The Bet He Made With My Best Friend

The email from the title company landed at 4:47 on a Friday afternoon, and I almost didn't open it. I was standing in the middle of apartment 6B, surrounded by cardboard boxes, my phone pressed between my ear and shoulder while I argued with the moving company about a delivery window. The apartment smelled like the lemon cleaner I'd been using all week, and there was a scuff mark on the wall by the kitchen where I'd dragged a box too fast. Two years in this place. Two years of saving every spare dollar, of eating rice and beans three nights a week, of skipping Nora's bachelorette trip to Miami because the flight alone would have cost me a month of deposits. The subject line said: Final Documents - 1421 Alder Lane. I opened it because I'd been waiting for this email for six weeks. The closing had been delayed twice. Marcus kept telling me not to worry, that paperwork always crawled in this county, that his guy at the title company was handling it. He'd been so calm about the whole thing that I'd stopped asking questions. That was the first mistake, but I didn't know it yet. The attachment was a PDF, and the PDF had a deed. Grantor: Marcus Hale. Grantee: Sloane Whitfield. I read it four times. I read it standing up, then sitting on the arm of the couch with the boxes pressing in around me, then standing up again because sitting felt like giving up. Sloane Whitfield. My Sloane. My maid of honor, my roommate from junior year, the person who'd held my hair back at a party in college and told me she'd always have my back. I typed the parcel number into the county's public search anyway. Same result. Filed three days ago. Signed by Marcus with a notary stamp I didn't recognize. My phone buzzed in my hand, and the group chat popped up on the screen. It was the three of us, the way it had been for four years. Marcus, Sloane, me. The chat was called Project: Adulting, which had been funny when we started house hunting and less funny now. Marcus: did u check the registry yet Marcus: registry . gov or whatever it is Sloane: you're so impatient Sloane: give her a minute I stared at the messages. My thumb hovered over the screen, and I didn't type anything. I didn't move. I just watched the little dots appear and disappear as they kept talking to each other like I was already gone. Sloane: i bet she hasn't even looked Sloane: she never looks Marcus: she will Marcus: she's thorough Sloane: thorough about everything except the things that matter Sloane: you owe me dinner at that place with the tasting menu if i'm right Marcus: fine Marcus: but if she checks and freaks out, that's on you Sloane: she won't Sloane: she trusts you more than she trusts her own eyes Sloane: that's the whole point I read that last line and felt something cold settle in my chest. The whole point. Like this was a game they'd been playing, and I was the board they moved pieces on. Like my trust was a joke they told each other at dinner. I put the phone down on the arm of the couch, face up, and I looked at the boxes around me. My boxes. My name was on the lease in this apartment, and my name was supposed to be on the deed to the house on Alder Lane. Two years. Forty-eight thousand dollars between the two of us, and I'd put in thirty-one of it because Marcus's freelance work had dried up that first summer and I'd picked up extra shifts at the hospital. I picked the phone back up. Me: I checked. Three dots appeared. Then nothing. Then three dots again. Sloane: okay? Me: I saw the deed. Me: Your name is on it, Sloane. Marcus: wait Marcus: hold on Sloane: oh Sloane: well Sloane: that's awkward That's awkward. Five years of friendship, and our shared life savings, and the future I'd built in my head one paycheck at a time, and Sloane typed that's awkward and sent it. Marcus: it's not what it looks like Me: Then what is it Marcus: it's complicated Me: It's a legal document, Marcus. Me: I'm a nurse, not a lawyer, but I know what a deed is. Sloane: we were going to tell you Sloane: we just wanted to make sure the deal went through first Me: The deal. Sloane: the house Sloane: you know Sloane: it's better this way I put the phone down again. My hands were shaking, so I pushed them flat against my thighs and counted to ten the way I did when a patient coded and I needed to be the calmest person in the room. Eight. Nine. Ten. It didn't work. The thing that kept running through my head wasn't the betrayal. It was the way they'd been so casual about it. They'd set up the group chat knowing I'd open that email eventually. They'd made a bet on how long it would take me to notice my own name was missing from the biggest purchase of my life. Sloane had bet I wouldn't check until after we moved in. Marcus had argued with her about it, not on my behalf but because he thought Sloane had guessed wrong about my character. That's what hurt the most. Marcus knew exactly who I was, and he still signed the papers. I stood up and walked to the window. Outside, the street was quiet. Some kid was riding a bike in circles on the sidewalk, and a woman was walking a very small dog in a very large sweater. Normal. Everything was normal except that the life I'd been packing into boxes didn't exist anymore. I picked up my phone and typed one more thing into the group chat, and then I set the phone face down on the windowsill and didn't look at it again for an hour. Me: I'm not moving into that house. Me: And I'm not marrying you, Marcus. Then I turned off notifications and went to find my laptop, because I'd been saving for two years and the law in this state had a few things to say about fraud.