My best friend, Chloe, wanted to set me up with her good friend, Dean. I flat-out refused.
But when I finally met him, I fell for him instantly.
Soon after, we got married.
Yet, when I was six months pregnant, Chloe suddenly dropped a bombshell:
I’ve loaned him to you for all these years. Isn’t it time you gave him back?
I was absolutely stunned. My mind just froze.
Today was my OB-GYN appointment, and I was already six months along.
Chloe had traveled all the way from out of state to be with me. I was even planning to ask her to be my baby’s godmother.
Then she sat down and just threw that sentence at me.
Every memory, every past scene, flickered before my eyes, mocking me.
The truth was, the signs had always been there. I just chose to ignore them.
Whenever we went out, Dean always paid extra attention to Chloe.
He knew what she liked, what she hated, and he even knew her menstrual cycle details.
“How do you know *everything* about her?” I’d joked.
Chloe had chimed in, “We’ve known each other for ages. I’ve dated so many guys, but none of them were as thoughtful as Dean.”
“The last time he took me to this awful cake place, I completely lost it right then and there. He had to treat me to dinner for a whole week before I even considered forgiving him.”
“And another time, we went hiking, and he twisted his ankle. I had to practically carry him down the mountain.”
Back then, I actually thought it was normal. They grew up together, so it made sense they had stories I didn’t know, and being close was fine.
Turns out, it wasn’t like that at all.
Chloe just dropped that line and walked out.
I desperately dialed Dean’s number, hitting redial seven, eight times. He didn’t pick up.
It reminded me of another time, when Chloe and I were having dinner at my place. Maybe the meat wasn’t cooked through, because we both got awful food poisoning, throwing up non-stop.
I called Dean several times, but he never answered.
Chloe eventually got annoyed and said, “Let *me* try!”
Her call connected on the very first ring. “What’s up, Chloe? Everything okay?”
Chloe complained, “Elara and I have food poisoning! Come pick us up! I called you so many times, and you didn’t answer a single one!”
Dean replied so casually, “Didn’t I pick up your very first call?”
At the time, I thought he just happened to see her call. It turns out, he just never missed *her* calls.
I’m not one to give up easily.
On my tenth attempt, Dean finally picked up.
His surroundings sounded noisy, and his voice carried a faint, almost imperceptible hint of impatience.
Was this how he always sounded when he answered *my* calls?
“Why weren’t you picking up?” I asked.
“In a meeting. Didn’t I just SnapChat you?”
I deliberately said, “Chloe came to my prenatal appointment with me.”
He sounded completely unaware of anything, replying naturally, “Hmm, make sure you get everything checked out. Isn’t she complaining about stomach pain lately? Can you book her an endoscopy? She’s such a wreck, completely neglecting herself.”
“She didn’t tell me about any stomach pain.”
“And you call yourselves best friends? You don’t care about her at all. These past few times we’ve eaten out, she’s said she can’t eat spicy food. It must be her stomach acting up again.”
Oh, you truly know her so well. But do you know that *I* don’t eat spicy food either?
Chloe can’t live without spice, but I can’t stand a single drop of it.
Coincidentally, Dean also loves spicy food.
So, I just went along with it, the minority yielding to the majority, and ate spicy meals with them.
Seeing how happy they were eating, I guess I didn’t really care about how my own food tasted.
Dean came to pick me up from the hospital.
I handed him my check-up report. He didn’t reach for it, just glanced at it casually, then gestured for me to hold it up.
“Where’s Chloe? Wasn’t she with you?”
“Oh, she said she wasn’t feeling well and went home.”
Dean’s hand on the steering wheel paused, then he immediately turned the car around.
“Let’s go check on her. I booked a healthy food place; I was just about to take you two. I told Chloe already, it was just a routine check-up, she didn’t need to go through all that trouble.”
I stared at his profile. The concern on his face was utterly genuine.
It was like he was a completely different person from just moments ago, when he’d coldly swept his gaze over my prenatal report.
Things, once they start to show cracks, tend to fall apart completely.
Like now. I saw everything through a different lens.
I refused to believe he felt nothing for me, and I couldn’t accept even a shred of deceit from him.
“Why the sudden healthy food place? I thought you hated bland food.”
Dean’s face clouded with annoyance.
“You really don’t care about Chloe at all, do you? She’s not feeling well, how can she eat spicy food?”
“Oh, my mistake. I thought it was because *I* liked it.”
Dean froze for a second, then quickly tried to recover. “Well, of course, it’s because you like it too!”
Chloe, of course, didn’t come to the healthy food place. She didn’t even answer her phone.
Dean drove me to her house, knocking on her door for half an hour, but no one answered.
I stood in the parking lot, watching him call Chloe, then Mr. Peterson, then Mrs. Peterson.
Eventually, he confirmed she was just unwell and sleeping at home.
Dean finally breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to me.
“That scared me to death. I thought something had happened to her.”
There was a time I didn’t answer his calls either.
It was our first anniversary.
He had completely forgotten about it because he was in his hometown, waiting for Chloe to go back to college with him.
By the time he remembered, it was the next day. He called me twice, but I didn’t pick up.
Chloe, however, kept calling me.
When I finally answered, I even heard Dean in the background impatiently asking her, “What could possibly be wrong with her? She’s probably just sleeping in her dorm.”
Thinking about it now, it was obvious then who he loved and who he didn’t.
I had just been blinded by their shared history, their “childhood friends” narrative.
It was my fault for silently allowing a relationship to exist that overshadowed ours.
All my fault.
I’m an adult. I have to take responsibility for my choices.
Elara Harrison, I had made my bet, and I would pay the price.
There was one thing I still couldn’t figure out.
If they liked each other so much, why didn’t they just get together? Why drag an irrelevant person like me into it?
What did I ever do wrong?
Looking back on these past few years, the biggest mistake I made was probably letting my delight show on my face the first time Dean appeared.
After that, Dean pursued me effortlessly.
Yes, he was calm and confident, because he knew he would win me over.
My affection for him was obvious, and Chloe was helping us.
To pursue me, he traveled over a thousand miles, two or three times a month.
I always thought that was love.
About six months later, I accepted his pursuit.
Now, looking back, there was love, but I just don’t know who it was for.
Most of our dates, it wasn’t just us two. It was *three*.
Later, giving up promotions that required travel, getting pregnant and having a baby at the peak of my career C I never thought anything of it.
Because I was striding towards what I believed was a happy life.
Now, I’ve decided to get a divorce.
It’s nothing. What I could embrace, I could also release.
My only hesitation was about the baby.
My financial capacity was certainly enough to raise a child.
But, did I want it to be born without a father?
I hadn’t even found my own place in this web of lies; did I want my child to bear the weight of this unknown future?
Only by ending this pregnancy could I truly break free from Dean, and from this sickening situation.
So, was that why Chloe told me now?
She didn’t want me to have this baby, did she?
She thought that once I had this child, Dean and I would have an unbreakable bond.
And then she and Dean could never truly be together, without lingering resentment.
So, in her eyes, I was an insignificant presence in their relationship. This tiny, unborn baby was her true enemy.
How laughable and absurd.
Maybe my emotions had been too unstable lately.
One day, while I was doing an experiment, my stomach seized with a searing pain, and cold sweat slicked my skin.
My colleague freaked out and rushed me outside for some fresh air.
He reminded me, “I called Dean to pick you up. You should go to the hospital. You’re almost in your third trimester, you can’t be careless.”
Dean was usually very meticulous.
When I brought him to company gatherings, he’d add everyone’s contact info, saying it was so he could reach me if I was in the lab.
By the time Dean arrived at my company, I had already been checked out of the hospital and was walking out.
“Come downstairs, Elara, I’ll take you to the hospital.”
Before I could say anything, I heard my colleague’s voice on the phone.
“Dean, what took you so long? I called you like two hours ago! Elara already took leave and went home.”
“I was busy just now. Thanks, Mark, for looking after her. I’m heading back now.”
They chatted for a few more moments, then Dean asked me, “Are you home?”
“What were you busy with?”
He seemed surprised by my question. He paused, then replied, “I was with Chloe.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
I rarely pressed him on these things, so Dean hadn’t even prepared a flimsy excuse.
He countered, “Have you and Chloe been fighting lately?”
That question seemed to open an emotional floodgate for him.
“I knew you two have been acting weird. You’re usually so close, why haven’t you even mentioned each other?”
“Did you do something to upset Chloe?”
“She just has a childish temper, you just need to coax her a bit.”
“Or I could buy a small gift for you to give her, as an apology, to give her an easy way out.”
I thought I couldn’t get any angrier at these two, after all, I’d convinced myself they weren’t worth it.
But the thought of them treating me like an idiot and fooling me for so many years made the humiliation and indignation inside me feel like a shaken soda can, ready to explode.
“How about I give *you* to her?”
I said that and hung up.
I regretted it.
I had planned to leave.
But running away isn’t my style. Fighting back is.
I couldn’t give them all the dignity and leave myself with all the pain.
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