My Best Enemy​​

The first thing my best friend did was threaten me with our old chat logs.

"Hey girlie," she texted. "I've gone through three phones, but I never deleted our conversations. I was waiting for a day like today."

"Don't you forget where you came from. You promised that if you ever made it big, you'd take care of me for life."

"So, let's start with a new apartment. Your secrets are my insurance policy, after all."

I smiled and agreed.

But even after I bought her the apartment, she leaked the chat logs anyway.

She said she needed to expose my "dirt" to launch her own channel.

I was cyberbullied into a deep depression and fell from a rooftop.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day I decided to become a content creator.

1

"Claire, my bestie! Are you really going to do it? Start your own channel?"

When I heard Lily’s familiar voice, I knew. I had been reborn.

In my past life, from the moment I started creating content, Lily became exactly like all those "best friends" you see in the comments online. Just waiting for me to go viral so she could live off my success.

"Our chat history is the most valuable thing we have now," she'd said. "I won't delete a single word. When you're famous, this is all prime dirt."

"If you dare forget about me," she'd joked, "your downfall will be swift. Career announced in the morning, receipts leaked by noon, and you're canceled by evening."

At the time, I thought she was just kidding. She was my only real friend, after all. If I made it, of course she’d share in the rewards.

And I did make it. I went viral, just as I'd dreamed. I treated her like family, showering her with cars, apartments, and cash.

But at the absolute peak of my career, she went live and broadcast our private conversations to the world.

"Claire," she’d said, "you’ve hit the social media jackpot. Surely you won't mind letting me get a piece of it?"

"Don't worry, I'm just using you to get my channel off the ground. Once my follower count is stable, I'll help you clean up your image."

The moment those chats were leaked, my reputation was destroyed. The online hate was relentless. I developed severe depression and ended my life on that rooftop.

But now, I'm back.

This time, I looked at Lily's excited face and smiled. "Yeah, I am. But my phone's dead. Can I borrow yours for a sec?"

She eagerly handed it over. "Of course! Use it for whatever you want."

"What's mine is yours!" she chirped. "Just don't forget me when you're famous!"

I took her phone, found my own contact, and opened our chat.

Then, I deleted the entire history.

Lily sprang up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. "Claire! What are you doing?!"

I handed the phone back to her, my face a mask of innocence. "Oh my god, Lily, I'm so sorry. My hand slipped." I shrugged. "It wasn't anything important anyway. Deleted is deleted."

Lily fumbled with the phone, her face paling. "What do you mean, not important? That was years of my hard work!"

"If you get famous, those were my leverage."

I ...