Page 41 of How To Not Need You

Natalie shakes her head. "I never told him. I kept waiting for the right moment."

Harper quietly picks up the story when Natalie gets visibly upset.

"Then Rebecca came along."

Natalie nods. "They started dating."

"Which would've hurt enough," I add softly. "But Rebecca didn't stop there."

Natalie sighs. "She slowly pushed me out of his life."

She traces a finger around the rim of her mug. "If Matthew and I made plans, suddenly she'd have a crisis. If I tried to talk to him, she'd interrupt or tell him I was being possessive. She kept planting little doubts until he started believing I was only hanging around because I wanted him."

"And now," Harper says, "Rebecca has him convinced Natalie is jealous and trying to sabotage their relationship."

"So if Natalie says anything" Wren begins.

"He assumes I'm making it up," Natalie finishes.

Sophie frowns. "That's awful."

"It gets worse," Freya says. Everyone looks at her. "We're almost certain Rebecca's cheating on Matthew." Both Sophie and Wren blink.

"With multiple men," Harper adds.

Natalie nods. "I know she's cheating. I've seen enough little things to know I'm not imagining it." She takes a deep breath. “The problem is...” She looks around the table. “I don't have proof.”

"And without proof," I say quietly, "Matthew just thinks Natalie is desperately trying to break them up."

The table falls silent.

Natalie lets out a frustrated laugh. "I don't even want him to choose me." She looks down into her coffee. "I just want him to know the truth."

Natalie’s voice is quiet when she speaks again. “I still don’t understand how she keeps getting away with everything.”

“We need proof,” Harper says. Simply, the kind of statement that brooks no argument because there isn’t one to make.

“We could follow her.” Everyone turns to look at Freya, who said this with the confidence of someone suggesting brunch, rather than low-level surveillance.

Natalie blinks. “Isn’t that illegal?”

Freya doesn’t even hesitate. “Only if you’re bad at it.”

I mutter into my coffee, “I don’t think that’s how the law works.”

Sophie immediately agrees. “It definitely isn’t.”

Elsie stirs her coffee before answering. “Can we maybe avoid committing actual crimes?”

Harper clarifies. “I’m not saying criminal activity. I’m saying enthusiastic observation.”

I deadpan. “That’s stalking.”

“Allegedly.”

The table erupts into objections and agreements. Natalie looks genuinely horrified, her hands are pressed to her cheeks like she’s witnessing the planning stages of a heist. Freya presses her lips together, eyes dancing, clearly fighting a losing battle against laughter. Wren slowly lowers her coffee with the expression of someone who has just realised the nice coffee shop with the pastries might also be housing a support group for aspiring felons.

And Luca.