Betrayal of a Best Friend

Betrayal of a Best Friend

By [Alexander Arnold]

I should have known something was wrong when Ava didn’t text back.

It wasn’t like her. We’d been best friends since freshman year—inseparable, really. We shared playlists, secrets, breakups, and dreams under late-night stars. So when she missed our regular Sunday coffee at Café Umbra, I knew it wasn’t forgetfulness. It was something more.

The first clue came two days later: a napkin tucked under my apartment door. On it, Ava’s handwriting—rushed, slanted.

"Trust no one. Start with the picture in the red box."

My heart pounded. I tore through my closet and found the box she meant: a dusty container we’d once used to keep old Polaroids and mementos. At the bottom, a picture I barely remembered—us at the lake house last summer. But something was off. The background had a figure—barely visible—lurking behind the trees.

I zoomed in. A man. Watching.

I hadn’t noticed him before. Had Ava?

The next clue came through a burner email address. Just coordinates, nothing else. They led to the abandoned observatory outside town, a place we’d snuck into as teens. My flashlight flickered against broken glass and dust-covered astronomy posters. On the wall, scrawled in chalk:

"He lied to us. He’s not who he says he is."

Chills raced down my spine. “Who?” I whispered aloud. But I already knew who Ava meant: Leo.

Leo—our mutual friend. Or rather, the guy I had secretly started seeing. Ava introduced us. Said he was harmless, funny, sweet. But she’d always had a strange look when she talked about him. Protective, maybe. Or jealous.

Now I wasn’t sure.

I called Leo that night. “Ava’s missing.”

He paused. Too long. “I know,” he finally said. “I’ve been looking too.”

But his voice was tight. Measured.

I pressed. “You were with her the night before she disappeared, weren’t you?”

A breath. Then a confession.

“Yes.”

Silence stretched between us.

“She found something,” he said, voice low. “She said she had to warn you.”

“What did she find?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But she told me not to trust anyone. Not even her.”

That was when I hung up.

I couldn’t sleep that night. My mind kept spinning. What secrets had Ava uncovered? And why was she warning me about herself? Was this some elaborate game? Or was someone playing it with her?

The next morning, I found Ava’s journal wedged behind the couch. She must have dropped it during her last visit. Inside were notes—frantic, scattered.

“He lied about his job.”

“He was at the lake before we arrived.”

“Don’t believe what he says. He’s watching us both.”

The entries grew darker. She wrote about being followed, about Leo acting strange, about finding a hidden file on his laptop titled "Project Iris."

I confronted Leo.

He didn’t deny it. Project Iris, he explained, was a private surveillance program his father had created. Leo had been using it—to watch me. And Ava.

“I had to,” he said, eyes pleading. “To protect you.”

“From what?”

He hesitated. “From her.”

My chest tightened. “Ava?”

“She’s not who you think she is.”

According to Leo, Ava had been researching his family—digging into secrets tied to a corporate scandal, one his father barely escaped prison for. She found proof, Leo claimed. And then she vanished.

“Either she ran,” he said, “or someone made her disappear.”

I didn’t know what to believe anymore.

A week passed.

Then another clue—hidden in our favorite book in the library. Ava’s handwriting again.

“If you’re reading this, I’m alive. I had to go. He’s dangerous. Don’t trust him—and don’t come looking for me. It’s bigger than both of us.”

I stared at the message for a long time. Relief. Fear. Betrayal.

She had left me behind.

And maybe she had her reasons. Maybe she was right. But the silence hurt more than any secret. She had been my sister in all but blood—and now, she was just a ghost, scattered across cryptic clues and a hollow ache in my chest.

Still, I keep the napkin. And the picture. And the journal.

Because someday, Ava will come back.

And when she does, I’ll be ready—

with questions. And answers of my own.