I never imagined I’d tell this tale. There’s too much pain in it, too much shame and regret. Yet perhaps someone might learn from it. For me, it’s a confession I’ve carried too long.
My name is Eleanor. In our final school years, Olivia and I became inseparable. Both of us were sharp, ambitious, dreaming of escaping our dull little town for the bright lights of bigger cities. We shared everything—books, secrets, first whispers of love. So alike in temperament and dreams. But fate, as it turned out, pulled us apart forever. And it was all my fault.
After school, we went to different universities. She to Leeds to study chemistry, I to Bristol for literature. Every holiday, we reunited—making breakfast together, strolling through parks, talking till dawn. Both of us still clung to our dreams: careers, families, lives far from where we’d started.
But the years slipped by. Graduation loomed, and still no engagements. Mum would sigh: *”Ellie, university’s your chance to find a good man. After, it’s too late—everyone at work is taken.”* But who listens to mothers at twenty?
After uni, we both landed in London. Olivia became a chemistry teacher; I wrote for a local paper. We scraped by in tiny flats, working hard. Weekends were for walks and gatherings with friends. That’s when we met Daniel and James. Olivia took to Daniel—steady, reliable, with a flat and plans for the future. I dated James briefly, but it ended when he moved abroad with his family.
Olivia and Daniel grew closer. She’d come home exhausted from work, still mopping his floors, picking out furniture, murmuring about the future. One evening, she sighed: *”This’ll be our bedroom, here the lounge, and this room—our children’s nursery…”*
I listened. And I envied her. Quietly, bitterly, uglily. The feeling gnawed at me.
Then Olivia fell ill. Constant fatigue turned out to be anaemia. She was hospitalised for infusions. And I… I started visiting Daniel more. Cooking his dinners, laughing too brightly, letting my fingers linger on his wrist. One evening, I found myself in that very bedroom—the “anchor point,” as Olivia had called it.
I seduced him. Deliberately. Coldly. Won the game. Two months later, we married. I walked into that house in a white dress Olivia had once imagined wearing. He carried me over the threshold. I smiled like a victor.
Olivia never made a scene. She only said, softly:
*”Thank fate it showed me the truth in time.”*
She vanished from my life, but sometimes, the walls of that flat seemed to whisper in her voice. Especially in the nursery, where I arranged toys for my son and daughter. The very room she’d dreamed of filling with laughter.
Years later, I learnt Olivia had married William, a man with a daughter from his first marriage. Against all odds, they were happy. She bonded with the girl, weathered a difficult mother-in-law. They bought a spacious house, later had a son and daughter. Their family was picture-perfect: harmony, understanding, love.
Meanwhile, my life cracked apart.
Daniel’s career stalled. He stayed trapped in our town, dead-end job and all. His mother, once sweet, hissed one day:
*”You took Olivia’s place. Maybe my son got what he deserved.”*
Arguments became our routine. We only spoke in shouts. The children grew up tense. My daughter fled young, tangled up with a troubled boy, had a baby too soon. My son vanished abroad—no calls, no letters. Just gone.
And Olivia’s children? One works in Brussels, for the EU. The other teaches at a prestigious university. They visit every summer. Their family gathers on the veranda with guitars and laughter. William sings beneath Olivia’s window. Their home is full of joy. Mine is hollow.
On nights like these, I understand:
Fate does put everything in its rightful place.
Olivia was right—she had reason to thank fate. I have none. I made my choice. Stole a fiancé. Betrayed a friend. Got the house, the wedding, the title. But lost myself.
I’m not happy. I don’t love. I live under guilt’s weight. And I know—I earned it.