When My Fiancé Chose My Best Friend Over Me

I let her finish pinning the veil.

She hummed something light and tuneless. Her fingers worked through my hair with the confidence of someone who believed she had already won. In the mirror, I watched her face. The little crease of concentration between her brows. The way she bit her lower lip when she adjusted a pin. I had seen that expression a thousand times. Every time she borrowed my clothes. Every time she sat at my mother's table. Every time she slept in the guest room with the pillowcases we picked out together.

She stepped back. Admired her work.

"Perfect," she said. "You're going to be the most beautiful bride."

I stood.

I pulled my phone from the pocket of the robe she gave me. I opened the folder I had transferred from Declan's laptop at four this morning. I selected the first video. The one filmed in the guest bedroom. The one with the pillowcases.

I turned the screen toward her face.

I pressed play.

The volume was all the way up.

For three seconds, she didn't move. Her eyes tracked the screen. Her mouth stayed fixed in that pretty smile.

Then her face changed.

Not all at once. It was like watching a mask crack from the inside. The smile flickered. Her eyes went wide. Her hand came up halfway, like she was going to knock the phone away, then froze.

"Hazel—"

I didn't let her finish.

I hit her.

Not a slap. A closed fist. Square in the center of her face.

I felt her nose give under my knuckles. The sound was wet and sharp. Blood came immediately, bright red against the dusty rose silk of the bridesmaid gown I had paid for.

She screamed and stumbled backward. Her hands flew to her face. The veil she had just pinned so carefully tore free and fell.

I followed her.

She tried to run. I caught her by the hair — my hair, the extensions I had paid for at the salon she couldn't afford on her own — and yanked her back. She went down hard on her knees. The champagne bottle tipped off the console and shattered across the marble. Glass everywhere. The smell of it filled the room, sweet and sharp.

"Hazel, stop — please —"

I didn't stop.

I spent three years learning exactly how much pain a body can take. I learned it in drowning water. I learned it in sleepless weeks. I learned it in every task the Wish Shop gave me while she was texting my fiancé about how pathetic I was.

I used every bit of it now.

I shoved her face-first into the floor. She tried to roll. I pinned her with my knee in her spine. She clawed at the marble. Her nails scraped and broke. I grabbed her wrist and twisted until I felt the joint strain.

She was sobbing. Choking on blood and spit and words that didn't matter.

"You wore my perfume," I said.

My voice was perfectly calm.

"You wore my perfume to my apartment on my wedding day after you fucked my fiancé in my guest bed."

I leaned down close to her ear.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out? Or did you just not care?"

She tried to say something. I didn't let her.

I stood. I pulled her up by the arm and threw her toward the door. She hit the console. More glass. The mirror cracked.

Then I heard him.

"HAZEL!"

Declan stood in the doorway. Still in his robe. Hair wild. Eyes wide.

He looked at Brittany on the floor. At the blood. At me.

Then he ran to her.

Not to me.

To her.

He dropped down beside her and pulled her into his arms. She collapsed against him, sobbing into his chest. He stroked her hair. He whispered something I couldn't hear.

Then he looked up at me.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

I stared at him.

At the man I had nearly died for. The man whose legs I had traded three years of my life to save. The man who wrote me a thousand letters and promised me forever.

He held her tighter.

"Let me explain," he said. His voice cracked. "This isn't — you're being insane. Just let me explain."

I laughed.

It came out sharp and bright, like breaking glass.

He flinched.

I crossed the room in three steps. He tried to stand. Tried to put himself between us.

I shoved him.

He went down.

Not hard. Not the way I had put Brittany down. But he went down, and the shock on his face was so complete, so total, that I almost laughed again.

He had never seen me like this.

Nobody had.

"Get up," I said.

He didn't move.

I reached into the pocket of the robe. I pulled out the ring. The one I had taken off his desk last night. The one I had carried home and looked at for a long time before I went to sleep.

I threw it.

It hit the floor at his feet and skittered across the marble. The sound it made was small and final.

"We are done," I said.

My voice didn't shake. My hands didn't shake.

I looked at Brittany, still curled on the floor, blood all over the gown I had bought her.

I looked at Declan, staring up at me like I was someone he had never met.

"Both of you," I said. "Get out of my house."

Neither of them moved.

I walked past them. I opened the door.

I waited.

Declan stood first. He helped Brittany up. She leaned on him. They stumbled toward the door together, broken and bleeding and still holding on to each other.

At the threshold, Declan stopped.

He turned back.

"Hazel," he said. His voice was so small. "Please."

I looked at him.

I smiled.

Then I closed the door in his face.