You Chose My Best Friend, So Why Are You Jealous?

The party was at Maya's apartment in Wicker Park, and somebody had strung fairy lights across the living room that spelled out NORA + EVAN in slightly crooked letters.

I'd almost stayed home.

I'd spent the last two days replaying that doorbell clip, the way the door had opened for Chloe like it knew her. I hadn't said a word about it to Evan. I'd wanted to see his face when I did, not hear his excuses through a phone.

So I came. I wore the green dress he liked. I hugged everyone at the door.

Evan was already there, laughing with Jordan by the kitchen island. When he saw me, he lifted his left hand and wiggled his pinky. My engagement ring sat on it, jammed just past the first knuckle, the diamond catching the fairy lights.

"Picked it up from the jeweler today," he said, kissing my temple. "Resized and everything. I figured I'd put it back on you later. Make a whole thing of it."

I looked down at the thin gold band I'd been wearing in its place for two weeks. The first ring he ever gave me, a cheap little thing from a street fair.

"Okay," I said.

It almost felt normal. For about an hour, it did.

Then Maya's boyfriend asked Chloe how the wedding planning was going, and the whole room went a little too quiet.

Chloe set her drink down on the coffee table and tucked her legs under her on the couch.

"Honestly? I'm kind of off the team now." She gave a small laugh that didn't sound like a laugh. "Nora fired me."

"I didn't fire you," I said.

"You emailed every single vendor and told them not to talk to me." She looked around at everyone, eyes shining. "I found out from the venue. An automated email, you guys."

Priya winced. "Oh no."

"And I get it," Chloe went on, softer. "I do. It's a lot of stress, and I think it's hard for Nora that Evan and I are close. We've always been close. That's not new." She pressed her lips together. "I just wanted to help. That's literally all I was trying to do."

Everyone turned to look at me. I felt it like heat on the back of my neck.

"She changed my flowers without asking," I said. "She told the florist I'd approved it."

"Because you were drowning," Chloe said.

"Okay, okay." Jordan held up both hands, grinning like a referee. "Wedding stress is real. My sister threw a cake topper at her fiancé two weeks before hers. Everybody's allowed one meltdown."

"Totally," Maya said quickly. "Nor, nobody thinks you're—"

"Actually," Evan said.

He was leaning against the kitchen doorway with a beer in his hand. He hadn't said a word since Chloe started talking.

"I think it's more than wedding stress."

The room shifted. Maya's mouth snapped shut.

"Evan," I said.

"No, I'm going to say it, because I'm tired of pretending it's fine." He set his beer on the counter. "For the last six months, every time I walk in the door, it's twenty questions. Where was I, who was I with, why did I text back late, why did Chloe know something first. Every night. I come home and I feel like I'm on trial."

"That's not true."

"It is true, Nora." He wasn't yelling. That was almost worse. He sounded tired and reasonable, like he'd rehearsed it. "And you know what? When I'm with Chloe, I don't have to walk on eggshells. I can just relax. I don't have to be careful about every word that comes out of my mouth."

Nobody moved. Priya stared into her wine glass. Jordan's grin had disappeared somewhere.

Chloe looked at the floor, but I saw the corner of her mouth. Not a smile. Just not quite unhappy either.

I could have fought her. I had the doorbell clip on my phone. I could have held it up in front of every person in that room and asked her what exactly she'd been helping with at midnight.

But I wasn't looking at Chloe anymore.

I was looking at the man who was supposed to marry me in five weeks.

"So which is it?" I asked him. My voice came out quiet, and in that room it carried. "Are you defending my best friend, or choosing her?"

Evan opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

One second. Two. Somebody's phone buzzed on the coffee table and nobody reached for it. Five seconds. I watched him look at Chloe, just a flicker, and look back at me.

That was my answer. He hadn't said a word yet, and it was already my answer.

Then he raised his left hand and worked my ring off his pinky. It stuck at the knuckle, and he twisted it free with a small wince.

"Evan, man," Jordan said. "Come on. Don't do this here."

"I think it's better here," Evan said. "At least everyone knows I'm not making it up."

He held the ring in his palm and looked at it for a second. Then he set it on the kitchen counter next to his beer.

"The wedding's off," he said. "I'm sorry. I can't breathe in this relationship anymore, Nora. I haven't been able to for a long time."

Maya made a small sound, like she'd been hit.

Chloe was already on her feet. She crossed the room in four steps and slid her hand around Evan's arm, her fingers curling into the crook of his elbow.

"Hey," she murmured. "Hey. It's okay."

I waited for him to shake her off. To at least have the decency to look embarrassed.

He didn't. He let her hold on to him. His shoulders even loosened a little, like she was the one thing in the room keeping him upright.

Everyone was watching me now, waiting for me to cry or scream or beg. I could feel how much they wanted to know which one it would be.

I thought about all the dinners where I'd smoothed things over. The apologies I'd swallowed. Sorry, Chloe, in a flower shop that smelled like eucalyptus.

I looked down at the gold band on my finger. The street fair. Evan at twenty-two, sunburned and nervous, telling me it was a placeholder until he could afford a real one. I'd worn it anyway. I'd loved it more than the diamond.

I slid it off. It came easily.

I walked over to the counter and set it down beside the engagement ring. They sat there together, the cheap one and the expensive one, catching the same crooked fairy lights.

"Nora," Maya whispered. "Wait. Let's just talk—"

"There's nothing to talk about," I said. "He's made up his mind."

I didn't ask Evan why. I didn't ask him to reconsider. I didn't ask Chloe how long. I picked up my purse from the arm of the couch, and nobody stopped me.

My heels were loud on Maya's hardwood floor. The front door felt a mile away.

I had my hand on the knob when I heard her behind me. Low and gentle, the same voice she'd used on me at two in the morning with my mascara all over her pillow.

"Do you want me to stay with you tonight?"

There was the smallest pause.

"Yeah," Evan said.

I opened the door and walked out into the hall, and I didn't turn around to watch her hold on to him.