It’s the man I used to call my best friend.
He finally owns up to the incident of the first quarter of this year: that when he began ignoring me out of no fault of my own – even when I was good, even when I was on my best behavior, even before I deserved all the cruelty – it was not solely because he thought of letting me widen my circle of friends without him; it was because he had found my replacement. And the replacement happened to be the close friend of the person he was hoping I would replace him with, who also happened to be the person he was avoiding because of a misunderstanding between the two of them. Strangely, the former best friend chose to avoid me and the person but not the person and the would-be replacement.
When I complained of being the collateral damage of their seeming feud, somehow I turned out to be the one in the wrong.
Until now, I don’t know how that happened. Guess I should have believed that little voice telling me back then: I finally met the man who would take my place in the life of my then best friend. But I didn’t.
I gave it—I gave him, I gave the two of them—the benefit of the doubt. I thought he just needed more people to support him through these trying days. I believed that he just needed more friends. I said that he could use more good distractions.
This is where it all led to: the sword finally falling on Damocles’ head, dirty, bloody, and messy. He’s now dead.
Some fools believe. Some fools doubt. Some fools give the benefit of the doubt.