My Best Friend Begged Me To Be Her Fake Boyfriend — Then I Found Her Hidden Notebook

Part 1

If you had told me three days ago that the safest person in my life would ask me to pretend to love her, I would have laughed.

Not because it was impossible, but because it was too easy to imagine.

My name is Mark Davis.

I am twenty-nine years old and I work as a maintenance technician for a large property management company.

Most days I repair things people only notice after they stop working.

Leaky faucets, bad wiring, heating units that wait until the coldest morning of the year to quit.

The work pays the bills and keeps a roof over my head.

It leaves me tired enough to sleep at night.

The one constant in my life for the past six years has been Sarah Jenkins.

She is twenty-eight and works as an event coordinator downtown.

She somehow makes every room she walks into feel more organized than it was five minutes earlier.

We met through a mutual friend at a barbecue.

I showed up late carrying a folding chair because I thought there would not be enough seating.

She laughed at me for it.

Then she stole the chair.

We have been best friends ever since.

People always assume we are together.

Cashiers assume it.

Waiters assume it.

Random strangers at farmers markets assume it.

We always give the same answer.

We tell them we are just friends.

Then Sarah usually rolls her eyes and adds that she would never date a man whose refrigerator contains three different bottles of hot sauce and almost no actual food.

Being friends with Sarah has never felt complicated.

We text almost every day.

We know each other’s coffee orders by heart.

She calls me when she locks herself out of her apartment.

I call her when I need help choosing a birthday gift for my mother.

It is easy, comfortable, and safe.

That is why I did not think much of it when my phone rang on a Wednesday evening while I was replacing a ceiling light in an empty apartment.

I climbed down the ladder and wiped my hands on a rag before answering.

I greeted her with my usual nickname for her.

There was a long pause on the other end.

Sarah quietly told me she needed a favor.

I smiled automatically because Sarah always needed harmless favors.

Moving furniture, picking up supplies, carrying things too heavy for one person.

I asked her what kind of favor she needed.

She took a slow breath and told me she needed a big one.

Something in her voice made me set the rag down on the counter.

I waited for her to explain.

Her family was having a large gathering this weekend at a resort up in the mountains.

She explained that she told them she was bringing her boyfriend.

I frowned and pointed out that I did not know she had a boyfriend.

She let out a nervous laugh and admitted that she did not have one.

I stared at the empty apartment around me while the silence stretched between us.

She asked if I would pretend to be her boyfriend for the weekend.

For a few seconds I honestly thought she was joking.

I leaned against the kitchen counter and waited for the punchline.

It never came.

I asked her why she chose me.

She answered immediately that it was because she trusted me.

I pointed out that her family had never even met me.

She explained that her mother had spent the last two years trying to introduce her to every eligible man she could find.

She just wanted one weekend without being treated like a problem that needed solving.

I agreed to go because she was my best friend and that is what friends do.

Friday arrived faster than I expected.

We drove toward the mountains as the late afternoon sun painted the hills gold.

Somewhere along the drive she grew unusually quiet.

Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel while her eyes stayed fixed on the road.

I asked her if she was okay.

She nodded too quickly and warned me that her family would probably think this was real the second they met me.

I asked her what that meant.

She offered a small smile and said it meant they would probably like me.

By the time we reached the resort the sun was disappearing behind the pines.

The second we stepped inside the lobby a woman with bright blue eyes spotted us.

Sarah whispered that it was her Aunt Karen.

Karen rushed over and wrapped Sarah in a hug before shifting her attention directly to me.

Her face lit up immediately.

She looked between us and announced that I must be Mark.

I blinked in surprise and asked how she knew my name.

She laughed and said they had been hearing about me for years.

The word landed strangely in my chest.

Over the next hour I met cousins and uncles who all seemed to know my name before I introduced myself.

One of them even joked that he was starting to think I was fictional.

That evening Sarah led me to our room and handed me a single key card.

She quietly admitted that there was only one bed.

We spent five minutes arguing over who would take the couch before finally agreeing to discuss it later.

The fire crackled in the corner of the room while the lake reflected the last light outside.

We sat on opposite ends of the small couch and talked the way we always did.

At some point she pulled her knees up and rested her chin on them.

She watched the fire and thanked me for coming.

She looked like someone who had been carrying something heavy for a long time.

Later that night I stepped onto the balcony while she showered.

The night air was cool against my skin.

My mind kept repeating the things her family had said all evening.

I had always assumed our friendship looked balanced from both sides.

Now it felt like there was something I was missing.

When I stepped back inside I noticed a canvas tote bag resting near the chair.

A notebook was partially sliding out of it.

A folded photograph was sticking out from between the pages.

I reached out and pulled the old photograph free.

I slid the photo out and saw myself staring back, and on the back, Sarah had written six words that changed the last six years of my life.