My Best Friend Thanked Me For Forgiving Her $8,000 Loan – But I Had Never Said It Was A Gift
PART 4
Trina did not say it accusingly.
That made Elise listen.
The waitress refilled their coffee and walked away.
Trina folded a paper napkin into smaller and smaller rectangles.
“You remember the casserole dish,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You remember me coming over.”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember how often?”
Elise hesitated.
“Several times a week.”
“Four or five, sometimes.”
“That much?”
“For a while.”
Elise looked down.
Trina continued.
“You called me from the grocery store because you saw Mark’s cereal and started crying. You called me from the parking lot at the bank. You called me at two in the morning because you thought you had signed something wrong even though the appointment was the next day.”
“I was a mess.”
“You were.”
There was no cruelty in it.
“That’s what friends do,” Elise said.
Trina laughed quietly.
“I know.”
“Then why are we talking about it like an invoice?”
“Because that’s what I’m trying to explain.”
She unfolded the napkin.
“I never wanted money for any of that.”
“Good.”
“Do not say good like you won something.”
Elise closed her mouth.
Trina’s eyes were wet.
“I wanted you to notice what it took.”
“I did notice.”
“No. You thanked me. That is not always the same thing.”
Elise felt defensive heat rise.
“I told you constantly that I didn’t know what I would have done without you.”
“Yes.”
“Then what did you want?”
“I wanted you to ask how I was doing sometimes.”
The sentence was quiet.
Elise stared at her.
Trina looked away.
“My mother was getting worse that year. Not dying. Just needing more help. I was taking her to appointments. Caleb had started college. I was working overtime because one of the techs quit.”
“You never said you needed help.”
“Neither did you.”
“That is not fair.”
“No. It isn’t.”
They sat with that.
Elise remembered pieces now.
Trina arriving late one night and saying traffic was terrible near her mother’s apartment.
Elise asking whether she could stay anyway.
Trina rubbing her shoulder while packing dishes.
Elise assuming she was tired from work.
“I didn’t know,” Elise said.
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Trina smiled without humor.
“Because you were falling apart.”
“So you decided I couldn’t hear it?”
“I decided it wasn’t my turn.”
Elise flinched.
“That sounds worse than I mean,” Trina said.
“No. It sounds specific.”
Trina took a breath.
“I kept thinking things would level out. Then they did, sort of. Your divorce settled. You got the house refinanced. You stopped calling at two in the morning.”
“You could have told me then.”
“I could have.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
The waitress brought toast neither woman remembered ordering.
Trina tore a piece in half.
“Then my marriage blew up,” she said.
“And you needed money.”
“And you had it.”
“I offered it.”
“You did.”
“I never held that against you.”
“I know.”
“Then what happened?”
Trina stared at the toast.
“At first, nothing.”
She described the first six months of repayment.
Two hundred fifty dollars on the first Friday.
A text from Elise: Got it. Thank you.
Another payment.
Another thank-you.
Then the dental lab lost a contract. Trina’s hours dropped. Her rent rose when the lease renewed.
“I started dreading the first of the month,” Trina said.
“You should have called me.”
“I know.”
“I would have lowered the payment.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Trina’s mouth tightened.
“Because I did not want to ask you for one more thing.”
Elise sat back.
“That does not make sense.”
“It did to me.”
“You thought owing me money made you a burden?”
“I thought our friendship had changed into one where you had saved me and I was now reporting progress.”
“I never treated you that way.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Elise felt the unfairness of that and also its emotional truth.
Trina continued.
“Every payment reminded me that when you were wrecked, I gave what I had and nobody called it debt. When I was wrecked, what I needed happened to have a number.”
Elise stared at her.
“That is not the same thing.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. That is what made me angry.”
Trina’s voice sharpened.
“I knew it wasn’t the same thing. I knew you weren’t wrong. I knew I had agreed to pay. And I still started thinking about all those nights and errands and meals and how friendship only became measurable when the thing flowing from you to me was money.”
There it was.
Not the whole truth yet.
But the shape of it.
Elise took a long breath.
“Did you decide I owed you for helping me?”
Trina looked at her.
“I didn’t decide it like that.”
“How did you decide it?”
“I started thinking maybe we had already given each other enough.”
“That is not an answer about the loan.”
“I know.”
“Trina.”
“I know.”
Elise pushed her coffee away.
“You told other people I forgave it.”
“I believed you had.”
“Because I said not to worry?”
“And because of everything else.”
“You keep putting those in the same sentence.”
“Because in my head they were in the same sentence.”
Elise felt exhausted.
Then Trina said, “You used to joke that I had lifetime dinner credit at your house.”
“That was a joke.”
“Exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we were always assigning value. We just pretended we weren’t.”
Elise shook her head.
“No. A joke about dinner is not five thousand five hundred dollars.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know if you keep arguing the opposite.”
Trina went quiet.
The booth suddenly felt too small.
Elise looked at her oldest friend and understood that neither of them was going to reason the other one into relief.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
Trina’s eyes filled again.
“I want you to admit I carried you.”
Elise’s anger softened, but it did not disappear.
“You did.”
“Not just helped.”
“You carried me.”
Trina closed her eyes.
Elise continued.
“And I am sorry there were times I treated that like an unlimited resource.”
Trina opened her eyes.
“Thank you.”
“But that does not erase the loan.”
The relief left Trina’s face.
“I know.”
This time the words sounded tired instead of argumentative.
Elise reached for her coat.
“We are not going to solve both things in one coffee.”
“Maybe they are the same thing.”
“They are connected.”
Elise stood.
“They are not the same.”
Outside, the river wind was colder than she expected.
Trina followed her to the parking lot.
“Elise.”
She turned.
“I don’t want to lose you over money.”
Elise looked at her.
“Then we have to stop asking money to explain everything else.”
