The Triple Betrayal: He Cheated With My Best Friend So I Left Chapter 01
Julian changed the sheets again. Right before he fucked me.
After the frenzy died down, I finally couldn’t hold back and asked why.
“Because your best friend Ivy. She sweats a lot.” His fingers wound one strand of my hair around his knuckle, slow, and he smiled.
“Every time I was about to fuck you, she’d get all worked up. She’d beg me to fuck her first.”
“God… After I met her, I finally understood some women really are made of water. Unlike you—lying there like a corpse.”
My mind went blank. “What… what did you just say?”
“You want me to spell it out?” His mouth curved, into a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Nora, your mother was tortured to death in bed by your father, not by me.”
“So every time you lie there like a cold fish, it kills the mood. That’s your trauma. I shouldn’t have to pay for it. Understand?”
A pause, he continued.
“Actually, You really should be thanking Ivy. She’s the one holding this train wreck of a relationship together.”
The door burst open.
Ivy charged in, her eyes already brimming with tears, and her palm cracked across Julian’s cheek before I could even sit up.
“You prick! Apologize to Nora!”
I looked at the two of them. Really looked.
For all these years, I understood now, I had only ever been the dead weight that ruined his mood.
This was a bed that was never built for three.
Now I was done trying to squeeze myself into it.
…
I got up.
I pulled my clothes on.
I walked toward the door.
Julian called after me. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I didn’t answer. I bent down and slipped my shoes on.
Ivy’s eyes shot toward him. Sharp and warning.
His shoulders dropped before he opened his mouth again.
“About what I said.” He didn’t look at me when he said it. His eyes were on Ivy. “I went too far.”
I didn’t stop. I walked straight to the door.
That was when Julian’s patience snapped.
“Are you done? Where do you think you’re going, this late at night? “
“Just because of your mother’s baggage, the whole world has to walk on eggshells around you?”
Ivy ran over before I could answer, grabbed my wrist, her grip painfully tight.
She was sobbing now.
“Nora… I’ll explain everything to you. Don’t do anything reckless. Don’t be stupid.”
I looked down at her hand. I smiled.
Then I pried her fingers off me.
“Ivy, the stupidest thing I ever did in my life was letting you move into this apartment.”
My voice came out flat, like stagnant water.
“My whole life, whatever you liked, I gave it to you. “
“You said you liked my dress, I bought you the same one. You said you wanted to go to my university, I helped you cheat on the exams and risked getting expelled for it. “
“Now, my boyfriend, and this bed… If you like them so much, you can have them as well.”
Ivy’s sobs hitched. Her mouth opened. No sound came out of it.
I looked at her, my gaze empty.
“Satisfied now? If you’re satisfied, stop following me. I don’t have anything left to give you.”
I pushed the door open and walked out.
The early autumn chill swept through the stairwell. My whole body shook violently once.
I didn’t stop.
The streetlight above threw a stunted shadow across the ground.
I looked down at my slippers. The pink rabbit ears on them had gone gray with dirt.
Through the blur of my vision, the memories I’d been suppressing flooded back.
When we first got together, Julian was good to me.
He knew that after my mother died beside me, I couldn’t sleep alone, couldn’t stand the dark.
So he bought a second apartment, specifically in the same complex where Ivy rented.
Back then Julian said, “Ivy’s close by. When I travel for work, she can come stay with you.”
Later Ivy kept saying she didn’t feel right leaving me alone. Occasional sleepovers turned into staying several nights a week.
Eventually she broke her lease altogether and moved into the apartment I shared with Julian.
When Julian found out, he said, “It’s better this way, with you two together. Saves everyone the back-and-forth.”
I never once thought anything was wrong.
Not until the matching mug set on the living room counter, at some point I never noticed, became a set of three.
An extra slot appeared on the toothbrush holder.
Pajamas. Slippers. Even the new bedsheets I’d switched to later. All identical to Ivy’s.
She would always tug at my arm, smiling, her voice cloyingly sweet.
“Nora, let’s buy them together. Best friends should match!”
Even our mutual friends used to joke, “Nora, you really lucked out—buy one boyfriend, get a girlfriend for free.”
I hadn’t understood it then. I’d genuinely believed I’d won both love and friendship.
Only now did I understand. Even they had seen it more clearly than I had.
They had known, long before I did, that there had always been a third person in this relationship.
I wiped my face. I took the slippers off. I tossed them in the trash bin beside me.
Bare feet on the concrete. Cold climbed up from the soles into every limb.
I dug the phone out of my pocket, scrolled to a number, and called it.
“Aunt Rachel. I’ve made up my mind. I’ll go abroad with you.”