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My Boyfriend Was First on My Best Friend’s Wish List
Novelix
Completed
At her farewell party, my best friend of twelve years confessed she'd loved my fiancé since before we started dating. She wasn't asking for a kiss. She wasn't asking for a night. Just seven small "goodbye" favors before she moved across the country. Everyone at the table looked at me. I said yes. By Day Six, she was wearing the Valentine's bracelet Owen bought for me. By Day Seven, she wasn't leaving at all. She'd cancelled her transfer weeks ago. The goodbye was a trap. The wish list was a test. And my fiancé? He failed every single day.
Chapters (3)
第1章
At the farewell party for my best friend, Beatrice, everyone started egging her on to make a wish list.
Beatrice blushed a little and smiled at us.
"There's something I've never told Elisa."
The private room went silent.
"Actually, I liked Owen before you two officially started dating."
Everyone froze for a second.
Then they laughed and cheered, teasing her to go on.
Beatrice lowered her eyes. Her voice was soft.
"I'm moving to Seattle next week. I'm not going to ask him to kiss me, and I'm definitely not asking him to sleep with me."
"I just want Owen to do seven small things with me—just a proper goodbye to a crush I’ve had for years. Would that be okay?"
Every eye at the table turned to me.
I sat there, my fingertips going cold.
On one side was my best friend of twelve years.
On the other was the man I'd loved for eight years, the man I was about to marry.
The three of us had grown up together.
We rode bikes down the same street in the summer and shoveled our driveways together in the winter.
The year my parents were going through their divorce, Beatrice came over almost every day to keep me company.
Even when Owen was at his busiest in med school, he still went two blocks out of his way to pick me up from school.
To everyone else, the three of us had always seemed unbreakable.
So in that moment, I trusted them.
I nodded.
I thought they were just a few harmless little things.
On day one, she wanted him to go with her in the middle of the night to see the lights along the Hudson.
On day two, they changed their profile pictures to the same photo of the two of them.
...
On day six, she wore the Valentine's bracelet Owen had originally bought for me.
Over and over, I told myself it was fine.
It was just her last bit of selfishness before she left.
I only had to get through seven days.
And day seven happened to fall on Valentine's Day.
Her final request was for Owen to spend her last day in New York as her "boyfriend."
For the first time, I gave him a flat no.
"If you go today, we're done."
Owen stood in the entryway, staring at me.
"It's only one last day," he said. "I'll spend every Valentine's Day after this with you."
Then he turned around and left anyway.
The next morning, I saw Beatrice's new Instagram post.
The photo showed a cup of coffee and morning light outside a hospital window.
The caption was just two words.
"Transfer canceled."
At ten that morning, Owen came home.
I put my apartment key in his hand.
"She's staying."
"I'm leaving."
His eyes flicked to the suitcases in the living room.
Then, to my disbelief, he laughed.
"Because Beatrice is staying?"
"Something changed with her transfer approval at the last minute. She didn't lie to you on purpose."
I folded the last two pieces of clothing and put them into my suitcase.
"I already found a short-term rental near the school. I can move in Sunday."
Owen put his hand on the lid of my suitcase.
"Elisa, come on. Enough."
He'd worked an overnight shift, and the exhaustion showed between his brows, but somehow he still sounded as if he were the one in the right.
"The seven days are over. Valentine's Day is over. I didn't touch her, and I didn't spend the night at her place."
"I was downstairs by eleven forty. You're the one who didn't pick up her phone."
My phone was sitting on the coffee table.
Seventeen missed calls.
Every single one after 11:40 p.m.
But he'd left at four in the afternoon.
He'd taken Beatrice to the restaurant I had reserved.
He'd walked with her along the riverside path we visited every year.
He hadn't come home until nearly midnight.
And now he was treating the fact that he hadn't physically cheated as proof he'd done nothing wrong.
I closed my suitcase.
"Did you even ask her whether she decided to stay at the last minute, or whether she never planned to leave in the first place?"
Owen's face darkened.
"It's bad enough that you're suspicious of me. Now you're suspicious of Beatrice too?"
"She's practically been family to you since you were twelve. When your dad was in the hospital, her mom drove him to the ER. When you were applying for residency and basically living at the hospital, she helped you get your application together."
I remembered all of it better than he did.
That was exactly why I'd said yes at the farewell party.
Owen and Beatrice.
One was the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
The other was my best friend.
I used to think I was lucky.
Then Owen's phone rang.
Beatrice's name lit up the screen.
He glanced at me and didn't pick up.
A second call came in.
Then a third.
"She's returning to work in the pediatric unit today. People are going to talk."
Then he left anyway.
After the door shut, Beatrice sent me a voice message.
"Elisa, you're not seriously going to leave Owen over some stupid goodbye list, are you?"
I didn't answer.
A moment later, she sent me a picture.
Owen was at the nurses' station talking to two people.
Underneath, Beatrice wrote:
"He just came to help me clear things up. I didn't ask him to stay. Don't read into it."
Owen hadn't even told me which floor of the hospital he was going to.
Yet she'd rushed to report it to me before he could.
The picture and the explanation made her look thoughtful, considerate, innocent.
But I only remembered one thing.
Owen was with her. Again.
第2章
At four that afternoon, a delivery driver brought me a bouquet.
It was from Beatrice.
There was a card tucked inside.
"Elisa, I never meant to stay. Please don't let me be the reason you hurt yourself."
I read it, slipped it back into the flowers, and left the whole bouquet outside the door.
That night, our old college group chat suddenly came back to life.
Beatrice sent two messages first.
"Stop asking. Elisa's been having a rough time, and it's all my fault."
"I'll find another place as soon as I can. I'll stay out of their lives from now on."
Then she deleted them.
The others immediately started trying to talk me down.
"Just clear the air. Don't actually break up over this."
"Beatrice already feels terrible. Elisa, say something too. Don't make this uglier than it needs to be."
"If Beatrice really wanted to pull something shady, would she have asked for those favors in front of everyone?"
That was when I finally got it.
Nobody cared what those seven days had done to me.
They just cared that the situation didn't get too awkward for everyone else.
I left the group chat.
Half an hour later, Owen came home.
Beatrice was right behind him.
Several suitcases sat at their feet.
"Her lease is up, and her new apartment won't be ready for three days. Her luggage can stay in our study for now. She'll sleep in the hospital staff housing for the next few nights."
Owen didn't ask me.
He told me.
I pointed at my own suitcases against the wall.
"My things are still in the study."
Beatrice immediately grabbed her suitcase handle.
"Then I won't leave them here. I'll get a hotel. Owen, quit making things harder for Elisa."
She lowered her head and started dragging the suitcase toward the door.
Owen grabbed the handle.
"Do you have any idea what three nights in a Manhattan hotel costs? Elisa's moving out Sunday. The study will be empty anyway. What's the big deal about leaving a few boxes there?"
I didn't try to stop them again.
Beatrice knew this apartment too well.
The moment she stepped inside, she casually picked up the jacket Owen had tossed on the couch.
"You're still such a slob. Elisa's probably the only person who can put up with you."
She laughed and patted his arm.
It looked completely natural.
And suddenly, I remembered something.
For the past eight years, every time we got together, Beatrice was always the first to notice when Owen changed his hair, dropped a few pounds, or had darker circles under his eyes after a night shift.
I'd always chalked it up to her being observant.
Beatrice rolled her suitcase into the study.
When she opened a drawer, she found our marriage paperwork.
Our New York State marriage license application.
Copies of our IDs.
The appointment confirmation.
It was all there.
She came out holding the papers and waved them in the air.
"ou two are finally going to the City Clerk's office? When? Should I start getting ready to be maid of honor?"
Her suitcase wasn't fully closed.
A picture frame was sticking out.
My eyes went to it without thinking.
Owen was wearing the light blue shirt I'd picked out for him.
Beatrice was leaning against his shoulder.
The sunset glowed over the river behind them.
It was one of the photos they'd taken to remember the week.
Beatrice caught me looking and quickly shoved the frame back into the suitcase.
"I just wanted one picture to remember it by. If it bothers you, I won't display it."
On the side of another box, I saw Owen's handwriting.
"Collectibles—Fragile."
He'd gone to Beatrice's old apartment to help her pack.
He'd spent the whole day there.
I'd texted him three times.
Every reply came hours late.
Now the boxes he'd personally packed and sealed were being carried into our home.
I looked up at Owen.
He snatched the marriage paperwork out of Beatrice's hand and shoved it back into the drawer.
"We'll talk about the wedding once she calms down."
第3章
The next morning, Owen went to the hospital.
Beatrice stayed at the apartment to sort through her things.
I worked in the living room while she kept going in and out of the study.
Half an hour later, she suddenly came over and sat down across from me, phone in hand.
"Elisa, Owen asked me if you've been having second thoughts about marrying him for a while now."
I looked up.
"I never said that."
Beatrice tapped a voice message.
My voice came through the speaker.
"He got called in again. Even when a light burns out at home, I can't get hold of him."
"Beatrice, sometimes I really don't know if I should marry him at all."
It was from six months ago.
That week, one of the kids in my class had broken his arm on the playground.
His parents had come to the school two days in a row, furious and looking for someone to blame.
By the time I got home, the kitchen light had burned out.
Owen was still in surgery.
I sat alone in the dark and sent Beatrice an eleven-minute voice message.
I'd been overwhelmed that night.
I'd vented all sorts of pessimistic things about my job, my life, and my relationship.
Now she played only the first thirteen seconds.
"Why did you send that to him?"
"I was trying to get him to pay more attention to you."
Beatrice looked genuinely worried.
"One of you thinks he didn't do anything wrong, and the other bottles everything up. If I don't push you two to talk, you're seriously going to break up."
My hand rested on my laptop.
For a long time, I didn't scroll to the next page of the document in front of me.
I couldn't begin to count all the things I'd confided in Beatrice over the past twelve years.
The sound of me crying in the stairwell during my parents' divorce.
How badly my hands shook the first time I stood in front of a classroom.
Every late-night voice message I'd sent her after Owen and I fought.
I'd never had my guard up around her.
And now thirteen seconds were enough to make Owen believe I'd been the one thinking about leaving first.
Worse, she acted like she was only trying to save us.
Her supposed good intentions were tearing my relationship with Owen apart.
I pushed her phone back toward her.
"Did you send him the other ten minutes too?"
Something flickered across Beatrice's face.
"I was upset. I didn't think that far ahead."
Owen came home that afternoon.
He set his phone on the table.
The voice message was still open on the screen.
"If you were feeling this way, you could've just told me."
"I did."
"You told me to take fewer night shifts and come home earlier. You never told me you were thinking about leaving me."
"I said that in a moment of emotional overload. Did you expect me to send a follow-up email to explain?"
Owen went quiet for a moment.
"I spend seven days with Beatrice and you call it betrayal. You think about leaving me and it's just 'venting.'"
I looked at Beatrice.
She was standing in the kitchen doorway.
Her eyes were already red.
"This is all my fault. Stop fighting. I'll move my stuff out right now."
Owen stopped her.
"You've got an early shift tomorrow. Don't make this harder than it needs to be."
Not once did he ask her why she'd played my private voice message for him.
Around dinnertime, Owen's mom called.
He kept his voice low out on the balcony, but I still caught one sentence.
"We're going to get the license. She's just upset right now."
After he hung up, he came back inside.
"Come home early tomorrow. I need to talk to you about something."
The next morning, he sent me a jewelry store pickup confirmation.
Underneath was a single message.
"Bring your ID home tonight."
I stared at it for a long time.
Eight years was a long time.
When I once had a high fever, Owen had run three blocks in his scrubs to get me medicine.
When my dad was diagnosed with diabetes, Owen printed out every page of his meal plan and went with him to follow-ups at the community clinic.
When Owen got his first residency bonus, he bought me the laptop I'd wanted but refused to replace for myself, and then lived on hospital cafeteria food for two straight months.
I wondered if maybe people could make one terrible mistake.
If he really understood what he'd done, maybe we could still sit down and actually talk.
I put my ID in my purse.
After work, I went back to the apartment.
