I wasn’t supposed to hear it.
The message wasn’t even meant for me. But when I pressed play on that voice note, I swear my entire world tilted.
It was her voice. My best friend’s. And the way she said his name—my boyfriend’s name—wasn’t how friends say it.
Lena and I had been inseparable since high school. We shared everything—clothes, secrets, even passwords. She was the person who held my hair back when I was sick, the one who texted “are you alive?” if I didn’t respond for more than two hours.
And Eric? He’d been my boyfriend for three years. My steady, predictable safe space. I used to joke that between Lena and Eric, I didn’t need anyone else. They were my whole circle.
So, when a random voice note from Lena popped up one evening while she was “working late,” I didn’t think twice. I hit play.
The first thing I noticed was her laugh. Soft, giddy. Not her usual sarcastic, sharp laugh.
Then her words spilled out, low and careful, almost like a whisper.
“I can’t stop thinking about last night. You shouldn’t make me feel this way… you’re hers, but God, when you touch me—”
My heart pounded so hard I thought I misheard. I replayed it. Again. Again.
No mistake. No way to twist the context. It was Eric. It had to be.
I sat there frozen, the phone hot in my hand, my ears ringing. My best friend and my boyfriend.
When Eric came over later, he noticed immediately. “What’s wrong? You look pale.”
I handed him the phone. Pressed play.
Lena’s voice filled the room, each word slicing the air between us.
Eric’s jaw tightened. His eyes darted away, searching for an escape. “It’s not what it sounds like,” he stammered.
“Really?” I snapped. “Because it sounds exactly like what it is.”
He started pacing, rambling about “one mistake,” “too much wine,” “it didn’t mean anything.”
I laughed—a sharp, bitter sound I didn’t recognize as my own. “Didn’t mean anything? She’s my best friend. You’re my boyfriend. And you threw it all away for nothing?”
Silence. His silence was the final nail.
That night, I blocked them both. No explanation, no fight left in me. Just… gone.
For weeks, I kept hearing her voice in my head, on repeat. The way she said his name, the softness in her tone. It was worse than seeing them together—it was hearing the intimacy, knowing it existed in stolen moments I never got to witness.
But with time, I realized something important: that voice note wasn’t a curse. It was a gift.
Because sometimes the universe hands you the truth in the ugliest wrapping, and you either look away—or you press play.
And me? I pressed play. And then I pressed stop—on them, on us, on the lies I’d been living in.
