“I read them all,” I whispered to her in the front row of the church. “I read the messages where you sent him pictures of yourself in hotel rooms. Where you begged him to leave me. Where you told him I was boring and he deserved a woman who knew how to live.”

“I… I was drunk,” she choked out. The color completely drained from her face. She looked frantically around the pews, terrified that David’s family was listening. “He misunderstood.”

“And I read his reply,” I continued, not blinking. “He told you to never contact him again. He told you he was blocking your number.”

“Babe, please—”

“You didn’t stay away for nine months because hospitals give you anxiety,” I said, cutting her off. “You stayed away because my husband banned you from our house. You stayed away because you threw yourself at a married man and he rejected you.”

She stared at me. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. The “grieving best friend” mask shattered into a million pieces. She was entirely exposed.

“He spent his last nine months laughing at you, Chloe,” I lied. He hadn’t laughed. He had just been disgusted. But I wanted it to hurt. I wanted her to bleed.

“You’re crazy,” she hissed, taking a step back, her hands trembling.

“Now take your bright red dress,” I said, turning my body back toward the casket, completely dismissing her existence, “and get out of my church.”

She didn’t argue. She didn’t make another scene. She turned around and practically ran up the center aisle, her red heels clicking loudly against the marble floor. People turned to watch her leave, whispering in confusion.

She didn’t stay for the burial. She didn’t come to the reception.

She blocked me on social media before the sun went down.

I buried my husband that afternoon. I went home to a terrifyingly quiet house. I washed the coffee-stained spiral notebook off with a damp cloth, and I put it in my bedside drawer.

I haven’t heard from Chloe since. But a mutual friend told me she recently moved to another city because “the memories here were just too painful.”

I let her keep that lie. It’s all she has left.