My best friend of 37 years suddenly asked me to take one LAST photo together during our beach trip. When I asked why she said “last,” she gave me an unsettling smile and whispered, “Because tomorrow, you’re going to find out who I really am… and you may never want to see me again.”

Paige didn’t fight back. She didn’t post anything. She didn’t call me.

At work on Monday, I could feel it everywhere. Paige’s desk was two rows over from mine. People walked the long way around it. Conversations stopped when she passed the break room. Someone left a printout of that Facebook post on the copier, face up.

I watched her find it. She folded it in half, put it in her purse, and went back to her desk without a word.

By Wednesday, she’d asked for a transfer to the branch office in Millbrook. Our manager mentioned it in passing at the coffee machine.

“Shame,” he said. “She’s been here twenty years. Thought you two were joined at the hip.”

“So did I,” I said.

That night I sat alone in Russell’s chair with his reading glasses in my hand and told myself I felt better. I didn’t.

She just mailed me a single envelope.