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The day before we moved into the new place, Lauren Henson tagged me in our little three-person group chat.
"Go pull the registration info from the county records office, would you."
I opened the lookup tool, and there it was: the new owner listed on the deed was my buddy Aiden Quill.
The change had gone through three days ago.
Before I could even type, the messages started rolling in.
Aiden: 【I won! I told her you trusted her too much to go check the deed early. You owe me a Michelin-star dinner!】
Lauren: 【Fine, fine, you know him best. He's easygoing about this stuff. Whose name is on the deed doesn't matter to him at all.】
They chattered back and forth, like they'd forgotten it was the wedding house the two of us had drained our savings to buy.
Then again, the three of us had been friends since we were kids.
Like last month's bet, over how long it'd take me to notice the initials engraved inside my wedding ring weren't mine.
Like the one six months back, over whether I'd figure out that our honeymoon fund had gone to cover an emergency of Aiden's.
Every time I got angry, they thought I was making a big deal out of nothing.
"We're all friends here. It's a joke. Why are you being so uptight about it?"
I closed the tool and tapped confirm on my application to volunteer-teach for a year in a remote mountain region.
This crowded friendship of ours, all three of us in it, I didn't want it anymore.
……
When the green Submitted popped up on my screen, I was sitting at the table in the rental, a bowl of soothing oatmeal beside my hand, reheated three times for Lauren.
The chat was still going. Aiden fired off three celebration stickers, and Lauren followed with a fifty-dollar cash gift addressed just to him, captioned "Congrats to our golden boy on getting exactly what he wanted."
I stared at that line. My fingertips didn't shake, and my chest didn't ache and tighten the way it used to. It only felt like a stone dropping into a deep lake, sinking without even an echo.
Half an hour later, footsteps came up the stairwell. Aiden shoved the door open trailing the smell of liquor, and slapped that red deed booklet down on the coffee table.
He tipped his chin up and grinned at me. "Solomon, I won another bet against Lauren! I said you wouldn't make a fuss. Come on, make me a big seafood chowder to celebrate."
Lauren peeled off her coat and tossed it over the back of the couch, frowning at me. "Why is it so cold in here? You couldn't even turn on the AC? Aiden pulled strings to rush the deed through for this bet. He drank himself sick twice with the guy handling it."
Aiden immediately pressed a hand to his temple, though his mouth kept going. "Lauren, don't get on him. It's fine, I don't mind suffering a little, as long as I got the deed today and won the bet. I'd just hate for Solomon to feel bad about it."
Lauren came over to me, her tone like she was soothing a child who didn't know any better. "We'll just add your name to the deed when we get married. It's a bet between friends, that's all. Don't go cold on me again."
I looked up at her. "That was the down payment I saved for six years."
Her brow creased, her voice going flatter. "The down payment's there, the house is there. Do you really have to make this much of one name? Aiden just likes to win. What's the harm in letting him have this one?"
Aiden hugged the deed to his chest as he dropped onto the couch, cocking an eyebrow at me. "Solomon, you're not actually mad, are you? That'd be so lame. The three of us have known each other for years."
I didn't answer. I got up and went into the kitchen.
Steam was still rising from the clay pot. The rice had cooked down soft and open, the yam diced fine, made just the way Lauren liked it when her stomach hurt.
I gripped the handle and poured out every bit of the oatmeal I'd spent the afternoon making, straight into the trash.
Lauren heard the sound and came over. Her eyes landed on the empty pot, and her expression finally changed. "Solomon Perry, what's that supposed to mean?"
I set the pot in the sink, the running water covering the sound of her breathing. "It went bad. Threw it out."
She stared at me like she couldn't read me for the first time. "You're mad again, aren't you? It was just a bet. You're way too sensitive."
From the living room, Aiden called out in a dragged-out whine. "Lauren, my head's killing me. Guess I caught a chill just now."
Lauren shut her eyes, and left me one line before she turned to go. "Cool off on your own. Stop putting me in the middle every single time."
I watched her back disappear into the guest room. Through the gap in the door came the sound of Aiden's laughing.
The bedroom light was dim. I pulled the cardboard box out from under the bed and dropped it all in, one piece at a time: the photos that held seven years of us, the movie ticket stubs, the birthday cards she'd written.
My eyes fell on the love-knot charm hanging on the wall.
Lauren had knelt a long time at a temple three years ago to get it. Eyes red, she'd said back then that this red thread would bind us together for lifetime after lifetime.
I picked up the scissors, and without hesitating, cut it in two down the middle.
As the severed red thread fell into the trash bag, my phone lit up again.
Lauren, in the group chat: "Aiden's asleep. Solomon, quit sulking. Remember to buy lobster in the morning for the seafood chowder."
I locked the screen and didn't reply.
