My Best Friend Thanked Me For Forgiving Her $8,000 Loan – But I Had Never Said It Was A Gift

PART 2

Trina did not answer immediately.

She picked up her purse from the chair, then set it down again.

“Forget it.”

“No.”

“Elise.”

“You said we were even. Even for what?”

Trina rubbed her forehead.

“For everything.”

“That is not an answer.”

“Maybe it is the only one I have tonight.”

Elise wanted to push.

Instead she said, “Then we are not solving this tonight.”

Trina gave a short laugh. “There you go.”

“What?”

“Turning it into a problem with a next step.”

“It is a problem.”

“It is our friendship.”

“Those can overlap.”

Trina’s eyes filled.

“I told Renee months ago you had made it a gift.”

Elise went still.

“Why would you tell her that?”

“Because I believed it.”

“Who else?”

Trina looked toward the dark dining room.

“Maybe two people.”

“Who?”

“Why does that matter?”

“Because apparently a decision about my money has been circulating socially before it was made with me.”

Trina flinched.

“I wasn’t gossiping.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Elise leaned both hands on the counter.

“Go home,” she said. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Trina picked up her purse.

At the door she turned.

“I am not trying to cheat you.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Elise hesitated.

“Yes.”

That was the hardest part.

She believed Trina.

She also believed the money was still owed.

After the door closed, Elise returned to the dining room and found one of the wineglasses still half full.

She carried it to the sink, then stopped when her phone lit up.

A message from Renee.

For what it’s worth, she told me around Christmas that you’d decided the money was a gift. I assumed you two had talked. I never asked.

A second message came before Elise answered.

Please don’t pull me into the middle. I just think you should know the story wasn’t only tonight.

Elise stared at the screen.

Then June texted.

She told me the same thing in February. I thought you were being generous and weird about it.

Elise sat down at the table.

The loan had not merely become vague between two friends.

For months, a version of her generosity had existed in other people’s minds without her knowledge.

She typed to both women: Thank you. I’m not asking either of you to referee.

Then she turned the phone facedown.

The birthday candles were still on the counter, bent at the base from heat.

Elise had thought the awkward toast was the beginning of the misunderstanding.

It was not.

She had walked into a story that had already been living without her.