The moment my eyes met Brianna’s under that bed, my heart didn’t just race—it stalled, not in the dramatic, poetic way people describe fear, but in the real, bodily way, like my system briefly forgot how to work because I had just found proof that my entire life had been staged for me.
Brianna smiled at me from the darkness, slow and measured, wearing an expression that had nothing to do with the girl I’d called my best friend for ten years—the one who held my hand through breakups, who pulled me out of bad seasons, who sat beside me just a week ago and helped me write vows meant for a marriage she clearly never respected. “Hello, friend,” she whispered in that soft, confident tone she used whenever she wanted to sound untouchable, except now there was nothing steady about it, because the mask was off and the air itself felt sharp.