He Loved Her Best Friend All Along

I said, "You put on quite a show. Does Val know about this? Does Preston?"

"And another thing. I have a job. I'm a cellist."

"But you? Living off your own man wasn't enough, so now you're living off another one's, gloating over the things he hands you like they mean something. Can't you survive without a man to prop you up?"

Muriel's face went white with anger, but she recovered fast, smug again. "So what? You still don't know, do you? The truth is, Preston and I were together a long time ago. You want to know why he went ahead and had that wedding with you? Because I told him to."

"Before the two of you ever shared that bed, it was mine and Preston's! What can I say, I'm young, I'm beautiful, and he couldn't stay away from me."

She saw the color drain from my face and pressed in closer.

"Why don't you take a guess? What do you think happened at your wedding?"

So that ring really had been their little gift of humiliation.

Old grievance and new rage boiled over, and I slapped Muriel twice, hard.

"Muriel, we were supposed to be best friends. How could you do this to me? I never owed you anything!"

For years I'd lived buried in guilt over Muriel, while the two of them stood back and watched me become everyone's joke, letting the whole world tear me down.

I searched my memory and could not find a single thing I'd ever done to wrong her.

Muriel was beside herself. No one had ever dared touch her face. She screamed, "Because you're an eyesore, that's why!" Then her expression flipped in an instant. "Val, save me."

Val saw all of it, and his face turned livid. He shoved me away with one hand.

The force sent me slamming into the car behind me, its corner driving hard into the small of my back.

Muriel melted against Val's chest, all delicate and sweet. "Just because you gave me those shares, Annabel kept slapping me out of jealousy."

"I really didn't want them. I never meant to come between the two of you. Maybe I should just keep my distance from you. Your girlfriend is terrifying."

Val pressed her tight against him and looked at me, eyes cold and vicious. "Annabel. Apologize."

Only then did the crowd understand that this was Val's fiancée, the one so rarely seen that none of them recognized her. Muriel was the one they saw all the time.

Between these two women, who could ever win?

Then Val said it. "Annabel, get on your knees and apologize."

I stared at him, unable to believe it. Even after everything, some part of me had still thought Val had treated me well these three years.

In front of the entire company, I knelt down and apologized to Muriel.

Three years. Keep a dog that long and you grow attached.

And he had trampled my dignity, again and again.

The last thread of light went out.

"Val, do you know what Muriel told me?"

"She confessed everything. All the filthy things the two of you did to me back then—"