Synced to the Wrong Girl

Ever since my boyfriend and my best friend claimed they shared an inexplicable "empathic bond," our sex life completely ceased to exist. The first time it happened, we had barely turned off the lights when Chloe suffered a sudden flare-up of gastritis across town. Elliott was hit with the phantom agony right there in our bed, breaking out in cold sweats, groaning into his pillow. In the end, he gritted his teeth, scrambled into his jeans, and drove forty minutes through midnight traffic to deliver her medication. The second time, we were in the middle of a kiss when Chloe got her period. Elliott went ghost-white, clutching his lower abdomen before rolling away from me. "I have to drop off some Midol and a thermos of ginger tea," he muttered, breathless with rehearsed pain. "Just give me an hour." By the tenth time, we had finally made it past the foreplay. Skin against skin, breathing heavy. Then, right at the threshold of intimacy, he collapsed onto my chest, exhaling a shuddering breath. "Verna... god, it hurts. That disaster of a girl is having another crisis. I have to go check on her." He threw on his clothes in a frantic rush and bolted out the door. A knot formed in the pit of my stomach. I grabbed my coat and followed him. When I reached the door of Chloe’s apartment, the hallway was dead silent—except for Elliott’s low, teasing drawl filtering through the wood. "You're playing with fire, you know that? How many times is this? One of these days your precious bestie is going to figure it out." "Please," Chloe’s voice drifted out, dripping with smug amusement. "She actually bought that whole telepathy bullshit. How much credit do you give her brain? There’s no phantom pain. I just tap the couple’s band, and it calls you straight to my door." ... I froze on the welcome mat, every muscle locking into place. Memories flickered behind my eyes in sharp, humiliating bursts. The matching matte-black wristbands they both wore. Chloe had casually brushed it off months ago, claiming they were promotional freebies from a gym membership drive. I had believed her. I had never had a reason not to. My hands shook violently as I pulled out my phone and typed a quick search into the browser. The results popped up instantly: "Bond Touch Smart Bracelets for Couples." They synced in real time. Not only could you monitor each other’s resting heart rates, but whenever one person tapped the face of the band, the other would receive a gentle, rhythmic vibration on their wrist. Which meant that every single time Elliott climbed on top of me, every time his pulse accelerated with arousal, Chloe’s band warned her. She tapped the sensor. Elliott felt the pulse. And he abandoned me without hesitation. A bone-deep chill crept from the tips of my fingers straight into my chest. Five years with the man I planned to marry. Fifteen years with the girl I called my sister. Behind the door, another round of muffled laughter broke out. Unable to stomach another second, my thumb punched the keypad lock. The passcode was our combined birthdays—a sequence Chloe had used for every lock, phone, and card since high school. The deadbolt gave a sharp, metallic "click". The door swung open. Chloe was lounging on the sofa in a slinky silk slip, one bare leg propped casually over Elliott’s thigh. The moment their eyes met mine, they sprang apart like they’d been electrocuted. Chloe’s face flushed an ugly, mottled gray. "Verna? What... what are you doing here?" She forced an awkward, fragile smile. "I’m such a klutz. I twisted my ankle on the treadmill earlier. Elliott felt the sympathy ache and came over to help me ice it..." Elliott chimed in immediately, his expression morphing into a mask of practiced annoyance. "Verna, talk some sense into her, will you? Tell her to stop hurting herself. I'm sick of taking the fall for her clumsy ass." A seamless performance. Practiced, polished, completely synchronized. A cold, bitter laugh escaped my throat. "Save it. How much longer were you two planning to treat me like a moron?" Chloe’s eyes flickered, but she kept up the act, feigning lighthearted relief. "Oh, thank god, you finally caught on! Remember that night we got wasted and started joking about psychic links? We never dreamed you'd actually fall for something so ridiculous, you silly girl. We just thought it was hilarious. We were taking bets on how long it’d take you to notice." She stepped forward, reaching for my hand. I violently jerked away. I barely made contact, but she staged an exaggerated stumble, tumbling dramatically onto the plush rug. Tears sprang to her eyes on cue, spilling over with delicate tragedy. "You're... you're not actually mad, are you? I'm sorry. Verna, I'm so, so sorry..." Seeing her on the floor, Elliott’s eyes turned instantly bloodshot with panic. He rushed past me, lifting her up with tender urgency before glaring at me with undisguised venom. "It was a joke! Did you really have to push her?" "A joke?" My voice cracked, raw and suffocating. "Inventing a medical lie to ditch my bed ten times in a row—that's your idea of a joke?" "Chloe just finalized her divorce!" Elliott snapped defensively. "You were the one who told me to check in on her and keep her company. Nothing happened between us! What the hell is wrong with you?" Chloe tugged weakly at the hem of his sleeve. "Elliott, don't yell at her... It's all my fault." Her voice grew faint, thin as parchment. Beads of sweat broke out across her forehead. "What is it? What hurts?" Elliott asked, his voice dropping into frantic tenderness. "My stomach... the old ulcer," she gasped, gently pushing at his chest. "Don't worry about me. Just take some antacids from the cabinet. Go after Verna. Please, go comfort her." "Comfort her? Screw that!" Elliott didn't even spare me a glance. "Are you out of your mind? You're sitting here dying of pain and still defending her?" He scooped Chloe up into his arms in one fluid motion, deliberately slamming his shoulder into mine as he barged toward the entryway. "I'm taking you to the ER." At the front door, he gently set her down for a fraction of a second, kneeling on the floor to slip her sneakers onto her feet before picking her up again. Then the door slammed shut. Silence swallowed the apartment. I stood there in the echoing quiet, staring at the framed photograph hanging above the console table. Our eighteenth birthday. We were wearing matching high school uniforms, grinning wildly under the flash, our arms slung around each other's necks. We had promised to be in each other's lives until we were old and gray. A sudden wave of nausea hit me. My hand brushed the frame, knocking it to the floor. The glass shattered. When I picked it up, I noticed the back of the frame was loose. Tucked behind our portrait was another print. A photograph of Elliott, fast asleep in bed, the morning sun spilling across his bare shoulders. A woman’s hand rested gently against his cheek, fingers curved with intimate, possessive tenderness. On the side of the index finger, a small, dark mole was unmistakably visible. Chloe’s hand. The doorbell chimed, slicing through the air like a siren. I dragged my feet to the entryway and pulled the door open. Standing in the hallway was Marcus, Chloe’s ex-husband. "...What are you doing here?" I rasped. He hadn't expected to see me. His brow furrowed in mild surprise. "Just grabbing the last of my storage boxes." I didn't have the strength to argue. I stepped aside. He walked into the living room, and his eyes landed on the photograph clutched in my trembling fingers. There was no shock on his face—only a tired, knowing indifference. "So," Marcus said quietly. "You finally figured it out." "Figured... what out?" "I never stepped out on her," Marcus said, crossing his arms. "She was the one sleeping around behind my back." My chest seized. Even now, some deeply ingrained, pathetic instinct tried to defend her. "Shut up. Don't make shit up." He let out a dry, incredulous chuckle. "No wonder Chloe always called you naive. Look at you, still running interference for her. How can someone be this blind? You bankrolled her divorce lawyer, practically moved into her life to support her, and didn't you end up losing a baby in the process?" My throat closed up. The phantom ache in my lower abdomen flared violently, tearing open a scar that had barely begun to heal. Three months ago, Chloe had called me in tears, claiming Marcus was meeting his mistress in our neighborhood. It was twenty degrees below zero in the middle of a freak blizzard. I crouched behind a snowbank across the street for nearly four hours, waiting to snap photos of him. The ice was slick. I slipped on the stairs, crashing hard against the concrete. My winter coat was soaked through with blood. The pain was so agonizing I blacked out. If a random pedestrian hadn't called 911, I would have frozen to death on that sidewalk. When I woke up in the hospital, the doctor told me I had been three months pregnant. The fall took the baby. Marcus looked at me, a flicker of genuine pity softening his sneer. "I guess I might as well tell you the whole story," he said quietly. "The two shadows you saw tangled up against the window that night? That wasn't me with some side piece. It was your best friend and your boyfriend. They were upstairs the entire time, watching the flashing lights of the ambulance carry you away from behind the blinds, too chickenshit to step outside." My heart felt like it had been dropped into a vat of boiling oil. That night... I had texted our three-person group chat the second I spotted the figures in the window, telling Elliott and Chloe to hurry over so we could catch Marcus together. Both of them had texted back immediately: "On our way. Hold on." They never showed up. They only appeared at the hospital hours later, pale and breathless, offering empty consolations over my empty womb. Marcus sighed. "Hard pill to swallow, huh? I had the exact same look on my face when I caught them. I wanted to burn their lives to the ground, but my regional manager happens to be golfing buddies with Elliott’s father. A few subtle threats against my career, and I folded. I thought you already knew. Look around this place, Verna. We’ve been divorced for months. Who do you think all this men's stuff belongs to?" I forced my eyes across the room. The navy blue slippers by the door. The matching ceramic mugs on the drying rack. The soft gray cashmere sweater draped over the armchair. And the date stamped in the bottom corner of the photo in my hand: "January 22nd." The day after my miscarriage. I was confined to bed rest, half-dead, bleeding into sterile hospital sheets. Elliott had claimed he was sent on an urgent out-of-town business trip. Chloe had claimed she had to visit her sick grandmother upstate. They had been here. In this bed. Together. Tears blurred my vision until the room dissolved into smeared watercolors. Marcus didn't say another word. He rolled a black hardshell suitcase out of the guest room, gave me a final, sympathetic look, and closed the door behind him. The latch clicked, and my knees completely gave out. I collapsed onto the cold hardwood, sobbing until my ribs ached and the air in my lungs turned to ash. My entire universe shattered into jagged pieces. Fifteen years. We had shared a cramped dorm room in college. When we graduated, we split a drafty studio apartment, adopting a scruffy stray cat and sleeping under the same quilt to save on heating bills. We pooled our paychecks, never keeping tabs on who spent what. When I lost my first job and spiraled into panic attacks, Chloe had stretched her tiny two-thousand-dollar monthly salary to cover both of our rents and groceries for three months. She had even donated plasma just to buy me the leather jacket I’d been eyeing for my birthday. When I found out, she had just laughed and wiped my tears, telling me that as long as I was happy, nothing else mattered. She knew I had been in love with Elliott since sophomore year. She had proofread every confession letter I’d ever drafted. On the night Elliott and I finally made it official, Chloe had cried harder than anyone, grabbing him by the collar and threatening to break his neck if he ever made me shed a single tear. Was every single memory a lie? My fingernails dug into my palms until the skin split, blood pooling in the creases of my hands. When the tears finally ran dry, something inside me went cold and dead. I unlocked my phone, opened the chat, and sent Elliott a three-word text: [We're done. Goodbye.] The message sat there. No reply. I walked back to our apartment in a trance. I didn't go to the bedroom. I went straight to the study, opened my laptop, and filled out a transfer application for our regional branch across the country. Then I packed my life into two suitcases. Elliott didn't come home until dawn. Stubble darkened his jaw, and his eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion. "Chloe’s stomach was acting up so badly she couldn't even stand. I had to stay the night at the clinic," he said, kicking off his shoes. "What's with that crazy text? Verna, stop throwing tantrums. Since when are you this insecure about my relationship with your own best friend? How many times do I have to say it? We are completely platonic." He lied with an ease so seamless it made my stomach turn. When I didn't respond, his tone softened. He let out a long, weary sigh and walked toward me. "Sweetheart, stop driving yourself crazy. You're the one I love. You're the one I'm going to marry." "Buzz. Buzz." The band on his wrist gave two sharp pulses. Elliott’s hand instinctively snapped behind his back. "Look, be good, okay? Don't be mad. Something urgent just came up at the office, I have to run in early. I'll take you out for a nice steak dinner tonight, I promise." Without waiting for an answer, he ducked into the bathroom, rinsed his face, and practically sprinted out the door with his hair still damp. I knew exactly where he was going. My phone rang. The screen displayed my supervisor's name. I picked it up, expecting to hear about the transfer request. Instead, his voice came through cold, sharp, and dripping with fury. "Verna. Get into the office right now." A pit opened in my stomach. Ten minutes after arriving at headquarters, I was summoned into the corner office. "Your transfer request has been denied," my boss said, slamming a file folder onto the mahogany desk. "Why?" "Because you're fired." My mind went entirely blank. "What?" He slammed his open palm onto the desk, shaking with rage. "We spent three months preparing the tender for the metropolitan redevelopment project! The bidding war is in a week, and our confidential floor price was leaked directly to our competitor this morning! The entire contract is dead in the water!" "What are you saying?" I choked out. "You think I leaked it?" He let out a harsh, mocking bark of laughter. "We traced the IP. The leak went straight to the lead designer at Apex Media—your best friend, Chloe. And the only people who had access to that encrypted pricing sheet were me and you!" The room tilted on its axis. I opened my mouth, but the words withered in my throat. "Pack your personal effects and get the hell out of my building," he snarled. "We don't harbor corporate spies." I was shoved out of the office. The moment the glass door swung open, a cup of scalding coffee splashed across my chest. "You ungrateful parasite!" My senior associate glared at me, her eyes wild with fury. "Three months of eighty-hour weeks, ruined because of your filthy side hustle!" My desk had already been trashed. Liquid glue was smeared across my monitor, my design sketches ripped to shreds and scattered across the carpet. Vicious insults hissed through the bullpen like venom. Eight years of sweat, late nights, and sacrifices—evaporated in a single morning. Security escorted me off the premises like a common thief. I stood on the sidewalk, covered in brown coffee stains, dialing Chloe’s number over and over. Voicemail. I called Elliott. Voicemail. I took a cab to the hospital. The receptionist informed me that Chloe had checked herself out the previous evening. The betrayal, the injustice, the sheer suffocating weight of it all crushed down on my chest like an avalanche. I opened our three-person group chat and typed with trembling thumbs: [Did you steal my bid file?] [Why would you do something so disgusting?] [Answer me! Are you trying to destroy my life?] Silence. Until ten minutes later, when I opened Instagram. Elliott’s childhood friend had just posted a story. The video showed a dimly lit VIP lounge at an upscale karaoke bar downtown. Elliott was there. Chloe was there. So were half a dozen of our mutual college friends and close acquaintances. Everyone was cheering, clinking glasses of champagne under the strobe lights. A guy in the background yelled into a microphone: "A toast to Chloe's massive promotion! Drink up, everyone!" ... I flagged a cab and went straight to the club. I found the private room on the second floor. Through the heavy wooden door, their voices drifted out over the bassline of a pop track. "Hey, Elliott," someone chuckled lazily. "If Verna ever finds out you copied her pricing sheet, she’s going to tear your head off." "I didn't have a choice," Elliott’s voice sounded muffled through the wood. "This account was make-or-break for Chloe. If she didn't close a major win this quarter, her department was going to lay her off." "I heard Verna was up for the creative director seat after eight years there," another friend chimed in. "Pulling a stunt like this... she's probably going to get blackballed across the entire regional market." There was a brief pause, the flick of a lighter. "It's not that dramatic," Elliott said casually. "Besides, she was too naive. She leaves her laptop unlocked around us without a second thought. If she takes the fall, she only has herself to blame." "Cold-blooded, man. You really don't give a shit about her anymore, do you? So when are you guys finally going to break the news? It’s getting exhausting keeping up this double act for you two." After a long silence, Chloe’s voice drifted out, soft and plaintive. "We're not going to tell her... Verna is my best friend. I could never bear to hurt her." Elliott pulled Chloe into his side, his thumb stroking her jawline. "She has a soft heart. She values our friendship too much. I'll respect her wishes." "How touching." My blood turned to pure acid. I raised my boot and kicked the heavy door inward with everything I had. "BANG!" The room went dead silent. Dozens of heads snapped toward the doorway. Elliott froze, his eyes widening in sheer panic as he instinctively shifted his body to block Chloe. "Verna... How did you... Did you hear all that?" I didn't utter a single syllable. I grabbed a full bottle of vodka from the ice bucket near the door and smashed it against the marble table. Glass exploded in every direction. Chloe shrieked, cowering into the leather cushions, trembling violently. Elliott’s friend scoffed, stepping forward to turn the tables on me. "Honestly, Verna, you should've stepped aside years ago. We all know Elliott was in love with Chloe from the start. You're the one who kept throwing yourself at him! Chloe only turned him down because she didn't want to break your delicate little heart. You've been living on borrowed time anyway." "Shut up, please!" Chloe wept, clinging to Elliott's arm before looking at me with swollen, tear-filled eyes. "Verna... please don't be mad. You're the most important person in my life. I can't lose you..." She sobbed so violently it looked as though I were the one torturing her. She lunged forward, trying to grab my wrists. "Don't touch me!" I roared, shoving her back. "Chloe, as of today, you are dead to me." She shook her head hysterically, her breathing turning erratic—the exact same routine she pulled whenever she was cornered. Cry, scream, play the martyr. Suddenly, she grabbed a small paring knife from the fruit platter and dragged the blade across her forearm. "Are you insane?!" Elliott screamed. He caught the blade in his bare hand, blood instantly welling between his fingers and dripping onto the carpet. "Why the hell would you hurt yourself over her?!" The room descended into utter pandemonium. Friends swarmed Chloe, wrapping napkins around her arm, soothing her, passing tissues, shouting over one another. I stood there in the center of the flashing lights, watching the grotesque circus unfold. And I started to laugh. Seeing my smile, Elliott looked at me as if I were a monster. "You are truly cold-blooded... She's bleeding, and you're standing there laughing?!" I didn't answer him. My eyes locked onto the delicate silver chain resting against Chloe’s collarbone. I had bought that necklace for her ten years ago with my very first design paycheck. She had worn it every day since. I took a step forward and reached out to rip it off her neck. Elliott saw my movement and lost his mind. "Stay the fuck away from her!" He shoved me backward with both hands. My heel caught on the slick, alcohol-drenched floor. I slammed hard onto the ground, my palms and knees landing directly on the shattered vodka bottle. Jagged glass sliced through my skin. Blood pooled instantly beneath my hands. Elliott froze, staring at the red spreading across the floor. "I... Verna, I'm sorry, I thought you were going to attack her..." He crouched down, his face a mess of guilt and panic, his bloody hand reaching for my elbow. "Stop acting crazy. Let me take both of you to the hospital, okay?" I jerked away from his touch. I dragged myself up from the shards, wiping the smear of red across my denim jeans. I took one final look at the two of them. Fifteen years of sisterhood. Five years of love. They were garbage. And I was done bleeding for trash. I turned around, stepping across the broken glass, and walked out into the night. On the cab ride home, my phone buzzed incessantly with notifications from the group chat. Elliott: [I'm getting Chloe patched up at the urgent care. Wait for me at the apartment. We need to talk.] [I didn't mean to push you that hard. Please don't be mad.] Chloe: [Verna, I'm so sorry... please talk to me.] [Are you really going to throw away fifteen years of friendship over this?] Staring at the screen, my heart felt completely still. A flatline. I typed one final word into the box: [Rot.] I hit send, left the group, and blocked both numbers. Back at the apartment, my suitcases were already waiting by the door. I booked a one-way ticket on the earliest flight out of the city and left before the sun came up.