Chapter Five
1096 Words
**Best Friends Lie Too**
I sat upright in bed, heart in my throat.
> *“Meet me. Now. I know what really happened to Melissa Hart.”
> —T.B.*
T.B.
Tara Black.
I stared at the screen, disbelief wrestling with dread. Why would *Tara*—my best friend, my roommate, the girl who once held my hair while I sobbed into a dorm toilet after my mom’s third chemo—send *this*?
I called her.
No answer.
I texted:
**Where are you?**
Seconds later:
> *The park behind campus. Come alone.*
The message vanished after five seconds.
Encrypted.
My stomach dropped.
I dressed in silence, pulse rattling in my ears, and slipped out of the dorm like a fugitive.
The night air was thick, heavy with a coming storm.
When I reached the park, she was already waiting—black hoodie, jeans, standing beneath the broken streetlamp like she belonged in a spy movie.
“Tara?” I asked cautiously.
She turned, arms folded. “I didn’t want to do this. But you’ve gotten in too deep.”
“I don’t understand. What’s going on?”
She pulled something from her jacket pocket—a flash drive.
“Everything’s on here,” she said. “Emails. Files. Recordings.”
I blinked. “Recordings of what?”
Her jaw tightened. “Of Rowan. Of him and Melissa. From when she was still alive.”
The ground tilted under my feet.
“Wait—how do you *have* that?”
Her silence was answer enough.
I took a step back. “What did you do, Tara?”
She looked away. “I was friends with Melissa. Before the divorce rumors. Before the spiral. I was... interning for Elena back then.”
My chest tightened. “You’ve known all along?”
“I didn’t know *everything*. But enough to be scared. Melissa gave me the recordings as insurance. She said if anything happened to her, Elena should have them.”
I whispered, “So why didn’t she?”
Tara finally looked at me, eyes wet.
“Because I didn’t trust Elena either. Melissa didn’t. She said Elena had her own reasons for hating Rowan—and it wasn’t about ethics.”
The flash drive trembled in her hand. “I held onto this, hoping it was paranoia. Hoping I’d never need it.”
“And now?”
“Now you’re in the middle of it. And I see the way you look at him, Ivy. Like he’s salvation. But he’s not. He’s a storm. And you don’t survive storms by loving them.”
I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt the wetness on my cheeks.
I reached for the flash drive.
She pulled it back.
“One condition,” she said.
“Which is?”
“Walk away from him. Tonight. For good.”
The air stilled.
My mind screamed.
“Tara,” I whispered. “I love him.”
She flinched. “Then you’ll drown with him.”
She pressed the drive into my hand anyway and turned to walk away.
But before she left, she looked over her shoulder.
“I kept your secrets, Ivy. Now keep mine.”
Then she was gone.
And I was left holding something that could destroy the man I was falling for.
—
**1:43 AM — Rowan’s Apartment**
He answered the door like he hadn’t slept.
I stepped in without a word and handed him the flash drive.
He stared at it like it was ticking.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Insurance. From your past.”
He took it. “Where did you get this?”
“Tara.”
His eyes narrowed. “What does she know?”
“Enough. She interned for Elena.”
He exhaled like the wind had been knocked out of him. “Of course she did.”
“I need to know the truth, Rowan. *All* of it.”
He moved to the desk, plugged the drive into his laptop, and opened the first file. It was an audio recording—grainy, distorted—but the voices were clear.
> *“You’re controlling, Rowan.”
> “I’m trying to protect you.”
> “From what? Myself? I’m not broken.”
> “You tried to jump out of a moving car, Melissa.”*
I covered my mouth.
Rowan sat frozen, pain etched into every line of his face.
The second recording was worse. Screaming. Crying. Melissa’s voice fractured. Rowan’s voice tight, panicked.
> *“I don’t want to die.”
> “Then *stop* scaring me!”*
Then silence.
I stopped the playback.
Rowan looked up at me slowly.
“That night… she swallowed the pills hours after that fight. I found her too late. I’ve lived every day since wondering if it was my fault.”
“You didn’t hit her,” I said, voice shaking.
“No.”
“But you didn’t help her either.”
“No.”
My chest cracked.
“I want to believe you,” I said. “But the people around you—Elena, Melissa, now Tara—they all saw something in you I didn’t.”
He stood and walked toward me, every step cautious.
“They saw the worst of me,” he said. “But *you* brought back something I thought I buried with her.”
“What?”
“Hope.”
A tear slid down my cheek.
“I don’t want to be someone’s redemption arc, Rowan.”
“You’re not. You’re the first honest thing I’ve had in years.”
I didn’t know what to say.
So I just stood there—stuck between love and logic, truth and survival.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown Number.
He answered.
“Hello?”
He listened for a moment. His jaw clenched.
Then he hung up.
“What is it?” I asked.
He turned to me, expression stone.
“That was the university.”
“And?”
“There’s going to be a public ethics hearing. For *us*.”
My blood turned cold.
“When?”
“Seventy-two hours.”
—
Three days.
That’s how long I had to decide whether to stand beside him…
Or testify against him.
And as I stood in Rowan’s apartment, watching the man I loved prepare for war—
I realized something far worse than scandal, or shame, or failure.
If I saved him, I’d lose myself.
If I didn’t, I’d lose *him*.
Either way?
I’d already lost the girl I was before the night I said yes.
- Writer
