For a moment I simply stared at the screen, certain my eyes had misunderstood the sentence. My brain tried to rearrange the words into something harmless, some explanation that made sense. Maybe she was talking about someone else. Maybe it was a joke.
Still, my fingers moved before my thoughts could stop them. I unlocked the phone.
The message thread opened instantly, revealing dozens of conversations stretching back months. The longer I scrolled, the colder my hands felt, as if the room temperature had suddenly dropped without warning. There were small messages at first—innocent enough on the surface, casual updates about meeting times or excuses for being late somewhere—but slowly the tone changed.
One message from Linda read:
“I hate lying to her like this.”
