Cream envelope. Heavy cardstock. My name in calligraphy so perfect it looked fake. For a full minute, I just stood in my apartment lobby staring at it while a couple behind me argued about whether their dog needed probiotics. Normal life kept moving around me like I wasn’t holding a grenade.
I didn’t open it right away. I carried it upstairs with two grocery bags, set it on my counter, and watched it like it might start breathing. When I finally slid a finger under the flap, my hands were cold—like my body recognized this before my brain did.
Rebecca Foster and Ryan Chen request the honor of your presence…
Ryan. My best friend. Becca. My girlfriend. The two people who taught me what betrayal tastes like: stale, cheap, and permanent.
Tucked inside was a note. Short. Neat handwriting. Almost gentle.
Hey. It’s been a long time. We’d really love for you to be there. Let’s put the past behind us. R&B.
Behind us.
Like the past was a jacket you could hang on a chair and forget.
I walked to my desk, opened a folder I hadn’t touched in years, and pulled up the one screenshot I swore I’d delete “eventually.”
$23 sent to Ryan Chen.
Cheeseburger emoji. Flame emoji.
Timestamp: the night I torched my life in under twelve hours.
I stared at the number until it stopped being money and became a monument.
Because here’s what nobody tells you about “tests.”
Sometimes the test doesn’t reveal who they are.
Sometimes it reveals who you are.
—————————————————————————
1
If you’re looking for a villain origin story, you won’t find one in my childhood.
I wasn’t raised by monsters. I wasn’t abused. I wasn’t neglected. I was a pretty normal kid who turned into a pretty normal college guy with one ugly habit: I needed certainty like I needed air.
I met Becca freshman year in an Intro to Psych lecture where the professor kept calling everyone “team” and showing TED talks like they were scripture. Becca sat two rows in front of me, always chewing mint gum, always taking notes like her GPA was a religion. When she laughed, she tilted her head back like she wasn’t afraid of taking up space.
The first time I talked to her, I pretended it was about a missed assignment due date.
“It’s on the syllabus,” she said, eyes narrowing like she’d already decided I was either lazy or lying.
“I know,” I said. “I just… wanted to hear it from a reliable source.”
That earned me a smile. Small, quick, but real.
We started studying together after that. Then we started eating together. Then one night she dragged me to a party I didn’t want to go to, and when some drunk guy tried to wedge himself between us, she grabbed my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Come on,” she said. “You’re leaving with me.”
And I did.
The relationship moved fast in the way college relationships do—like you’re both trying to build a home out of borrowed time. We shared hoodies, toothbrushes, and playlists. We had our own language of inside jokes. When she stayed over, she slept with one hand curled into my shirt like she needed to anchor herself to something.
I loved her. I did.
But love doesn’t erase insecurity. Sometimes it makes it sharper.
Because when you love someone, the idea of losing them isn’t just sad.
It’s annihilation.
Ryan was my best friend before Becca was my girlfriend.
We met in the dorms the first week of freshman year when I couldn’t get my mini-fridge to stop humming like it was plotting murder. Ryan strolled in, took one look, said, “You plugged it into the same outlet as your fan. Rookie mistake,” and fixed it in ten seconds like he’d been sent to my room specifically to make me feel incompetent.
He was funny without trying. Confident without being cruel—at least, that’s what I thought. People gravitated toward him like he had a magnet in his chest. When Ryan walked into a room, the temperature changed.
He and I became that classic pair: the loud one and the quieter one. The one who talked to everyone and the one who stood beside him and got pulled into the orbit.
I trusted him the way you trust a brother.
Which is why, when the seed of doubt started growing in my head during sophomore year, it didn’t grow in the direction of Ryan.
It grew in the direction of Becca.
It always does, doesn’t it?
You suspect the person you’re afraid to lose. Not the person you’re sure will stay.
Becca and I had been together almost two years by then. We were comfortable. And comfortable can look like boredom if you squint.
She started spending more time with friends. I started spending more time with games, projects, whatever distracted me from the pressure of being twenty and needing to become a person.
One night, after a stupid argument about me “never being present,” Becca said something that stuck in my ribs:
“I feel like I’m dating your back.”
“What does that even mean?” I snapped.
“It means I’m always looking at you leaving,” she said, eyes shining. “Leaving the room. Leaving the conversation. Leaving me.”
I promised I’d do better.
And I meant it.
But my version of doing better still looked like half-trying.
And her version of getting tired looked like pulling away.
That’s how insecurity becomes a little voice that starts narrating your life like a conspiracy podcast.
She takes longer to text back—she’s losing interest.
She laughs at a guy’s joke—she’s flirting.
She goes to Netflix alone—she’s hiding something.
I hated that voice.
So I tried to kill it the dumbest way possible.
With a bet.
2
It was a Friday night. Ryan’s apartment. Two controllers. Campaign mode. Grease-stained Burger King bag on the coffee table like a sacred offering.
I had twenty-three dollars in cash—crumpled, worn, the kind of money you forget in a jeans pocket and rediscover with relief. I also had a leftover cheeseburger because we were both too lazy to cook.
Ryan beat me in the game. Again. He leaned back with that smug grin he wore when he knew he was winning at something.
“You’re getting worse,” he said.
“I’m distracted,” I muttered.
“By what?” He tossed the controller onto the couch. “Becca?”
I didn’t answer fast enough, which is how Ryan knew he’d hit something.
“She loyal?” he asked, like it was a joke.
I should’ve shut it down right there. I should’ve said, “Don’t talk about her like that.”
Instead I said, “Yeah.”
Ryan’s eyebrows lifted. “You sure?”
I felt the voice in my head flare up: If you’re sure, prove it.
So I pulled out the twenty-three bucks, set it on the table, and pushed the cheeseburger toward him like I was sealing a contract.
“I bet you can’t get her to flirt back,” I said.
Ryan stared at the money like he wasn’t sure if I was serious or insane.
“If you can get Becca to actually flirt back,” I added, “it’s yours.”
His grin widened slowly, the way it does when someone gets dared.
“You’re serious,” he said.
“Dead serious.”
Ryan nodded once. “Deal.”
I texted Becca like everything was normal.
Me: At Ryan’s all night. Grinding the campaign.
Becca: 👍 lol have fun. I’ll probably just Netflix.
Normal. Easy.
I expected Ryan to send her something dumb. A cheesy line. A “hey what’s up.” I expected Becca to screenshot it and send it to me laughing.
I expected to feel relieved.
An hour later, my phone buzzed.
Becca: Is Ryan single?
I stared at that message so long the screen dimmed and went dark.
When I showed Ryan, he shrugged like it was nothing.
“Guess I’m better at this than you thought,” he said.
My throat felt tight. “Just mess with her a little,” I said. “Don’t actually—”
“It’s a test,” he cut in. “Relax.”
And then he started typing.
I went back to the game, but my attention was gone. Every few minutes his screen lit up. Mine stopped.
Around 11, Becca texted me again.
Becca: Does Ryan have a second couch? I’m bored and don’t wanna be alone.
My stomach twisted.
This was the moment she was supposed to recognize something was off. This was the moment she was supposed to say, “Nice try, tell your friend to stop.”
Instead, she was asking to come over.
I typed back with fingers that felt numb.
Me: Yeah, come over.
Ryan glanced at me. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “It’s fine. It’s a test.”
Twenty minutes later she showed up.
Leggings. Oversized hoodie. Hair damp like she’d just showered. She smelled like her vanilla body wash and the air outside.
She sat between us on the couch like she belonged there, like this was a normal Friday night.
And then—slowly, unmistakably—she started leaning toward Ryan.
Every time something funny happened on screen, her shoulder bumped his. Her knee touched his. She laughed too loud at something he said that wasn’t even a joke.
I sat on the other side of her like a stranger at my own funeral.
I kept telling myself: She’ll shut it down. She’ll shut it down. She’ll shut it down.
Midnight hit. I stood up and stretched.
“I’m crashing in the guest room,” I said. “Early class.”
Becca didn’t look at me. “I’ll stay up a little longer,” she said casually.
Ryan nodded. “I’ll keep her company.”
I walked down the hallway, heart hammering, and lay on a mattress that smelled like old laundry and somebody else’s life. The darkness felt thick.
From the living room I heard muffled voices.
Then laughter.
Then footsteps.
A door closing.
Ryan’s door.
I checked my phone. No messages. No “goodnight.” No joke. No apology. Nothing.
At 2 a.m. I got up and crept into the hallway like I was twelve years old sneaking out after curfew.
Ryan’s door was shut. A sliver of light glowed underneath.
I stood there long enough to hear Becca laugh again—quieter this time.
And something inside me collapsed without making a sound.
I went back to the guest room and stared at the ceiling until my alarm went off.
3
Morning doesn’t arrive gently after a betrayal.
It arrives like a slap.
When I walked into the living room, Becca was on the couch scrolling through her phone like nothing happened. Ryan was in the kitchen pouring cereal, wearing sweatpants like he’d just slept alone.
Neither of them looked guilty.
“Sleep okay?” Becca asked.
“Fine,” I said.
She kissed me on the cheek like she was marking territory and said she had to get to class.
Ryan walked her to the door.
They stood there talking in low voices for a minute.
Then she left.
I waited until the door clicked shut.
“What happened?” I asked.
Ryan poured milk into his bowl without looking up.
“Nothing you didn’t already know was going to happen,” he said.
My hands clenched. “We had a deal.”
He finally looked at me. His eyes were calm. Almost annoyed.
“We did,” he said. “And I won.”
He slid his phone across the counter.
Messages. Flirting. Escalating. Her calling him “funny.” Her calling him “different.” Her saying she didn’t think I’d even notice if she left.
Plans to meet again.
I scrolled through every word like I was ripping my own skin off on purpose.
And the worst part wasn’t that she flirted.
It was how quickly she turned me into a joke.
Ryan took his phone back and pocketed it like it was a receipt from the grocery store.
“You wanted proof,” he said. “There it is.”
I should’ve hated him immediately.
But grief is weird. At first you hate the obvious target. Then you realize the obvious target isn’t the only one holding the knife.
I confronted Becca in the campus coffee shop two days later because she stopped answering my calls, and showing up at her dorm felt like begging.
She was sitting with two friends, laughing at something on her phone. When she saw me, her smile dropped like a mask sliding off.
“Can we talk?” I asked.
“I’m kind of busy.”
“It’ll take two minutes.”
Her friends exchanged looks. One grabbed her bag and muttered something about the library. The other stayed, scrolling, pretending not to listen while absolutely listening.
Becca sighed and stood up like I was an inconvenience.
Outside, the air smelled like fall—leaves and cold beginnings. We walked to the edge of the quad and stopped by a bench under a tree losing its leaves.
She crossed her arms.
“So,” I said, voice shaking, “you and Ryan?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Me and Ryan.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’re gonna say?”
She looked at me like I was the one being irrational.
“What do you want me to say? It happened.”
“You told him you didn’t think I’d even notice.”
Her face flickered—just for a second.
Then she shrugged. “I was venting.”
“He listens,” she added. “He actually listens.”
“He listened because I paid him twenty-three bucks to flirt with you.”
She blinked. “What?”
“It was a bet,” I said. “A test. He won. You failed.”
Becca stared at me like I’d admitted something unforgivable.
“You tested me,” she whispered, disgust rising.
“Yeah,” I said, because I was still clinging to the logic like a life raft. “And you couldn’t even make it one night.”
Her expression hardened into fury.
“You’re insane,” she said. “You set me up. You orchestrated this and now you’re mad?”
“It worked,” I insisted. “That’s the point.”
“No,” she snapped. “The point is you don’t trust me. You never trusted me.”
“I trusted you enough to think you’d shut him down,” I said, voice cracking. “That was the whole thing.”
Becca shook her head like I was hopeless.
Then she turned and walked away.
I stood there watching her disappear into the student center while the ground tilted under me.
4
Ryan stopped coming to class.
At first I thought he was avoiding me.
Then I realized he was avoiding consequences.
When I finally tracked him down at his apartment three days later, he opened the door just wide enough to block the frame.
“We’re done talking,” he said.
My chest felt hot. “You knew this was messed up.”
Ryan leaned against the doorframe like he was bored.
“I knew you were setting her up to fail,” he said. “I also knew she deserved better.”
I stared at him, stunned. “Better?”
He smiled, sharp. “Yeah. Better than a guy who pays his friend to test his girlfriend.”
“You were my best friend,” I said, and my voice sounded younger than I felt.
“And you handed me twenty-three bucks to prove your girlfriend was trash,” he shot back. “What kind of friend is that?”
He started closing the door.
“Don’t contact me again,” he said. “Don’t contact her. Move on.”
The door clicked shut.
And I stood in the hallway staring at scuffed paint, trying to find a sentence that could rewind time.
Nothing came.
Two days later, Becca posted a photo.
Her and Ryan on his couch. Her head on his shoulder. Both smiling like they’d been together for years.
Caption: Unexpected happiness.
Thirty-seven people liked it in the first hour.
I deleted every message thread Becca and I ever had.
Then I restored them from the cloud backup and read two years of late-night texts and inside jokes and spring break plans like I was looking for the moment the rot started.
Everything looked fine right up until the night I handed Ryan a crumpled bill and thought I was being clever.
I started skipping classes.
First morning lectures. Then afternoon ones. Then whole days.
When my adviser emailed asking if everything was okay, I didn’t respond.
The campus shrank. Every pathway felt like it led to them.
I saw Becca twice from a distance: once holding Ryan’s hand near the library, once splitting a sandwich on the dining hall steps.
She looked happy. He looked smug.
I blocked them both.
Then I unblocked them an hour later because not knowing hurt worse than seeing.
Becca blocked me first the next day. Ryan went private.
My parents called and asked how school was going.
“Fine,” I lied.
“You sound tired,” my mom said.
“I’ve been studying a lot,” I said, because it was easier than saying: I’m watching my life implode in public.
I left school at the end of the semester with half my closet still unpacked and a textbook I never returned. My roommate offered to mail it to me.
“Don’t bother,” I said.
Before I deleted Venmo, I took a screenshot.
$23 sent to Ryan with a cheeseburger emoji and a flame.
Date stamp: the exact moment I torched two years and a friendship in under twelve hours.
I saved it in a folder labeled receipts and told myself I’d delete it eventually.
I didn’t.
5
Spring semester, I transferred.
Smaller campus. Cheaper tuition. No history. No landmines.
I told my parents it was about the program. They believed me because it was easier than asking.
Ryan and Becca stayed together. I knew because mutual friends posted pictures sometimes and I couldn’t stop myself from looking.
They looked good together.
They looked like they made sense.
I hated that more than anything.
I met someone three years later at a work conference in Denver. Ashley. She laughed at my joke about terrible hotel coffee. She was smart in a way that made me want to be better.
We dated eight months.
Then she caught me scrolling Becca’s Instagram at 2 a.m. like it was a reflex.
“You’re still with her,” Ashley said quietly.
“I’m not,” I lied.
She shook her head. “You are. Not physically. But mentally. Emotionally. You keep punishing yourself.”
Two weeks later we broke up.
Ashley said, “You’re a good person who needs to figure out why you keep lighting yourself on fire.”
I didn’t have an answer.
I moved to Seattle for a software consulting job that paid better and required less emotional bandwidth. I deleted social media and told myself it was about productivity.
It was really about stopping myself from checking if Ryan and Becca were still together.
They were.
I knew because my younger sister mentioned it during a holiday call without thinking.
“Ryan’s brother was at a party,” she said. “He said they just moved in together.”
I changed the subject so fast she didn’t even notice.
But my body noticed. My chest noticed. The old wound noticed.
Then the invitation arrived.
Cream envelope.
Calligraphy.
Let’s put the past behind us.
And the folder on my laptop opened like it had been waiting.
6
I RSVP’d yes.
Not because I forgave them. Because I wanted to stop feeling like the story belonged to them.
The engagement party was at a winery an hour outside our college town. A renovated barn. White string lights. A website with a public RSVP list like they were hosting the Met Gala instead of a party built on a lie.
I ran every morning leading up to it because sitting still made my brain spin. Three miles became five. Five became eight. My coworkers asked if I was training for something.
“Maybe,” I said.
I bought a charcoal suit. The tailor told me I looked sharp.
The Thursday before the party, I printed everything.
Venmo receipt.
Message fragments.
The part where Ryan told me, “Let’s make this interesting.”
The part where Becca told a friend, “Is it bad that I feel more excited than guilty?”
Six pages. Resume paper. Substantial. Permanent.
I slid them into a folder and put the folder in my messenger bag.
I drove six hours back, checked into a cheap motel under a name that was almost mine, and sat on the edge of the bed staring at the papers like they were a weapon.
Because they were.
But they were also proof.
Proof that I hadn’t imagined the betrayal.
Proof that their love story started with a punchline they’d conveniently rewritten.
I slept like garbage.
7
The winery looked too beautiful for what it was about to hold.
White fabric draped around fence posts. Tables with centerpieces that probably cost more than my rent. A string quartet tuning near the barn entrance.
At the welcome table, a woman with a clipboard smiled. “Family or friend?”
“Both,” I said.
Her smile widened. “That’s so special.”
Inside the barn, chandeliers hung from beams. A photo wall displayed Becca and Ryan through the years—beach vacations, New Year’s parties, carefully staged candids.
No photos from college.
No photos from the year they met through me.
The timeline started clean, like history had been scrubbed.
A woman beside me admired the wall. “They’re cute, right?”
I turned. She was about my age, holding a glass of white wine, smile polite but skeptical.
“I’m Jenna,” she said. “Sorority sister.”
I gave my name. She blinked like she recognized it but couldn’t place it.
“Feels like yesterday we were all doing keg stands,” she said, then frowned. “I don’t remember you much.”
“That tracks,” I said.
She studied me for a beat, then got pulled away by someone calling her name.
I found my assigned table near the back. People around me chatted about work and travel and wedding planning. They asked how I knew the couple.
“College,” I said.
Ryan and Becca arrived like celebrities. Becca in pale blue. Ryan in navy, no tie. They worked the room, hugging people, laughing on cue.
They hadn’t seen me yet.
Speeches started.
Ryan’s brother took the mic.
“Most of you know how they met,” he said. “Finals week junior year. Library. Becca offered to quiz him.”
Laughter. Applause. Becca pressed a hand to her chest, humble. Ryan kissed her temple.
It was polished. Sweet.
And fake.
Dinner came. I barely tasted the salmon I’d selected on their RSVP site.
After dessert, Ryan’s brother returned to the microphone. “Anyone else want to share a memory?”
A few people stood up. Generic stories. Safe stories.
Then Ryan’s brother scanned the room and his eyes landed on me.
“Hey,” he said, grinning. “You’ve been quiet all night. You go way back with both of them, right? Want to share something from the college days?”
The ripple of attention hit me like a wave.
Heads turned. People leaned. Phones lifted.
Becca’s face went pale.
Ryan’s smile froze into something sharp.
I stood slowly.
My chair scraped against the floor, louder than it should have been.
“Sure,” I said. “I can share a memory.”
Ryan’s brother held out the mic. “Come on up.”
I walked to the front without my messenger bag. I didn’t need props yet.
I took the microphone and looked out at the room.
“One hundred and forty-three guests,” I said lightly, and a few people chuckled, thinking this was going to be funny. “That’s a lot of people to celebrate a love story.”
Becca’s jaw clenched.
“The story about the library is really sweet,” I continued. “But that’s not how they met.”
Silence tightened.
“They met through me,” I said. “Because I was dating Becca at the time, and Ryan was my best friend.”
A few gasps. A few confused murmurs.
“We all hung out,” I said. “We were close.”
Ryan started to shift like he might stand. His brother glanced at him, confused.
“And right before finals week junior year,” I continued, voice steady, “Ryan and I made a bet.”
My heart thudded, but my words stayed calm—because I’d rehearsed them in my head for years.
“I bet him twenty-three bucks and a cheeseburger that he couldn’t get Becca to flirt back,” I said. “It was supposed to be a stupid loyalty test.”
Someone audibly whispered, “Oh my God.”
“He won,” I said simply. “That night. And then they kept going.”
Becca stood up sharply. “Stop,” she hissed.
I kept going anyway.
“I have the Venmo receipt,” I said. “Twenty-three dollars. October 14th. Cheeseburger emoji and a flame. I have the messages too.”
Ryan lunged toward me.
His brother grabbed his arm instinctively. “Dude—what the hell?”
Ryan’s face twisted. “You pathetic—”
“You’ve been living with a rewritten story,” I said into the mic, louder now, “and I’ve been living with the original.”
Becca snatched the mic from my hand. “He’s lying!” she shouted, voice breaking. “He’s been obsessed with me for years—he’s crazy!”
A wave of noise crashed through the barn. People yelling. People demanding proof. People filming. Someone’s mom asked what Venmo was.
Ryan swung at me.
His fist clipped my shoulder because I stepped back.
Someone screamed.
Security rushed in.
Ryan’s brother looked like he was going to throw up.
Becca sobbed into her maid of honor’s arms.
I handed the microphone back to Ryan’s brother and walked away through the chaos.
Outside, the string lights still glowed like nothing happened.
The air smelled like grapes and smoke and something rotten finally exposed.
8
I made it to the parking lot before someone ran after me.
“Wait!”
I turned.
Jenna jogged toward me in heels, holding her dress up so she wouldn’t trip.
“That was real?” she asked, breathless. “All of it?”
“Yeah,” I said.
She stared at me like she was trying to decide if she hated me or believed me.
“Can you prove it?” she asked.
I pulled out my phone, opened the Venmo transaction, held it out.
Jenna’s eyes sharpened as she read.
October 14th. $23. Cheeseburger emoji. Flame.
She scrolled. Her grip tightened.
“This is from Ryan’s account,” she murmured.
“Yeah.”
Her face changed—anger, not at me, but at the realization she’d defended a lie for years.
“I need to see the messages,” she said.
I hesitated. Then opened the folder.
She read in silence. Her expression didn’t soften.
When she finished, she handed my phone back like it weighed more now.
“I’ve known Becca six years,” she said quietly. “She told everyone you were obsessed. That you were dangerous.”
I swallowed. “I know.”
“You weren’t dangerous,” Jenna said. “You were just right.”
From inside the barn, shouting rose—older voices now. Parents.
Jenna winced. “That’s her mom.”
“I didn’t think about the families,” I admitted.
“They deserve to know too,” Jenna said. “But they’re going to blame you anyway.”
My phone buzzed. Unknown number. You’re dead.
Jenna glanced at it. “Frat boys,” she said. “Block them.”
More guests streamed out of the barn. Some crying. Some furious. Some glued to their phones.
Jenna pulled out her own phone, started texting fast.
“I’m texting Becca’s old roommate,” she said. “She needs to hear this.”
“Is that smart?”
“No,” Jenna said, eyes hard. “But I’m done protecting people who don’t deserve it.”
A man called Jenna’s name from the doorway. “Becca needs you!”
Jenna didn’t move. “Tell her I’m busy,” she said.
The man looked at me. “This was messed up, dude.”
Jenna snapped, “What’s messed up is starting a relationship with a bet and rewriting history like it’s cute.”
The guy blinked, then stalked back inside.
Jenna exhaled. “I’m gonna pay for that tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to defend me.”
“I’m not defending you,” she said. “I’m defending reality.”
I started backing toward my car. “You should go,” I said.
“I will,” Jenna replied. “But I want you to know something.”
I paused.
“You waited six years to say the truth,” she said. “That’s either restraint or cowardice.”
“No restraint,” I said.
Jenna’s mouth twitched into a real smile. “Okay. Then I’m glad you finally said it.”
She turned back toward the barn.
I got in my car, started the engine, and drove away while the winery lights shrank in my rearview mirror.
Halfway to the motel, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered anyway.
“Hello?”
“It’s Jenna,” she said. “I got your number from the guest list.”
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“A mess,” she said. “But an honest mess now.”
A pause.
“Becca admitted it,” Jenna added. “Not gracefully, but she stopped denying the facts.”
“What about Ryan?”
“Ryan’s parents are yelling at him,” she said. “His brother called him an idiot. It’s… loud.”
I exhaled, surprised by the strange emptiness I felt.
“Are they calling off the engagement?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Jenna said. “But the story they sold everyone is dead.”
She hesitated.
“Do you want to get coffee sometime?” she asked. “I have a thousand questions, and you’re the only person who seems allergic to lying.”
I almost laughed. “Sure,” I said.
“Okay,” Jenna said, sounding relieved. “I’ll text you.”
She hung up.
I kept driving.
The highway was empty and dark.
And the truth—my truth—was finally out of my chest and into the world, where it could hurt me in new ways but could no longer rot inside me in secret.
9
The next morning I woke up to sixty-three notifications.
Texts from strangers. DMs from people I barely remembered. One message from someone claiming to be a reporter for a local lifestyle blog.
I deleted the app I didn’t even remember downloading and made coffee.
Jenna called.
“Have you seen it?” she asked.
“Seen what?”
“Someone filmed your speech,” she said. “It’s online. Multiple versions.”
My stomach dropped.
“How many views?” I asked.
“One video has forty thousand,” Jenna said. “Another has fifteen. Comments are… split.”
I opened my laptop, searched, and found myself on the internet like a crime scene.
Shaky footage. The mic. My voice. The barn going silent. Becca’s face going pale. Ryan lunging. Chaos.
The comment section was a war.
He’s a hero.
He’s a psycho.
They’re both trash.
Imagine ruining a party like this.
Imagine starting a relationship with a bet.
I closed the laptop like it was burning me.
Jenna’s voice softened. “Do you regret it?”
I thought about six years of swallowing the story. About watching them rebrand betrayal into romance.
“No,” I said. “But I wish it hadn’t been necessary.”
“Yeah,” Jenna agreed quietly. “Me too.”
My phone buzzed again. A new text.
Thank you.
No name. Local area code.
I stared at it.
Jenna said, “That might be Clare.”
“Who’s Clare?”
“The girl Ryan’s been cheating on,” Jenna said. “She found out last night. She’s… wrecked.”
My throat went tight. “Ryan was cheating?”
Jenna made a sound like she’d like to punch something. “With Clare and apparently two other people. Becca didn’t even know.”
So the story was bigger than my heartbreak now.
It always is.
Another text came in from the same number.
Can we meet? I need to understand what happened.
Jenna said gently, “She’s not trying to attack you. She just wants answers.”
I typed back before I could overthink:
Coffee shop downtown. 2:00.
The reply came immediately.
Thank you.
10
Clare was shorter than I expected. Dark hair pulled back. Oversized sweater. Eyes red like she’d been crying and apologizing for existing.
She sat across from me and kept her hands in her lap like she didn’t trust herself not to shake.
“Thank you for coming,” she said.
“Sure,” I replied.
Silence stretched between us, filled by espresso hiss and the normal hum of people living normal lives.
Clare swallowed. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
I’d been expecting that one.
“I kept thinking maybe I was wrong,” I admitted. “Maybe it turned into something real. Maybe the beginning didn’t matter if the end was different.”
“And then?” she asked.
“And then I got tired of being the only person who remembered the truth,” I said.
Clare’s eyes glistened. “Ryan told me last night that he loved me,” she whispered. “That what happened with other people didn’t mean anything.”
I didn’t bother pretending shock.
“Do you believe him?” I asked.
Clare stared at the table. “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
That sentence sounded familiar. Like an echo of me at twenty, staring at Ryan’s messages in a kitchen while cereal got soggy.
Clare exhaled slowly. “Becca called me this morning,” she said. “She said you twisted everything. That the bet was a joke. That you were controlling.”
“That’s not true,” I said.
“I know,” Clare whispered. “Jenna showed me the proof.”
She looked up at me, eyes sharp with pain.
“So what now?” she asked.
I paused.
Because that was the question I’d been dodging for six years, too.
“You don’t get closure from them,” I said carefully. “You get closure from choosing yourself.”
Clare nodded like she wanted to believe it.
“Do you think people change?” she asked.
I thought about Ryan’s smug face. About Becca’s calm kiss on my cheek the morning after. About how easily both of them looked at me like I was the problem.
“I think people change when changing costs less than staying the same,” I said. “And I don’t think Ryan’s there.”
Clare’s eyes filled. She wiped them fast, embarrassed.
“I hate that I still want to forgive him,” she whispered.
“That doesn’t make you weak,” I said. “It makes you human.”
We talked for an hour. Not about Ryan and Becca the whole time—about work, about loneliness, about the weird shame of being collateral damage in someone else’s story.
When Clare finally stood to leave, she hesitated.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“How did you know it was time?” she asked. “To finally say something?”
I stared at my coffee, now cold.
“I didn’t,” I admitted. “I just got tired of pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t.”
Clare smiled faintly, and this time it looked real.
“That makes sense,” she said.
Then she left.
And I sat there alone feeling something unfamiliar settle in my chest.
Not victory.
Not revenge.
Relief.
11
The internet moved on faster than my nervous system did.
The videos stopped trending. New scandals replaced old ones. People found fresh reasons to argue.
The engagement party became a story people referenced like a meme—Remember the $23 cheeseburger guy?—but it wasn’t funny to me, not really.
Ryan texted once: We need to talk.
I deleted it.
Becca sent a message through a mutual friend asking me to “take down the screenshots.”
I ignored it.
The wedding was postponed. Then, according to Jenna, “postponed indefinitely.” Which was polite language for the foundation cracked and everyone saw it.
Clare blocked Ryan the day after our coffee. She didn’t do it dramatically. She did it quietly. Like closing a door and locking it.
She and I met again the following week, then again the week after that.
At first it was just two people sharing the same kind of bruise. But bruises fade when you stop pressing on them.
One afternoon, walking out of the coffee shop together, Clare said, “You know what’s funny?”
“What?” I asked.
“You tried to prove loyalty,” she said, “and you ended up proving the opposite.”
“Yeah,” I said, grim.
“But you also proved something else,” she continued.
“What’s that?”
“That honesty matters more than timing,” she said. “Even if it’s messy.”
I stopped walking for a second, the street noise swelling around us.
For six years, I’d carried a Venmo screenshot like it was proof I wasn’t crazy.
But the real proof—suddenly I understood—was that I could finally let it go.
Because it wasn’t just mine anymore.
It was real in the world. Witnessed. Shared. Unavoidable.
And for the first time since college, I didn’t feel like I needed to keep the past alive to protect myself from being rewritten.
I felt… lighter.
That night, back in my motel room, I opened the folder again.
Venmo receipt. Cheeseburger emoji. Flame emoji.
I stared at it.
Then I dragged it into the trash.
My finger hovered over “delete forever.”
Not because I wanted to erase what happened.
But because I didn’t want it to own me anymore.
I clicked.
The file disappeared.
And the silence afterward didn’t feel like loss.
It felt like a door finally closing on a room I’d been living in long after the fire burned out.
I drove back to Seattle the next morning with the sunrise in my windshield and no screenshots in my pocket.
Just a lesson I paid for in the dumbest currency possible:
Twenty-three dollars.
One leftover cheeseburger.
And the exact moment I learned trust can’t be tested without bleeding.
THE END
