The Blog I Shouldn't Have Followed

I followed a niche but incredibly heartwarming couple's blog.
It was a simple, intimate chronicle of a woman's life with her boyfriend. The little moments. They’d bicker over sharing a single bowl of pasta, then laugh and call each other a child who’d never grow up. They’d hold each other tight under a canopy of stars on some remote hilltop, wishing time would freeze in that perfect moment.
The blogger never showed her face, but her words created a world I fell in love with.
Until yesterday, the day before my wedding, when the account updated one last time.
【A decade of love ends here.】
【From this day forward, he will be her husband. And I will only be her maid of honor.】
【This account will no longer be updated. Wishing my best friend, and the man she loves most, a lifetime of happiness.】
The accompanying photo was a picture of my fiancé and me, our backs turned to the camera.

1
The photo was from last week, at the bridal boutique.
I remember Clara fussing with my veil, chattering away as she adjusted the delicate lace. In the mirror, her smile was wider and brighter than my own, as if she were the one about to walk down the aisle.
“Zoe, you look stunning,” she’d said, her voice suddenly thick with emotion. “Nathan is the luckiest guy on the planet.”
Nathan was standing a short distance away, his head bowed over his phone. At the sound of his name, he looked up and offered us a warm smile. But even then, I sensed a flicker of something strained behind his eyes.
“You’re exaggerating,” I laughed, taking Clara’s hand. “If you hadn’t dragged me here, I probably would’ve just bought a dress online.”
“Absolutely not!” Clara’s eyes went wide. “My absolute favorite person in the world only gets one wedding! We can’t just ‘wing it’!”
She turned to Nathan. “Isn’t that right?”
Nathan pocketed his phone and walked over, his arm settling naturally around my shoulders. “Why would you ever do that? My Zoe looks beautiful in everything.” His eyes scanned my dress, full of admiration. “But this one… this one is perfect for you.”
Just before we left to scout locations for the photoshoot, Clara snapped a picture of us from behind. The click of the shutter was loud in the quiet boutique. When I turned to look, she just smiled and said she wanted a candid shot for memory’s sake.
The night before the wedding was my bachelorette party. I got utterly wasted, and Clara, as always, was there to take care of me.
When Nathan arrived to pick me up, she was gently dabbing my forehead with a cool, damp cloth.
“I’ve got her,” she told him, blocking the doorway. “This is her last night of freedom. The groom-to-be isn't allowed to interfere.”
Nathan just stood there, not making a move to come inside. His gaze was fixed on Clara, his expression unreadable, complex.
I was slumped on the sofa, watching them through a drunken haze. “Nathan…” I murmured his name.
Only then did his eyes shift to me. He crossed the room and gathered me into his arms. “Why’d you drink so much?”
Clara laughed brightly. “She’s happy, of course! She’s getting married.”
“Zoe said back in college that if she ever got married, she’d get completely hammered at her bachelorette party. Tonight, her dream came true.”
I did say that, I remembered vaguely. We were watching some cheesy romance movie in our dorm room. We’d promised then and there that we would be each other’s maid of honor. That promise held, even after I started dating Nathan.
He lifted me carefully into his arms. “Thanks for looking after her,” he said to Clara.
“It’s my duty,” Clara’s voice dropped, suddenly low. “After all… this is the last time.”
I was too drunk to catch the chilling finality in her words.
It wasn't until the next morning, when I woke up alone in my hotel room and saw the notification on my phone, that it all came crashing down.
I groggily tapped on the post from the blog I followed.
In that single, heart-stopping moment, the hangover pounding in my head vanished, replaced by a chilling clarity.

2
I’d found the account by pure chance.
I was scrolling through my phone one night when the app suggested a local user to follow. The profile picture was a character from an anime I loved. Curious, I clicked.
The account only had a few thousand followers. The latest post was from three days prior. It was a photo of a desk late at night, piled with work. The caption read:
【Working late again. He said he’d stay hungry with me, but ended up ordering us both takeout. That idiot.】
I found myself scrolling down, drawn in.
【He said I wasn't eating enough and insisted on giving me the steak out of his own bowl. I told him I didn’t like it, and he just laughed and called me a picky kid.】
【Stargazing on the mountain tonight. He said he wished time could just stop right here. Me too.】
【Caught a cold, so he skipped work to take care of me. He can’t cook to save his life, but he tried to make me soup. It was burnt, but it was the best thing I’ve ever tasted.】
…
Reading through their story, my heart ached with a strange sense of longing. The quiet, ordinary moments, the tender details—it was the kind of love I had always dreamed of. I wanted to leave a comment, to wish them well, but comments were disabled. So I just hit ‘Follow.’
But now I knew. In every single one of their cherished memories, I was the oblivious third wheel.
She said they had been in love for ten years.
Nathan and I had been together for ten years.
Clara and I had been friends for twenty.
She moved in next door when we were ten. The first time we met, she had her hair in pigtails and handed me a strawberry lollipop. “I’m Clara,” she’d said. “We’re going to be friends now!”
From grade school through college, we were inseparable. She knew all my secrets. She was there for every milestone.
Sophomore year of college, I met Nathan.
He was the star of the architecture department. The line of girls trying to get his attention stretched from the lecture hall to the athletic field. I was just… me. Plain, unremarkable. I never imagined he’d even notice I existed.
“What are you afraid of?” Clara had encouraged me. “You’re the most brilliant girl in the Liberal Arts college. Want me to get his number for you?”
Somehow, it worked. Nathan and I started dating.
The first person I told was Clara. She spun me around in a hug, more excited than I was. “Yes! My girl finally got her man!”
I know, in that moment, she was genuinely happy for me.
There’s that joke online, that a best friend is like a second mother-in-law to a boyfriend. No matter how great he is, he’ll never be good enough for her precious girl.
That was Clara.
She was thrilled for me, but the first time she actually met Nathan, she looked at him like he was something she’d scraped off her shoe.
Nathan and I were on a date at the campus dining hall. I’d done my makeup, picked a nice outfit. Clara had just pulled an all-nighter for a group project. She showed up with dark circles under her eyes, her hair greasy, wearing stained pajamas and flip-flops. She shoved past Nathan and plopped down next to me.
He blinked, stunned, and moved to the seat across from us.
Clara’s eyes raked over him, her face a mask of pure disgust. “This is him? Sweetie, I think I was wrong to be happy for you. Maybe you should reconsider?”
She was merciless. Nathan’s face tightened.
Later, when I asked him what he thought of my best friend, he just scoffed. “She’s… something.”
I remember laughing and playfully hitting his arm. “She’s my best friend, and you’re the man I love. You two have to get along.”
After graduation, Nathan and I rented a small apartment together. Clara was over constantly, crashing on our couch whenever it got too late.
“You know,” she joked once, “with you two like this, it feels like I’m your adopted daughter.”
Nathan would play along, putting on a stern fatherly face. “Alright then, sweet daughter, stop freeloading and go do the dishes.”
The apartment was always filled with our laughter.
I never imagined that our happy little world was a mirage, built on a foundation of lies.

3
I stumbled into the bathroom, splashing my face with cold water again and again, but the frantic pounding in my chest wouldn’t stop.
Tomorrow was my wedding.
The invitations were sent. The venue was booked. My dress was hanging in the closet. Everything was ready.
My hand trembled as I tried to call Nathan.
Once. Twice. Three times.
No answer.
I stared at the screen for a long time before, like a puppet on a string, my fingers dialed Clara’s number.
The same automated message. The person you are calling is unavailable.
My heart plummeted into a black abyss.
I couldn’t understand. When they were together, hiding from me, enjoying their secret world… did they ever feel a single shred of guilt? Or was it just a thrill, the cheap high of a clandestine affair?
I knew Clara was a travel blogger, documenting her every move across a dozen different platforms. And I knew people in social media always had countless alt accounts.
I searched the hotel’s name, filtering by IP address, and scrolled through hundreds of posts.
Finally, I found it. An account named OnlyTheUnlovedAreHomewreckers.
The latest photo was of a man’s hands, the long, elegant fingers popping a bottle of champagne. On his wrist was the watch I’d given him for his birthday last year.
It was Nathan.
The caption was a single, devastating line:
【Stolen moments. Every second is a countdown.】
The comments were a mix of people cheering for their “true love” and others calling her out for being a homewrecker.
Shaking, I clicked on the profile. This account was the polar opposite of the sweet, private blog. This one had over a hundred thousand followers, and it had been active for years.
On this account, she had documented the story of the three of us.
The very first post dripped with passive-aggressive venom.
【If I knew the campus heartthrob was this easy, I would’ve gone for him myself. Can’t believe my best friend actually pulled it off.】
【And she didn’t even tell me they were on a date. Did she have to make me show up in my pajamas with no makeup on, just so she could look better? So annoying.】
Someone in the comments joked, “Sounds like fake friends lol,” and she’d replied with a smirking emoji.
When I got sick with the flu and Nathan came over to take care of me, she wrote:
【Someone’s a real princess. Just a little fever and she needs a babysitter.】
【A blessing in disguise, though. It gave him and me some time alone. She’s surprisingly good at creating opportunities for us~】
In the corners I couldn’t see, they had already built their own world.
Clara posted: 【We both added each other on our private accounts without even discussing it. Is that what you call being on the same wavelength?】
Attached were screenshots of their chats, names blurred out. They talked about music, about their dreams—all the things Nathan thought were beyond my understanding. Clara was always there with the perfect compliment, the perfect validation. Talking to you is just so easy, he’d told her.
For Valentine’s Day, Clara made him artisanal chocolates and mailed them to his office. She refused his offer of a gift in return, saying she didn’t want him to spend money on her. He was so touched. You’re such a special girl, he’d messaged her.
They carefully maintained their plausible deniability. Every post came with a disclaimer, a nod to our friendship. He gave her a gift to thank her for taking care of me. He took her to dinner to test out a restaurant for my birthday.
In her narrative, I was the spoiled, clueless girlfriend. The demanding princess.
And under that flimsy cover, they reveled in the illicit thrill of their betrayal.

4
For Clara’s birthday, I bought her the limited-edition designer handbag she’d been coveting for months.
The next day, she "ran into" Nathan at a coffee shop, carrying the new bag. She posted a selfie where he was “accidentally” captured in the background.
She posted a photo from a movie we all saw together, of their hands secretly clasped over the armrest in the dark.
The day Nathan proposed to me, Clara wrote a long, soul-baring post about her pain and her refusal to give up.
【Tonight, I need an answer,】 she wrote. 【If he loves me too, he can’t let this happen.】
She got her answer.
That night, when she kissed him, Nathan didn’t pull away.
They made a pact: one last wild, secret vacation together before the wedding. So Nathan told me he had to go on a week-long business trip.
A wave of nausea washed over me.
What overtime? What business dinners? All of it—all of it was just an excuse for their trysts.
During that week, Clara’s blog was a flurry of activity. She was going to overwrite all of my memories with Nathan, she wrote, so that his future would be filled with nothing but her shadow.
Like a form of self-torture, I watched every update. The same restaurants, the same hotels, the same hiking trails. The same scenery, but with a different woman by his side.
I watched, first with the agony of a knife to the heart, then with a creeping numbness, and finally, with a strange sense of the absurd.
I realized that once your heart truly dies, even hatred feels like a waste of energy.
As dawn approached, I made a decision.
The wedding had to be canceled.
I opened my laptop and started drafting an email to our guests. Each keystroke was a fresh stab of pain. Ten years of love, twenty years of friendship, all turned to ash in a single night.
Before I could hit send, my phone rang. It was Clara.
“Zoe? Why are you calling so early?” Her voice was cheerful, completely normal. “You’re about to be the most beautiful bride in the world! You can’t be pulling an all-nighter.”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
Sensing something was wrong, her tone shifted to one of concern. “Zoe? Are you okay? Are you just having some pre-wedding jitters?”
She continued, her voice laced with feigned indignation. “Where’s that idiot Nathan? Why isn’t he with you? Don’t tell me he’s not answering his phone again because of ‘work’.”
“God, that boy. If you weren’t getting married tomorrow, I’d call him right now and chew him out for you!”
The irony was suffocating. Just hours ago, she had posted her dramatic farewell, and now she was comforting me with the practiced ease of a devoted friend.
“I’m… I’m fine,” I finally managed to choke out. “Just a little nervous. I suddenly wanted to hear your voice.”
“…You silly girl,” she laughed softly. “Don’t worry. Everything will be perfect tomorrow, I promise.”
“Right now, the only thing you need to do is get some sleep. I’ll handle everything else.”
Suddenly, I heard a man’s muffled gasp from her end of the line. It was Nathan’s voice.
I fought back the tears that were burning my eyes. “Clara,” I asked, my voice dangerously calm, “is there anything you’ve been hiding from me?”
There was a beat of stunned silence on the other end, followed by a frantic, clumsy denial. “What are you talking about, Zoe? What’s wrong?”
“Put your phone on speaker,” I said.
Clara hesitated, but then I heard the tell-tale echo.
“Clara. Nathan.”
My voice was clear and steady, without a trace of a tremor. “I’m calling off the wedding.”
“And I wish you two all the happiness you deserve.”

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