My best friend married my ex-husband… and then she called me at 3 a.m. screaming like her life was on fire.
Alan and I were together seven years. Two little girls — five and four — and a life I thought was real until he blew it up. The betrayal, the divorce, him walking away from the kids… it broke me in ways I don’t even like remembering.
And Stacey? She was my person through all of it.
My shoulder. My late-night vent call. The one who knew every ugly detail.
So when, a year and a half after the divorce, she got engaged to him… I felt sick.
I didn’t fight her. I didn’t beg. I just backed away.
Because what do you even say when your best friend chooses the man who shattered your family?
She tried to keep our friendship alive at first.
I couldn’t.
I refused.
After their wedding, I told myself that chapter was finally over. Closed. Done.
Until last night.
At 3:00 AM, my phone lit up in the dark.
Her name.
I stared at it, half asleep, half furious. I almost let it ring out… but something uneasy in me made me answer.
“Hello?”
What came through the line wasn’t a greeting.
It was a scream.
Raw. Panicked. Like she’d been running.
“I NEED YOUR HELP!” she cried.
“THIS CONCERNS YOU MORE THAN YOU THINK!”
My whole body snapped awake.
Because Stacey never calls me.
Not anymore.
Not after what she did.
So whatever had her calling me in the middle of the night…
…had to be bad.
