Caitlin had mentioned once that she loved this necklace, but it cost too much and she couldn't bring herself to buy it.

At the register, the sales associate asked him, "We do engraving on this piece. Would you like that?" Travis nodded.

He took the pen and paper she held out and wrote two capital letters for her. They were the initials of the names he and Caitlin used online.

Once the sale was finished, the associate added, "Oh, and the necklace you ordered three months ago came in as well. It arrived yesterday.

We hadn't had a chance to call you yet." Travis was visibly thrown. "Bring it out." She came back quickly with a beautiful navy velvet box. Travis didn't open it.

He handed it straight to me. "This one's for you. It was made to your measurements." So it was the gift he'd arranged for me three months ago.

It was supposed to be my Valentine's Day present. It just hadn't come in before he and I ended. I didn't reach for it.

The associate thought we were having some kind of spat, and she smiled and tried to smooth it over. "The design of this diamond necklace was inspired by a line from the English poet Sir Philip Sidney. 'My true love hath my heart, and I have his.'" Hearing it now, the line was too ironic for words.

The associate beamed at me and said, Chapter 4 "He told me at the time that the line suited the two of you perfectly." He stepped closer and tried to press the box into my hands. "Take it.

Call it a thankyou for the help." He'd taken back everything real he'd given me, and left me a gift like that instead. I threw his hand off, hard. "I don't want it.

Save it for somebody else." Shock flickered through his eyes. On Caitlin's birthday, Travis gave her that present through me.

She pulled the ribbon off, saw the logo on the box, and her eyes lit up. Then she spun around and threw her arms around me. "Nat, you're too good to me!

I've had my eye on this since forever!" "I love it! Love you the most!" She held on to me, and I let my head rest against her shoulder.

Across the room, Travis was sitting on the couch. He had a drink in his hand, and his gaze went over the rim of the glass and settled on her and stayed there.

He used to look at me that way. Back then Caitlin used to tease him for being sickening about it. His eyes came up and hit mine by accident.

He froze for a second, then took his gaze back without letting anything show. I never told Caitlin. She'd never again have to envy the way Travis spent money on me.

From now on he'd give her more and better, and only her. Everything he'd given to the wrong woman he'd pay back to her twice over. He'd make her happier than she was today.

Partway through the night somebody suggested a game. On the third round the bottle came around and pointed straight at Travis. His luck was bad, and he drew dare.

The whooping came in waves, each one louder than the last. "Oh, we are not letting Trav off easy!" "Trav, you rubbed it in our faces last time.

Go ahead and give us the full show tonight!" "Then kiss Nat for five minutes. Right here in front of all of us!" There had been one person sitting between Travis and me.

That person laughed and got up to give the seat away