Friends With All the Benefits

3 Ellie

N at didn’t forgive me.

I had sent her multiple texts apologising, but she ended up blocking me. I left work early to make it back to the apartment in time to pack. When I got there, I could feel the passive aggressiveness radiating through the entire place. Nat had deliberately stayed out to avoid running into me. But it was clear she didn’t want me back.

The rest of the things I left behind were dumped into a messy pile by the front door. The sheets were stripped off my now former bed in a clear message that I was never to sleep on it ever again. The door to Nat’s bedroom was closed for a change, and when I went to knock on it to see if she was home, I found it locked, as if she didn’t trust me around her things anymore.

I was still busy packing when Nat got home from work. She shot me a nasty look, then blithely pretended I didn’t exist whenever our paths crossed. When I tried to bring up the splitting of shared items, she looked at me like I had slapped her. Then Andy came over and cornered me.

“You hurt Nat, and I can’t forgive that. You’re a terrible friend to her, so do us all a favour and get the fuck out of here,” he growled. I had already been struggling with guilt, and I couldn’t fault him for saying that.

Then he continued talking, and I remembered exactly why I had a problem with him in the first place.

“You’re a terrible influence on my Natalie. You always act like you’re too good for us. Maybe you’ll finally learn your place now that you’ve lost your free ride. Nothing’s going to fix your face, but if you fix your cold fish attitude and your big mouth, you might find yourself a real man who can tolerate you, as long as he keeps you on a short leash. The only reason I haven’t bitchslapped some sense into you is because of your friendship with Natalie. But if I had my way, you’ll be black and blue and begging me for forgiveness.”

Wow. Just wow.

All the ridiculous vitriol aside, I had never freeloaded off Nat. I paid rent at market rates, and I contributed more than my fair share to the household. If anyone was a leech, Andy was. He effectively lived at our apartment most days, and he had never ever contributed to the utility bills or chipped in for any of the food he ate.

Hannah and Callum had space in their apartment’s storeroom, and they told me I could put any bulky items there until I found a place of my own, and there was furniture I wanted to take with me. When I went to move the first item out, Andy stopped me.

He may have Nat wrapped around his little finger, but I wasn’t going to let him push me around. I put on my coldest, most business-like face and told him, “I paid for these things. I have all the receipts in my name. Since you don’t want me here, they’re coming with me. Or do you want me to call the cops?”

Andy started yelling at me, but I turned into a rock. Nothing he said would move me. A part of me wanted him to do something drastic like hit me. Maybe if he did, Nat would finally open her eyes. But even he was smart enough not to cross that line.

Nat couldn’t take any more conflict and stepped in. She promised to buy the furniture from me. It was the first time she spoke to me since we had our blowup, so I backed down.

I gave Nat a ridiculously discounted price on the furniture. If it wasn’t for Andy, I would have just given everything to her, but I wasn’t going to let Andy keep on freeloading off my back.

“You’re such a drama queen, Ellie,” Nat scoffed. “I never thought you would be so mercenary, but if we have to pay you to get rid of you, so be it.”

I didn’t point out that I had bought most of the furniture in the first place. What would have been the point when Nat was in no mood to listen?

After that, I fled back to Hannah’s. The rest of the furniture, I could replace once I found a new place to stay, but I would miss my bookshelves, and I would miss my grand wingback armchair where I spent too many hours reading my spare time away. Andy had already taken it over and refused to give it up for the world. Well, the padding was starting to sag, and I had planned to replace it eventually anyway. Andy could have it; I hoped the sagging would get bad enough to make him uncomfortable.

At least no one fought me for my Dutch oven. They would have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

“Did the asshole actually threaten to hit you?” Hannah had shrieked when I told her about Andy’s threats. Callum had to physically restrain her from going over to my old place and giving Andy a taste of what he threatened me with.

“What the fuck does Nat see in him?” Callum demanded after he calmed his girlfriend down.

I shrugged. The threats did help validate a lot of my concerns, and it helped me feel a little better about what I had said to Nat about Andy that fateful day. I hadn’t been wrong. I hadn’t been wrong at all, but she still chose him. And as far as I knew, he never lifted a hand to her. For her sake, I hoped it stayed that way. Maybe I should have left my bullet-point list with Nat, but would it have made a difference?

~

I applied for every decent rental I could find online. I attended all available home opens and viewings, and the news reports didn’t exaggerate the level of competition. Every place I went to was chock full of people in the same boat as me, and every place I went to was snapped up in a flash. Even the places that sublet out single rooms.

By the time I got to the last place on my long list of potential rentals, I was desperate. The tiny apartment was located in a cheap suburb, old and obviously needed work. But there was still a huge crowd vying to see it and talk to the rental agent. I was in line for an hour before I even got to the rental agent to put in my bid, only to have it turned down. Technically, it was illegal to bid on rentals, but everyone got around it by doing so verbally.

“But—” I protested.

The rental agent just shook his head at me and called out, “Next.”

Dejected, I edged out of the apartment. The older lady who was in line before me stood outside the place with a forlorn look on her face.

“You lost out too, eh?” I asked. Before this, we were in competition for a roof over our heads. Now, we found solidarity in rejection.

The lady nodded, then asked me, “Did you offer above the asking price?”

“I did. Every time.”

“By how much?”

“Up to a hundred dollars more a week,” I sighed. I had done my budget, and it was what I could comfortably afford on my current wage.

The lady shook her head. “I offered a hundred and fifty more, including at the last few places I applied at, and I still lost out every time.”

The look we shared after that said it all.

By the end of the third week, I was still sleeping on Hannah and Callum’s sofa. Theirs was a one-bedroom apartment, and it was a tight squeeze for three. They were saving up for a house of their own, and refused to let me do more than pitch in for a few household expenses. They were exceedingly understanding, but I knew it was untenable. And I suspected Callum really wanted his sofa back.

When Ethan and Joyce floated the idea of me moving in with Ethan, I refused. For some reason, Ethan seemed to think it was a great idea.

It was absolutely not a great idea. In fact, it was a terrible idea.

I had known Ethan for all of two years, and in all that time, I was stupidly in love with him. The only thing stopping me from doing anything about it was sheer good sense.

Ethan was tall. Athletic. His dark wavy hair always looked effortless, and his jaw and cheekbones looked like they could cut class, but my favourite bit was his broad shoulders. I was a goner for those shoulders.

I knew I wasn’t the kind of girl anyone would date, especially for someone like Ethan. Nat was cruel enough to point it out, but she wasn’t wrong.

I was homey. I was plain. Nat’s mother had called me as much when we were kids, and Nat always helpfully reported what her mum said to me. Nat was always the pretty one of us two. But I knew my strengths. I was smart. I was capable, and I was easy to get along with. That had always been enough to see me through socially. It had even been enough to get me one boyfriend in the past, and even though we ended up going our separate ways, it had been an amicable split.

But I knew my limits. A guy like Ethan was way beyond my limits.

He was the kind of guy who would date a girl like Nat, not me. I was the girl guys got close to for the sake of my pretty friend. I was the girl who remained friends with those guys after their hearts were broken. But I was never the girl they wanted.

I had done my best to tamp down my crush on Ethan. I had tried turning my attention to other men. I had even avoided him as much as I could for a time until our shared social group made it too difficult to do so. Most of all, I gave it time, hoping that my feelings for him would fade away the more I got to know the man behind the hotness. None of that worked. The more I got to know Ethan, the more my feelings grew. Moving in with him was a terrible idea because there was only so much self-inflicted torture I could endure. Unrequited feelings were a special kind of hell, and if I got any closer to him, I would only fall for him more, and that way only laid heartbreak.

But the longer I remained homeless, the more moving in with Ethan didn’t seem all that terrible an idea after all. My personal feelings for Ethan were nothing compared to not having a place to call my own. It was time to put on my big girl panties.

I took a deep breath, looked around Hannah and Callum’s living room, and texted Ethan.

Hey, is your spare room still available to rent?