CHAPTER FOUR: BEST FRIEND WHO'S A FOE
1263 Words
Paulina blinked into the dark, disoriented, the remnants of a nightmare still clinging to her mind. The kind of nightmare that didn’t feel made up but remembered.
She sat up in bed, cold sweat clinging to her back.
It was just a dream.
But it wasn’t.
She had seen James’s face.
Only it hasn’t been James in college. It had been him from the future, older, colder, furious.
He’d grabbed her wrist in the dream. Dragged her down a hallway. Her voice had broken as she screamed for help.
She got out of bed and went to the bathroom, splashing water on her face. Her hands were shaking. Her reflection stared back, young, vibrant. Alive.
She gripped the edge of the sink.
“It was a dream,” she whispered.
She turned off the light and stepped back into her room, back to her thoughts.
..................................................................
The first time Paulina met Alexis Raymond, it was during her final year in high school.
She remembered it clearly even now, across the gulf of years and betrayal.
It was mid-September, the first week back after summer break. The leaves had started to change, and the halls of Eastwood High were humming with chatter and fresh gossip. Paulina had returned from summer vacation with a quiet glow. Her grades were excellent, and she had just begun to dream of a future far away from her mother’s whining and determination for her to study Engineering rather than literature.
Then Alexis walked into the homeroom.
She was the new girl. A transfer student from Michigan. Slim, blonde hair, with wide green eyes that blinked at everything with innocent wonder. The boys noticed her first. Of course, they did. But it wasn’t her beauty that caught Paulina’s attention.
It was the loneliness and timidness in her. She felt like this new girl was a part of her.
When the teacher introduced her and asked where she’d like to sit, most tables were already full or had “unspoken” arrangements. Paulina had an empty seat next to her, and without thinking, she raised her hand and smiled.
“You can sit here.”
Alexis smiled back, all dimples and gratitude, and just like that they became friends.
Best friends.
From that day on, they were inseparable. They ate lunch together, studied in the library, and shared secrets during sleepovers in Paulina’s room lit by fairy lights. Alexis would brush Paulina’s hair and call her “Lina,” saying it sounded prettier. She told Paulina about her parents’ messy divorce, about how her mom moved them across states to escape a bad relationship. Paulina listened, comforted her, even cried with her.
They were girls who dreamed of the future like it was a treasure map they would follow hand in hand.
So, when the time came to apply to college, it was Alexis who said, “Let’s go together. Same campus. That way we’ll never lose each other.”
Paulina had been touched. “You’re sure?”
“Of course,” Alexis said, grinning. “It’s you and me against the world.”
They applied to the same colleges. They got accepted to two. And they chose University of New York (NYU) with a well-regarded literature and media program.
They got accepted, and they moved in together freshman year. Shared textbooks, shared clothes, even shared the same part-time job at the campus café. People often joked that they were sisters separated by birth. Paulina believed it.
She trusted Alexis with everything.
When James entered her life, it was Alexis who helped her pick out outfits before their dates. Who helped her rehearse conversations and decode texts. Who told her, “If he doesn’t treat you like a queen, he’s not good enough.”
Paulina remembered one afternoon during sophomore year after accepting to date James. She had just come back from a weekend with James, cheeks flushed and smiling like an i***t. She found Alexis lying on the floor, headphones in, eyes closed.
“I think I love him,” Paulina had whispered.
Alexis pulled off one headphone and looked up at her. “Really?”
Paulina nodded.
Alexis’s smile faltered for a split second, so brief that Paulina didn’t catch it back then. But now? She remembered it clearly. The flash of something beneath the surface. A flicker of envy. Maybe even hatred.
But Alexis sat up and pulled her into a hug.
“I’m happy for you,” she whispered. “You deserve this.”
And Paulina believed her.
How foolish she had been.
Now, sitting in her small apartment with the echoes of those memories, Paulina felt the ache of betrayal c***k her chest open all over again.
Because it wasn’t James who hurt her the most.
It was her.
Alexis Raymond
Alexis had been her sister. Her shadow. Her home. And she had stayed in Paulina’s house, slept in her guest room, smiled across her kitchen table and slept with her husband behind her back.
The memory of that day, the one she died, rushed forward.
Opening the door.
Seeing the wine bottle.
The soft laughter.
James’s and Alexis's clothes on the bedroom floor rug.
Alexis’s hands on his chest.
Skin to Skin on the bed.
The moans and groans.
The argument. The push. The fall. The blood.
Paulina closed her eyes, forcing herself to breathe.
They were monsters, both of them. And now she was back ten years before it all began. Before Alexis betrayed her. Before James destroyed her.
She has the power to change that.
She pulled herself out of bed and stood before the bathroom mirror, wiping her face dry.
“No more crying,” she whispered. “You’ve done enough of that.”
Her voice was steady.
She wasn’t going to waste this new life chasing ghosts or waiting for apologies.
She had to thrive.
Paulina got dressed in a sleek black pencil skirt and a tucked-in beige blouse. She tied her long blonde hair into a neat ponytail and added a swipe of red lipstick. She looked in the mirror, and for the first time since waking up in the past, she looked like her. Not the broken wife. Not the dying woman. But the version of herself who still had a chance.
She grabbed her phone, her notebook, and a bagel on the way out. The morning air was brisk as she hailed a cab and made her way downtown to Chambers & Bloom Public Relations.
Her department, Publishing Relations, was on the fifth floor. The office was buzzing when she walked in, phones ringing, people pacing between desks, the copier already jamming.
“Morning, Finley,” someone called.
“Morning,” she replied with a small smile.
Her desk was stacked with manuscript notes, pitch drafts, press packet layouts, and author edits. Her inbox was full of twelve unread emails and three internal memos from the editing director asking for urgent updates.
It was exactly the kind of chaos she needed.
Paulina threw herself into the work.
She reviewed a press release for a bestselling author’s book tour, edited a client’s memoir excerpt for clarity, and helped draft a proposal to rebrand a publishing house's image after a scandal. Every task reminded her why she studied literature, why words mattered. She may not have her life figured out yet, but here this was solid ground.
By lunch, her shoulders were sore, her eyes dry from reading too much text on a screen, and her fingers stiff from typing.
Still, it felt good.
Alive.
She was building something new.
- Writer
