The Ex-Best Friend's Cruelty

The Ex-Best Friend's Cruelty

Victor Hale

5.0
Comment(s)
133
View
11
Chapters

The old man hit the pavement hard. One moment I was walking to meet my best friend, Jessica, for coffee, the next my medical student instincts screamed. "Sarah, stop!" Jessica's grip on my arm was tight, her face a mask of alarm. "Don't get involved," she hissed, warning of scams and pickpockets. Her words, and a past trauma of kindness exploited, made me pause, just for a second. A fatal second. In that life, I listened. I stood by, fear warring with my training, as precious minutes ticked away. Mr. Henderson, the veteran, died before the ambulance arrived. The public fallout was immediate and brutal. Jessica, my best friend, painted me as a cold, heartless medical student in a viral interview, cleverly omitting her own role in dissuading me. "Heartless Med Student Lets Veteran Die." That headline destroyed my life. I was suspended from medical school. My boyfriend left me. My address was leaked, and I received death threats, trapped as a pariah in my own home. Jessica, meanwhile, thrived, becoming a celebrated symbol of civic virtue, funneling donations from a foundation in Mr. Henderson's name into her own pockets. The weight of the world's hatred, Jessica's betrayal, and crushing guilt became too much. I lost everything. My future. My will to live. The last thing I remembered was Jessica's triumphant smile on a talk show. Then, darkness. Until I was ripped from it. My eyes flew open. The scent of hotdogs, a taxi's screech, humid air. I was back. Standing on the same sidewalk, my bag in hand. Twenty feet away, Mr. Henderson was just beginning to crumple to the ground. This wasn't a memory. It was happening again. The thud of his body was the starting gun for my second chance. I didn't waste a second.

Introduction

The old man hit the pavement hard.

One moment I was walking to meet my best friend, Jessica, for coffee, the next my medical student instincts screamed.

"Sarah, stop!"

Jessica's grip on my arm was tight, her face a mask of alarm.

"Don't get involved," she hissed, warning of scams and pickpockets.

Her words, and a past trauma of kindness exploited, made me pause, just for a second.

A fatal second.

In that life, I listened.

I stood by, fear warring with my training, as precious minutes ticked away.

Mr. Henderson, the veteran, died before the ambulance arrived.

The public fallout was immediate and brutal.

Jessica, my best friend, painted me as a cold, heartless medical student in a viral interview, cleverly omitting her own role in dissuading me.

"Heartless Med Student Lets Veteran Die."

That headline destroyed my life.

I was suspended from medical school.

My boyfriend left me.

My address was leaked, and I received death threats, trapped as a pariah in my own home.

Jessica, meanwhile, thrived, becoming a celebrated symbol of civic virtue, funneling donations from a foundation in Mr. Henderson's name into her own pockets.

The weight of the world's hatred, Jessica's betrayal, and crushing guilt became too much.

I lost everything.

My future.

My will to live.

The last thing I remembered was Jessica's triumphant smile on a talk show.

Then, darkness.

Until I was ripped from it.

My eyes flew open.

The scent of hotdogs, a taxi's screech, humid air.

I was back.

Standing on the same sidewalk, my bag in hand.

Twenty feet away, Mr. Henderson was just beginning to crumple to the ground.

This wasn't a memory.

It was happening again.

The thud of his body was the starting gun for my second chance.

I didn't waste a second.

Continue Reading

Other books by Victor Hale

More
Nine Years, One Betrayal

Nine Years, One Betrayal

Romance

5.0

Today was our ninth wedding anniversary, and I arrived at the airport, bouquet in hand, ready to surprise my wife, Jessica, after her "business trip." Instead, I found her wrapped in a young man's arms, sharing a long, deep kiss. My world went silent. The roses in my lap felt impossibly heavy as I watched her with this stranger, a boy who looked fresh out of college. Then, her text flashed on my phone: "Plane just landed! So tired. Can't wait to see you, honey! XOXO." The blatant lie hit harder than the betrayal itself. That night, she came home, smiling, feigning affection, even pulling out an anniversary gift – a sleek, silver watch. A wave of nausea washed over me. It was the exact same watch the young man at the airport was wearing. She spoke of love and forever, her words like ash in my mouth. Was any of it real? She spun more lies, claiming her trip was to San Francisco, not Chicago, and trying to pass off the watch as an innocent mistake. Her desperation to maintain the facade was almost fascinating, a grotesque parody of the woman I thought I knew. I felt a strange detachment, watching my life unravel. The situation worsened when she tried to comfort me, mistaking my coldness for work stress. Her phone rang, and I knew it was him – Liam Davis. I locked myself in the bathroom, feeling the filth, and then made a call. I hired a private investigator. The next morning, the investigator' s photos confirmed my worst fears: Jessica and Liam, intimate, entangled. The rage I had suppressed began to simmer, fueled by the sheer audacity of her deceit. How could she have poisoned every moment of our shared life for two years?

You'll also like

The Billionaire's Secret Twins: Her Revenge

The Billionaire's Secret Twins: Her Revenge

Shearwater
5.0

I was four months pregnant, weighing over two hundred pounds, and my heart was failing from experimental treatments forced on me as a child. My doctor looked at me with clinical detachment and told me I was in a death sentence: if I kept the baby, I would die, and if I tried to remove it, I would die. Desperate for a lifeline, I called my father, Francis Acosta, to tell him I was sick and pregnant. I expected a father's love, but all I got was a cold, sharp blade of a voice. "Then do it quietly," he said. "Don't embarrass Candi. Her debutante ball is coming up." He didn't just reject me; he erased me. My trust fund was frozen, and I was told I was no longer an Acosta. My fiancé, Auston, had already discarded me, calling me a "bloated whale" while he looked for a thinner, wealthier replacement. I left New York on a Greyhound bus, weeping into a bag of chips, a broken woman the world considered a mistake. I couldn't understand how my own father could tell me to die "quietly" just to save face for a party. I didn't know why I had been a lab rat for my family’s pharmaceutical ambitions, or how they could sleep at night while I was left to rot in the gray drizzle of the city. Five years later, the doors of JFK International Airport slid open. I stepped onto the marble floor in red-soled stilettos, my body lean, lethal, and carved from years of blood and sweat. I wasn't the "whale" anymore; I was a ghost coming back to haunt them. With my daughter by my side and a medical reputation that terrified the global elite, I was ready to dismantle the Acosta empire piece by piece. "Tell Francis to wash his neck," I whispered to the skyline. "I'm home."

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book