The Triple Betrayal: He Cheated With My Best Friend So I Left Chapter 06
For a full month after that, Julian called my number every morning, noon, and night, like clockwork.
Every time, the same cold, mechanical voice told him the number was unavailable.
He went through his contacts and messaged every mutual friend we had, asking if anyone knew where I’d gone.
No one did.
Ivy showed up every day with a thermos, walking in with a smile already plastered in place.
“Julian, I made the rib soup you like. You’ve been moping around this empty apartment—I know you haven’t been eating right.”
At first, he’d take the container and offer a quiet thank you.
As the days blurred together, the sight of her started to grate on him.
Mostly he just nodded, stony-faced, and didn’t bother saying much back.
One evening she came by with dinner as usual, prattling on about nothing.
He let it wash over him, exhausted by the noise, giving her a few empty responses before ushering her out.
Alone in the apartment, he pulled open the closet in the master bedroom, digging for a change of clothes.
At the very bottom, buried under everything else, his hand found a notebook, its cover softened and frayed at the edges.
It was mine. I’d carried it with me for years. I’d never once let him read it.
He hesitated for a few seconds, then pulled it out anyway, sat on the edge of the bed, and opened it.
The pages had yellowed. The earliest entries were from the months after my mother died, every page heavy with the nightmares that kept jolting me awake at night.
Partway through, the handwriting softened.
Julian said he’d stay with me forever. I’m so lucky.
His fingers moved over the page, slow. Something in his chest tightened, an ache he couldn’t quite place.
He kept turning pages. He stopped on the entry from the day Ivy moved in.
The handwriting there was shaky, faint but visible.
“When did our matching mugs become a set of three? Am I overthinking this?”
That one line hit his chest like a clenched fist.
He shut the notebook hard, stood up, grabbed his phone, and called Ivy.
The second the call connected, everything he’d been bottling up all month broke loose.
“Why did you even have to move in here?”
Ivy started crying instantly, her voice trembling with hurt.
“You’re the one who agreed to it, Julian! Now that things have gone wrong, you’re pinning it all on me?”
He had nothing to say to that. He sat there, silent, white-knuckling his phone, then hung up on her without another word.
He turned toward the headboard.
A pair of crocheted dolls sat there, made by my own hands. One shaped like him. One shaped like me.
Ivy had once insisted I make her one too. I’d said no.
He’d given me a hard time about it back then.
He reached for the dolls now, crushing them in his grip, the fabric straining under his fingers.
…
On the other side of the ocean, I’d started seeing a local therapist, with Aunt Rachel by my side.
The first time I walked into that office, I sat on the couch with my head bowed the entire session.
From the moment I sat down to the moment it ended, the tears never stopped.
I couldn’t get a single full sentence out.
At the end, the therapist handed me a blank sheet of paper, her voice gentle.
“Write down the three things you most want to say to them. Don’t hold back. Just write whatever comes to mind.”
I sat there with the pen for a long time, saying nothing.
The first line I put down was one word.
Why?
The pen pressed hard enough to tear a small hole through the paper, and everything I’d been repressing for weeks surfaced all at once.