“It’s not a big deal,” my best friend said over the phone, her voice dripping with condescension after she canceled our three-week-old dinner plans with a last-minute text.
I was standing in my bedroom wearing a new silk dress, holding a phone that felt like a tiny bomb.
This wasn’t the first time Jenna had bailed. It was just the last.
For years, I swallowed the disappointment while she told me I was being too sensitive for expecting a friend to simply show up.
She thought she could hide on her couch after hanging up on me, but she had no idea I was about to put her disrespect on display for everyone we knew to see, using nothing more than my phone and the empty chair across from my table.
The Last Straw: The Ritual of Preparation
The silk felt cool against my skin, a soft black whisper in the quiet of our bedroom. I’d bought this dress for a reason, a specific, ridiculous, hopeful reason. It was the kind of dress you wear when you want the evening to feel like an event, not just another Friday night. It dipped low in the back, and I had to do that awkward contortionist move to get the zipper all the way up, my shoulder protesting with a dull ache.
Mark poked his head in, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Wow, Sarah. You look… expensive.”
I laughed, a short, breathy sound as I turned to the mirror. “That’s the goal. We’re going to that new place, The Gilded Glass. You can’t show up there in jeans.” I smoothed the fabric over my hips. It had been a while since I’d felt like this, like a version of myself from a decade ago who didn’t have to coordinate school pickups and client calls. My job as an event planner meant my entire life was a color-coded calendar of other people’s perfect moments. Tonight was supposed to be mine.
“Jenna’s going to love that dress,” he said, leaning against the doorframe.
I met his eyes in the reflection, my smile tightening just a fraction. “Assuming she shows.”
The words hung there, a puff of cold air in the warm room. It was the unspoken thing, the little landmine we both knew was buried under the evening’s plans. Jenna. My best friend since we were college roommates, sharing ramen and secrets in a dorm room that always smelled faintly of burnt popcorn. And now, the most unreliable person I knew.
It wasn’t a sudden change. It was a slow erosion, a chipping away at plans, promises, and my patience. The concert tickets for The Lumineers that went to waste because she “felt a headache coming on” an hour before the show. The weekend trip to the coast she’d bailed on the morning we were supposed to leave, claiming her cat looked “anxious.” Each cancellation was a small paper cut, insignificant on its own, but the cumulative effect was a thousand tiny wounds that refused to heal. Mark called it The Jenna Tax—the emotional price you paid for making plans with her.
I picked up the silver earrings from my dresser, my hands moving with practiced precision. “She will. She promised. She knows how much I’ve been looking forward to this.” The words sounded hollow even to me. I was trying to convince myself. My son, Leo, padded in, his pajamas on backward. He wrapped his arms around my leg.
“You smell like flowers, Mom.”
“Thanks, sweetie.” I bent down to kiss his forehead, careful not to smudge my lipstick. He was the reason nights like this were so rare, so precious. Finding a babysitter, coordinating with Mark’s schedule, the sheer logistical gymnastics required for one night of adult conversation and overpriced cocktails. It was a production. An event. And if there’s one thing an event planner hates, it’s a no-show from a keynote speaker.
I gave myself one last look in the mirror. The woman staring back looked confident, put-together. She looked like she had a friend she could count on. It was a beautiful lie.
The Five-Word Gut Punch
My phone buzzed on the nightstand, a cheerful little chirp that felt entirely at odds with the knot forming in my stomach. I’d just finished the final spritz of hairspray, a chemical helmet to ward off the Carolina humidity. It was 7:15 PM. We were supposed to meet at 7:30. She was probably just confirming, or telling me she was running five minutes late. Jenna standard time.
I picked up the phone. Her name glowed on the screen, a little profile picture of us from two years ago, smiling on a beach, blissfully unaware of the unreliability to come.
The text was five words. Five simple, devastatingly familiar words.
*Sorry, not feeling it tonight.*
I read it once. Then twice. My brain refused to process it. There was no explanation, no excuse, not even a flimsy one about a sick cat. Just a flat, dismissive declaration. *Not feeling it.* As if my time, my effort, the babysitter I was paying twenty dollars an hour, were all subject to her fleeting whims.
A hot flush crawled up my neck. I could feel my heartbeat in my ears, a dull, angry thud. I sank onto the edge of the bed, the expensive silk of the dress suddenly feeling like a costume for a play that had just been canceled. All that energy, all that anticipation, fizzled into a sour, metallic taste in my mouth.
Mark walked back in, holding his keys. “Ready to go? The sitter’s here.” He saw my face and his smile vanished. “Don’t tell me.”
I just held up the phone, the screen a stark white flag of surrender. He read it and let out a long, slow breath. He didn’t say, “I told you so.” He never did. But it was there, in the sag of his shoulders, in the sympathetic pity in his eyes that I hated more than anything. I didn’t want pity. I wanted a goddamn friend who showed up.
“Again?” he asked, his voice soft.
“Again,” I confirmed, my own voice tight and brittle. I thought of Leo’s fifth birthday party. Jenna had promised to come early to help me set up. She was going to be in charge of the face-painting station. An hour after the party started, she’d texted: *Got caught up in something, so sorry!* I’d spent the party with a streak of blue paint on my cheek, trying to simultaneously manage twenty screaming five-year-olds and draw a passable Spiderman on a squirming toddler.
Every canceled coffee date, every unanswered call, every last-minute bail—it all came rushing back, a tidal wave of disrespect. And I was just supposed to take it. I was supposed to text back, *No problem! Feel better!* and quietly absorb the disappointment yet again.
Not tonight. Tonight, the dam was breaking.
The Call
My thumb hovered over the call button next to her name. Every instinct screamed at me to let it go, to swallow the anger and just move on. It was easier. It was what I always did. We’d pretend it didn’t happen, and in a week, she’d send me a funny meme as if nothing was wrong.
But the woman in the black dress in the mirror wasn’t the woman who let things go. Not anymore. I pressed the button.
It rang once, twice. I expected it to go to voicemail. She was a master of the conflict-avoidant fade-out. But then, she picked up.
“Hey, you,” she said, her voice casual, breezy. Like she hadn’t just detonated my entire evening.
“Jenna. I just got your text.” I kept my voice level, a trick I used with difficult clients. Calm, firm, professional.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. I just got home from work and totally crashed on the sofa. You know how it is.”
I did not, in fact, know how it was. I had also just gotten home from work. I had cooked dinner for my family, coordinated with a babysitter, and spent an hour getting ready to honor the commitment I had made to her.
“No, I don’t,” I said, the professional calm cracking. “I spent an hour getting ready. We’ve had these reservations for three weeks. I was really looking forward to it.”
There was a pause on the other end. I could hear the faint sound of a TV in the background. She was watching TV. While I was standing here in a cocktail dress, feeling like a fool.
“Wow, Sarah, relax,” she said, and the condescension in her tone was a slap in the face. “It’s just dinner. It’s not a big deal. We can do it next week.”
*It’s not a big deal.*
Those words. Those four words were somehow more insulting than the cancellation itself. They invalidated everything. My time wasn’t a big deal. My effort wasn’t a big deal. My feelings weren’t a big deal. To her, I was an optional calendar entry, easily deleted.
“It *is* a big deal, Jenna,” I said, my voice rising. “It’s a big deal to me. This is what you do. You constantly do this. You make plans, you let me get my hopes up, and then you just… decide you’re not feeling it. Do you have any idea how disrespectful that is?”
“Okay, I said I was sorry,” she snapped, her voice turning defensive. “I’m just tired. I don’t know what you want me to do, crawl over there on my hands and knees? It’s not a personal attack. You’re being way too sensitive about this.”
Sensitive. The classic gaslighter’s trump card. My reaction wasn’t a valid response to her crappy behavior; it was a flaw in my own personality.
I was shaking now, a fine tremor of pure, unadulterated rage. “This isn’t about being sensitive. This is about being a reliable friend. A concept that you don’t seem to understand.”
“You know what? I don’t need a lecture right now,” she said, her voice cold. “I’m hanging up.”
And she did. The line went dead, leaving only the dial tone buzzing in my ear.
The Empty Echo
I stood in the silence of my bedroom, the dead phone still pressed to my ear. The faint sound of the babysitter reading a story to Leo drifted up from downstairs. A normal Friday night. A life humming along, momentarily interrupted by my own private drama.
Mark was still standing in the doorway, his expression a mixture of anger on my behalf and a sad, knowing resignation. He had seen this movie before. He knew how it ended.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said, finally walking over and putting his hands on my shoulders. His touch was warm and grounding.
“She told me to relax,” I whispered, the words tasting like ash. “She said I was being sensitive.”
“She’s an expert at that,” he said, his voice grim. “Making you feel like you’re the crazy one for expecting basic human decency.” He was right. That was her gift. She could cancel on your wedding and somehow make you feel guilty for being upset about it.
I looked at my reflection again. The earrings, the makeup, the dress. A warrior’s armor for a battle that was lost before it even began. A wave of exhaustion washed over me, so profound it made my knees feel weak. The anger was still there, but it was now mingling with a deep, hollow sadness. The sadness of mourning a friendship that was, for all intents and purposes, already dead. I was just the last one to realize it.
“I should just take this off,” I said, reaching behind my back for the zipper. “We can order a pizza. Watch a movie.” The standard retreat. The path of least resistance.
Mark stopped my hand. “No.”
I looked at him, confused.
“No,” he repeated, more firmly. “You are not taking that dress off. You are not going to let her ruin this night. You look incredible. The babysitter is here. The reservation is made.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked, my voice cracking. “Go by myself?” The thought was mortifying. Sitting alone at a two-top in a fancy restaurant, a beacon of pity for every other couple in the room.
“Yeah,” he said, his eyes clear and certain. “Go by yourself. Go have a fantastic dinner. Order the most expensive thing on the menu. Have a glass of wine. Or three. Why should you be the one sitting at home in your pajamas feeling miserable? You did nothing wrong.”
His logic was so simple, so infuriatingly correct. Why *should* I be the one punished for her flakiness? Why was my night over just because hers was?
A new feeling began to bubble up through the anger and sadness. It was small and fragile, but it was there. A flicker of defiance.
“Okay,” I said, the word feeling foreign and powerful on my tongue. “Okay. I will.”
The Solo Mission: Walking Out the Door
Walking past the babysitter was the first hurdle. She was a sweet college kid named Emily, and she gave me a wide, appreciative smile. “Have a great time, Mrs. Davison. You look amazing!”
“Thanks, Emily,” I said, forcing a brightness into my voice that I didn’t feel. “We will.” I said *we* out of pure, pathetic habit. Mark gave me a quick, supportive squeeze on my arm as I grabbed my purse from the hall table. He was staying. He knew this was something I had to do alone. This wasn’t about having a night out anymore; it was about making a statement, even if only to myself.
The cool night air hit me as I stepped onto the porch. It was a typical early summer evening, thick with the smell of jasmine and cut grass. Usually, I loved this time of day. Tonight, it felt mocking. The world was moving on, filled with people heading out to meet friends they could actually count on.
I got into my car, the leather seats cold against my bare legs. I sat for a moment in the dark, my hands gripping the steering wheel. The urge to turn the key, put the car in reverse, and go right back inside was immense. I could be in my sweats in five minutes, curled up on the couch with Mark, eating pizza out of a box. Safe. Easy.
But then I thought of Jenna’s voice. *Relax. It’s not a big deal.*
My knuckles whitened on the wheel. It *was* a big deal. Every time I had rearranged my life for her, every time I had swallowed my disappointment, every time I had let her disrespect my time, I had sent a message: my needs don’t matter as much as yours.
I turned the key. The engine purred to life, and the dashboard lights cast a soft glow on my face. I wasn’t just driving to a restaurant. I was driving away from a version of myself I no longer wanted to be. The drive downtown was a blur of traffic lights and my own anxious thoughts. Was I being powerful, or was I being pathetic? Was this an act of self-respect or a prelude to a deeply embarrassing evening? I felt like a teenager trying to act cool and sophisticated, convinced everyone could see right through the facade.
I found a parking spot two blocks from The Gilded Glass. As I walked, the click-clack of my heels on the pavement sounded unnaturally loud, an announcement of my solitude. I clutched my purse like a shield, head held high, trying to project an aura of confidence I was nowhere near feeling. I was an event planner, for God’s sake. I could fake my way through anything for a few hours.
Or so I hoped.
A Table for One
The Gilded Glass was exactly as pretentious as its name suggested. The lighting was low and intimate, the air hummed with quiet conversation and the clinking of silverware, and a ridiculously handsome host stood at a podium, looking like he’d just stepped out of a magazine.
He smiled at me, a flash of perfect white teeth. “Good evening. Do you have a reservation?”
“Yes,” I said, my voice steady. “It’s under Davison. For two.”
He tapped on his tablet. “Ah, yes. Davison, party of two. Right this way.”
He started to lead me toward a cozy little booth in the back. This was the moment of truth. I took a deep breath. “Actually,” I said, and he turned, one perfect eyebrow raised. “It will just be me tonight.”
I watched for the flicker of pity, the subtle shift in his expression from “welcoming host” to “poor lonely woman.” But to his credit, there was none. He just nodded smoothly. “Of course. Would you prefer the booth or a smaller table by the window?”
“The window would be lovely,” I said, a wave of relief washing over me.
He led me to a small table overlooking the bustling street. It was perfect. I had a view of the city life outside and a comfortable degree of anonymity inside. He pulled out my chair, placed a menu in front of me, and said, “Your server, Chloe, will be with you in a moment. Enjoy your dinner.”
I was in. The hardest part was over. I settled into the plush velvet chair and let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. The room was full of couples and groups of friends, laughing and talking. For a second, a sharp pang of loneliness hit me. This was where Jenna and I were supposed to be, catching up, laughing, complaining about our husbands and our jobs.
Then Chloe arrived, a bubbly young woman with a kind smile. “Can I get you started with something to drink?”
“Yes,” I said, a slow smile spreading across my own face. “I will have a very, very dry martini. Extra olives.”
When she brought the drink, the glass was so cold it frosted at my touch. I took a sip. The gin was sharp and clean, a jolt to my system. I looked out the window at the people passing by, each in their own little world. I felt a strange sense of detachment, as if I were watching a movie. But I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t embarrassed.
I felt… free.
The Ghost at the Table
The first olive was for the anger. I speared it with a tiny plastic sword and chewed it with methodical slowness, replaying the phone call with Jenna in my head. Her dismissiveness. Her complete lack of awareness. How had I let someone treat me like that for so long?
The friendship hadn’t always been like this. That was the problem. It was built on a foundation of genuine connection, of late-night study sessions and post-breakup ice cream binges. She was the one who convinced me to talk to Mark at that party twenty years ago. She was the maid of honor at my wedding, and her speech had made everyone, including my stoic father, cry. There were layers of history there, a rich, complicated sediment of shared experiences.
Maybe that’s why I kept making excuses for her. I was grieving the friend she used to be, not the friend she had become. The second olive was for that grief. For the loss of the easy intimacy we once had, now replaced by a constant, low-grade anxiety of my own making. I was always managing her, trying to predict her moods, triple-confirming plans as if I were handling a volatile celebrity client, not my best friend.
When had it changed? I swirled my martini, the gin catching the low light. It was probably after her divorce a few years back. It had been messy, and she had retreated into herself. At first, I understood. I gave her space, I brought her food, I listened for hours on the phone. But the retreat had turned into a permanent state of being. Her world had shrunk to her apartment, her job, and her television. Anyone trying to pull her out of it was met with resistance and last-minute cancellations.
Her flakiness wasn’t about me, not really. I knew that on an intellectual level. It was a symptom of her own unhappiness, her own inertia. But knowing that didn’t make the sting of being stood up any less sharp. It didn’t make my time any less valuable. At what point does empathy for a friend’s struggles turn into enabling their bad behavior? When does “being a good friend” cross the line into being a doormat?
The third olive was for clarity. I ate it and finished my drink. The ghost of the friend I used to have was sitting across from me, and it was time to let her go. My relationship with Jenna had become a job, and I was the only one putting in the hours. I was done working for free. I was done making reservations for a party of two when I knew, deep down, I’d be dining alone.
Chloe came back to take my order. I ordered the seared scallops and a glass of Sancerre. I was celebrating. It was a wake for a dead friendship.
The Spark of an Idea
The scallops arrived, perfectly seared and nestled on a bed of risotto. They were divine. I took my time, savoring each bite, refusing to rush. I was claiming this space, this meal, this evening as my own. I wasn’t just waiting out the clock until I could go home. I was actively enjoying myself.
I pulled out my phone. I had a few texts. One from Mark: *How’s it going? Hope you’re having a great time.* One from my sister: *Leo left his stuffed dinosaur at our house, can you grab it tomorrow?* And silence from Jenna. Of course. In her mind, the matter was closed. She had apologized (barely), I had gotten upset (in her view, an overreaction), and now we would enter the cool-down phase until I eventually caved and pretended it was fine.
It was the predictability of it that really got to me. The cycle was so ingrained. She flakes, I get upset internally, I say nothing, and we move on. The power was entirely in her hands. She dictated the terms of our friendship, and I just went along with it because of history, because of loyalty, because it was easier than confrontation.
But I’d done the confrontation part. I’d made the call. And she had dismissed me. She had told me my feelings were not a big deal. She had hung up on me. She had, in effect, told me that my reality—standing in my bedroom in a new dress, a babysitter downstairs, my night in ruins—didn’t matter.
An idea started to form in my mind, a wicked little spark. What if I could show her? What if, instead of just telling her she had ruined my night, I could show her that she hadn’t?
Social media was a curated reality, everyone knew that. A highlight reel of the good parts. Jenna lived on it. She was a prolific liker, a casual commenter, a silent scroller. She would see it. They would all see it—all our mutual friends who had heard my side of the story or her side of the story about a hundred other little disagreements over the years.
This wouldn’t be a vague, passive-aggressive post. This would be a targeted strike. A declaration. It wasn’t just about revenge, though I couldn’t deny the sweet, petty thrill of it. It was about narrative. For years, her narrative had been, “I’m just a flake, it’s not a big deal.” My narrative would be, “Your flakiness has consequences, but my happiness isn’t one of them.”
I picked up my wine glass, the crisp Sancerre cool on my lips. I looked around the beautiful restaurant, at the empty chair across from me. It wasn’t a symbol of my loneliness. It was a symbol of my independence.
I knew exactly what I had to do.
The Digital Declaration: Framing the Shot
Taking a good selfie in a dimly lit, fancy restaurant is an art form. It requires a certain shamelessness that I, a 42-year-old mother of one, did not naturally possess. But tonight was different. Tonight, I was on a mission.
I switched my phone camera to portrait mode. The background blurred into a lovely bokeh of warm lights and indistinct figures. Perfect. It isolated me, made me the clear subject. I propped my elbow on the table, holding the phone at that universally flattering high angle, the one that magically shaves ten pounds and five years off your face.
My first attempt was awful. I looked strained, my smile a pained grimace. I looked like a woman trying desperately to convince the world she was having a good time. Delete.
The second try was better, but my eyes looked sad. The anger and hurt were still too close to the surface. I looked like someone’s aunt who had just been stood up on a blind date. Delete.
I took a deep breath and another sip of wine. What was the message here? It wasn’t “Poor me.” It was “Look at me.” It was defiant joy. It was thriving, not just surviving. I thought about Jenna, sitting on her couch, scrolling through her phone, probably feeling a fleeting, minuscule pang of guilt that she’d already dismissed. I wanted to pierce that bubble of indifference.
I rearranged my face. I thought about Leo’s ridiculous knock-knock joke from earlier. I thought about the satisfying look on a client’s face when an event goes off without a hitch. I thought about the crisp, cold gin of my martini. A genuine smile touched my lips, one that reached my eyes. I tilted my head slightly, letting my hair fall over one shoulder. I held the wine glass up in a subtle toast to myself.
Click.
There it was. The woman in the photo looked happy. She looked confident. She looked like she was exactly where she wanted to be, with or without company. She looked expensive, just as Mark had said. It was perfect. It was a beautiful, powerful lie, and the best lies always contain a kernel of truth. I *was* enjoying this, in a strange, complicated way.
The Caption and the Tag
Now for the ordnance. The photo was the missile, but the caption was the guidance system. It had to be calibrated perfectly. Too aggressive, and I’d look bitter and unhinged. Too subtle, and the point would be lost, just another selfie in a sea of them. It needed plausible deniability with a razor-sharp edge.
I started typing, my thumbs flying across the screen.
*Having the most amazing dinner at The Gilded Glass!*
That was the base. Cheerful, innocuous. Now for the payload.
*The scallops are to die for.*
A little detail. It makes it real. It shows I’m not just there for a photo op.
I paused, my thumb hovering over the next letter. This was the critical part. I could leave it there. It would be a silent “screw you.” She’d see it and know. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted to remove all doubt. I wanted to pin her to the wall with her own flakiness.
I typed out the rest of the sentence.
*Wish you could have made it, you’re seriously missing out!*
The exclamation point was a work of art. So friendly. So upbeat. It was a smiling assassin. And then, the final, brutal twist of the knife. I tapped the “Tag People” icon. I typed in her name. Her profile picture popped up. Jenna Price. I tapped it, placing the tag squarely in the empty space beside me, right where she was supposed to be.
I read the whole thing one last time.
Photo: A happy, glamorous woman dining alone.
Caption: *Having the most amazing dinner at The Gilded Glass! The scallops are to die for. Wish you could have made it, you’re seriously missing out!*
Tag: @JennaPrice
It was perfect. It was a masterpiece of passive aggression, a digital checkmate. To a stranger, it looked like a friendly, slightly wistful post. To anyone who knew the situation—or who even had a passing familiarity with Jenna’s reputation—it was a public calling-out of the highest order. It didn’t scream, “You’re a terrible friend.” It sweetly sang, “Look at the fun I’m having at the dinner you bailed on. Everyone sees you.”
My heart was hammering against my ribs. This was a declaration of war. A social media shot heard ’round our little world. Friendships have ended for less. But ours, I realized, had already ended. This was just me signing the death certificate.
Hitting ‘Post’
My thumb hovered over the blue “Share” button. It felt as significant as signing a contract or casting a vote. This was an irreversible act. Once it was out there, it was out there forever, living in the digital ether. I couldn’t take it back.
A wave of doubt washed over me. Was this a petty, childish thing to do? Was I stooping to her level? Maybe the high road was the better path. The high road was silence, grace, and a quiet removal of her from my life. It was certainly the less messy option.
But the high road was lonely. I had been living on the high road for years with Jenna, and all it got me was a scenic view of my own disappointment. The high road allowed her to continue on her merry way, consequence-free, leaving a trail of canceled plans and let-down friends in her wake. The high road enabled her.
This wasn’t the high road. This was the scorched-earth policy.
It wasn’t just about Jenna anymore. It was about me. It was about every woman who has ever shrunk herself to avoid making a scene, who has swallowed her anger because it was “too sensitive,” who has been told her feelings were “not a big deal.” My rage was valid. My time was valuable. My disappointment mattered.
I pressed the button.
The screen refreshed, and my post appeared at the top of my Instagram feed. It looked beautiful and devastating. For a terrifying second, I wanted to delete it. My finger actually moved to the three little dots in the corner. But I stopped myself. No. The deed was done.
I quickly went into my settings and turned off notifications for the app. I didn’t want to watch the likes and comments roll in, not yet. That would be like watching a bomb tick down. I wanted to finish my night on my own terms.
I ordered dessert—a decadent chocolate lava cake—and another glass of wine. I ate every last bite, the rich, warm chocolate a balm to my frayed nerves. I paid the bill, leaving Chloe a generous tip.
As I walked out of the restaurant and back into the cool night air, I felt lighter than I had in years. The battle was over. The fallout was yet to come, but for the first time, I felt ready for it.
The First Ripples
I managed to hold out for the entire drive home. It was a Herculean effort of will. My phone lay face down on the passenger seat, a silent, ticking time bomb. I knew it was lighting up with notifications, with the digital ripples of the stone I had just thrown into our placid social pond.
When I got home, Mark was on the couch, reading. The babysitter was paid and gone. He looked up as I walked in. “Hey. You’re back. How was it?”
“It was,” I said, pausing to find the right word, “cathartic.”
I tossed my keys and purse on the table and finally, finally picked up my phone. I took a deep breath, like a diver about to plunge into icy water, and opened Instagram.
It was exactly as I had expected. Twenty-seven likes in under an hour. A flurry of comments.
The first few were from acquaintances, the oblivious ones. *Looks amazing!* from a woman in my yoga class. *Yum! So jealous!* from an old college friend who lived across the country.
Then came the comments from our mutual friends, the people in the splash zone.
Amy, a notorious pot-stirrer, wrote: *Oh no! Where’s Jenna? Hope everything is okay!* with a wide-eyed emoji. She knew. Of course, she knew. She was pouring gasoline on the fire with a smile on her face.
Another friend, Karen, who had also been on the receiving end of Jenna’s flakiness, was more direct. A simple, supportive comment: *You look gorgeous, Sarah. Good for you.* It was a clear signal. She was on my side.
Then there were the DMs. A message from another friend, Maria: *Saw your post. Is this about tonight? She canceled on coffee with me this morning too.* It was a small thing, but it was a powerful piece of validation. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t crazy. This was a pattern, and people were tired of it.
I felt a giddy, slightly terrifying sense of power. I had controlled the narrative. I had taken a private hurt and aired it in a way that was both subtle and undeniable. I had drawn a line, and now people were choosing a side.
But there was still one person I hadn’t heard from. The target herself. I scrolled through the likes, my heart beating a little faster. And there it was.
*Liked by JennaPrice.*
She hadn’t commented. She hadn’t messaged me. She had just… liked it. It was such a bizarre, passive-aggressive move. What did it even mean? Was it an acknowledgment? A threat? An attempt to pretend she was in on the joke? It was a power play, a way of saying, *I see what you’re doing, and it doesn’t affect me.*
Oh, but it did. I knew it did. That single, silent “like” was the tremor before the earthquake.
The Aftermath: The Inevitable Text
The “like” was the opening salvo. I knew the direct hit was coming. I went through the motions of getting ready for bed, washing the makeup from my face, slipping out of the black silk dress and hanging it carefully in the closet. It felt like a historical artifact now, the uniform from a battle I had won. Or at least, a battle I had finally decided to fight.
I was just climbing into bed when my phone lit up on the nightstand. It wasn’t a notification from Instagram this time. It was a text message. From Jenna.
I opened it, my stomach tightening into a familiar knot of dread and anticipation.
*What the hell was that?*
No greeting. No preamble. Just pure, unadulterated fury. My carefully constructed wall of cheerful passive aggression had been breached.
I typed and deleted three different responses. One was apologetic, a knee-jerk reaction from two decades of placating her. One was defensive, explaining my side of the story. One was just as angry as hers. None of them felt right.
Mark leaned over my shoulder. “The guest of honor has arrived, I see.”
“She’s not happy,” I said, stating the obvious.
“I’m shocked,” he deadpanned. “What are you going to say?”
I looked at her text again. *What the hell was that?* She wasn’t asking for an explanation. She was demanding I feel shame for my actions. She was trying to reassert control, to make me the bad guy.
I decided to play dumb. It was the most infuriating tactic I could think of.
I typed back: *What was what? My dinner? It was delicious! You really should have tried the scallops.*
I hit send before I could second-guess myself. It was gasoline on a raging fire, and I knew it. But it felt so good. It felt like taking back every single time I had let her make me feel small.
Her reply was instantaneous. The three little dots bubbled up and disappeared so fast it was a blur.
*Don’t play stupid with me, Sarah. You know what I’m talking about. The post. The tag. You’re trying to make me look bad in front of everyone.*
There it was. The core of it. Her image. The carefully curated persona of a fun-loving, carefree friend was being threatened by the inconvenient reality of her behavior. It wasn’t about my feelings. It was never about my feelings. It was about how she looked.
My fingers flew across the keyboard, the years of repressed frustration flowing out of me.
*No, Jenna. You made yourself look bad. I just posted a picture of my dinner. A dinner you were supposed to be at. If you’re embarrassed, maybe you should think about why.*
I put the phone on the nightstand, face down. I didn’t want to see her response. The conversation was over. I had said my piece. For the first time, I hadn’t apologized, I hadn’t backtracked, I hadn’t smoothed things over. I had simply stated the truth.
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