My Best Friend's Stand-In: The Other Woman

I stared blankly at the messages, my chest tightening so much that I could hardly breathe.

It wasn't until footsteps sounded behind me that I snapped back to reality and quickly marked the chat as unread.

A second later, my boyfriend, Caleb Lawson, rested his damp head on my shoulder. "What are you looking at, babe?"

Something about his voice sounded cold. A layer of sweat broke out on my forehead. Before he could get suspicious, I pulled up the message from the freshman and shoved the phone at him.

"Why don't you explain what this 'threesome' means? Are you planning to cheat on me?"

He quickly snatched the phone away from me. Instead of checking his chat with the freshman, he tapped on the pinned group chat.

Then, he narrowed his eyes at me. "You were snooping in my group chat?"

The accusation sent chills down my back, but I forced myself not to flinch.

"Yeah, I did. I wanted to see if your buddies would bring up some other girl's name," I snapped. "I didn't expect to catch your little admirer throwing herself at you instead. I didn't even get to read what they wrote because of her. Did they talk about her too?"

Caleb finally locked his phone and pulled me into his arms. "Don't overthink it. You're the girlfriend I spent three months trying to win over. I'm too busy cherishing you to even consider cheating."

"Then what about her?"

He sighed. "That girl wouldn't stop bothering me, so I said those things on purpose. As for the threesome, I just wanted to scare her off."

It all sounded reasonable. If I hadn't seen that last message in the group chat, I might have believed him. But now, I couldn't ignore the possibility that he and his so-called friends had taken someone's life.

Caleb noticed how stiff I was and leaned closer to study my face. "Babe, you really didn't see what my friends said?"

"No, why?" My heart skipped a beat, but I reached for his hand. "Are you afraid I'll find out you did something behind my back?"

He chuckled, then switched to coaxing words and apologies.

He pushed me down onto the bed. Just before his weight pinned me in place, I caught a glimpse of a vase standing right behind him. It had been moved forward, clearly closer than before.

My stomach twisted with dread. If he realized that I knew, tonight might be the end of me.

While my mind spun, Caleb started stripping my clothes off in a frenzy. I instinctively wanted to fight him off, but I was afraid it would alert him. So, I told myself to endure it just this once.

Then, by sheer luck, I suddenly got my period.

It gave me the perfect excuse. I shoved him away and blurted out, "Terrible timing. I need to clean up in the bathroom first."