The dots I should have connected sooner

It came out of nowhere. A friend, casually, on a random day, told me I was being played. Apparently, B had told A that he liked me. And A had told the girl — the same one who pulled me into everything in the first place. And she had started getting close to me, not randomly, not out of genuine friendship, but because B asked A to ask her to set me up.

Every conversation we had was about B. I thought she was just venting about A. Now I realise I was the topic, not her. I started connecting the dots. Everything clicked into place in the worst way. The timing. The closeness out of nowhere. The way she knew things. The way she turned on me the moment it suited her. I confronted B. He denied everything.

Then I got the screenshots. Messages between B and the girl were sent to a mutual friend from her own phone. They were coordinating. Making sure their stories matched. Making sure nothing came back to them. He kept denying even after that. I had called him mature. Feminist. Well behaved. I had defended that version of him in my own head for months. And I was wrong. I don't know what hurts more — that it happened, or that I ignored every warning sign because I wanted to believe he was different.

I'm not angry at myself for trusting people. That's not a flaw. But I'm done explaining away things that bother me just because someone seems good on the surface. I know what I saw. I have proof. And I'm choosing to believe in myself.