Shaking. Crying so hard that her body could barley be lifted off the floor. Convulsing in my arms as I tried to remind her she needed to breathe as she neared passing out. Phone calls at all hours of the morning ridden in tears and hysteria over the nightmares of you running through her mind. Force feeding food down her throat because she hadn’t eaten in days and was withering away to nothing.
That’s what you caused.
That’s what you did to my best friend when you cheated.
I had never seen pain on her face the way I saw it after you told her that you found someone else and you were leaving. You hid an entire relationship, a second life, all the while telling my best friend you loved her every night before she went to sleep.
You shattered her. Shattered her to the point that I started to bleed as I picked up her pieces that no longer fit together. I felt her pain, I felt her anger, I felt her sickness knowing you no longer cared. Years of being together were over just like that. I held her hand as she sorted through thousands of days searching for what went wrong. Where were the lies and what were the truths? She didn’t know, and I didn’t know how to help her.
You destroyed her and you didn’t even care. She’s beautiful, inside and out. You should have been honored that she even considered you a viable suitor, let alone handed you heart. How did you not see how f*cking beautiful she was? How beautiful she is.
She became ostracized. A victim of her own solitary confinement because she had forgotten what it was like to breathe without you. I never thought I’d have to teach my best friend how to inhale and exhale on her own again.
She shrank, smaller and smaller with each passing week. Music didn’t help, alcohol didn’t numb the pain. In all the years I’ve known her, I had never seen her so lost.
How could you just walk away? How could you f*cking leave her in the middle of the street to die like that? How could you text me weeks later with the audacity to ask how she was doing?
How was she doing? She was barely f*cking alive. You acted like you cared about her while you laid in the bed of another woman. A woman who knew you had promised your heart to someone else, yet still lured you in with her promiscuity and disrespect.
Maybe if my best friend was an evil person; maybe if she had treated you wrongly I would have understood. But as this flawless soul laid in my arms trying to find the strength to get out of bed, I had no answer. I had no understanding as to why you would allow yourself to be such a fool.
I guess you didn’t know either. As time went by, you realized your mistake and tried crawling back, begging for mercy. Thankfully, the damage had already been done. Beyond repair, beyond forgiveness.
You broke her, but I wouldn’t let her stay broken. I took the place of you holding her. Being her safety, being her backbone, and I’d do it all again, a thousand times, because that’s what love is.
She built up her strength and learned to breathe all on her own. She got up each day and I reminded her it would be okay; then she started reminding herself- until one day she woke up and didn’t need to be reminded anymore.
She’s happy now. Happier than I’ve ever seen her, happier than you could ever make her. I heard you miss her. I heard you’ve once again tried explaining to her that you’ll never hurt her like that again, but it really is too late.
I’m sorry.
I am genuinely sorry. I’m sorry you lost the most beautiful person you’ll ever have in your life. I’m sorry my best friend lost so much time picking up her pieces after you devastated her reality. I’m sorry that it took you way too long to see what you had in front of you. I’m sorry you’re a cheater who believes his actions are forgivable because ‘it was just one mistake.’
You don’t have to worry about my best friend anymore. Because unlike you, I will never abandon her.
