People fold or stand. Raj stood. He didn't yell or preach; he came with a bottle and a plan. The first night I told him he nodded like a man hearing that gravity exists. "Smart," he said, "don't be a mess. Be useful." That's the difference between friends and the rest — the ones who make you human and the ones who train you to be surgical.
We met at a bar with bad neon and good solitude. He listened while I poured out the boiled-down facts like a lawyer. He didn't ask for lurid detail. He just wanted the net. "Who else knows?" he asked. I listed names. He wrote them down on a coaster and slid it back. "You want moral support or help?" he asked. I wanted both, but I said "help."
He did small things. Checked a cousin who worked in HR. Asked about her attendance without being obvious. Told me stories that painted her colleagues. Stuff that seemed tiny but mattered: who defended her loudest, who'd gossip quick. He moved like a quiet agent. I liked that.
Having someone else in the room changes you. A silent witness who knows your face beyond the lie keeps your edges sharper. Raj became the hand that steadied the scalpel. He also kept me human — he'd joke, cut the tension, get me a sandwich I'd forget to buy. Little things that kept me from mutating into a caricature of revenge.
He also pushed back sometimes. When I sketched out an idea that sounded like setting a trap involving her sister, he said, "You cross this line, you don't get to come back." That stopped me. The threat of becoming irredeemable is useful; it prevents you from enjoying cruelty for its own sake. I still wanted the burn, but now with rules. Surgical, remember?
We started staging small probes — anonymous emails, a discreet call that hinted a scandal to a secondary friend. The ripples kept coming. Each one was measured. Each one taught me things about how people cover tracks. And every time a new tiny crack opened, my diary got a fresh line.