My Best Friend Of 15 Years Asked To “Share” My Husband Because She Saw Him First. Then I Found Out She’s Been Stalking Him For 5 Years. What Should I Do Now?

The Aftermath

Sirens in the distance. Elena’s head snapped up. Panic flooded her face. “No. No, no, no. I’m not going back there. Leo, please. I’ll do anything. I’ll share. I’ll take whatever you give me. Just please don’t let them take me.”

Leo didn’t let go. “You need help, Elena. This is the only way.”

“I can change! I can be better! I’ll stop coming to the house. I’ll delete the AirTag. I’ll do whatever you want. Just please, please don’t send me back there.” Her voice broke completely. “You don’t know what it’s like in there. The white walls. The medication that makes you feel like you’re underwater. The way they look at you like you’re broken.”

“You are broken, Elena,” I said. I didn’t mean for it to come out so harsh, but I was done. “You’ve been broken this whole time and none of us saw it.”

She went still in Leo’s arms. When she spoke again, her voice was different. Hollow. “I’m not broken. I’m just someone who loves too much. That’s not a crime.”

“What you’ve been doing is a crime,” Leo said. “The stalking, the break-ins, the threats.”

“I never threatened anyone.”

“You said if you can’t have me, no one can. What does that mean, Elena? What were you going to do?”

She didn’t answer. The sirens were getting closer. Elena’s body started trembling. “I wasn’t going to hurt anyone,” she whispered. “I just wanted you to love me. I just wanted someone to pick me for once.”

Beatrice knelt down so she was eye level with her daughter. Tears were streaming down her face. “Elena, baby, I pick you. I’ve always picked you. I’m your mother. I love you.”

“You locked me up,” Elena said. “You put me in that hospital and left me there.”

“I was trying to save your life. You took those pills. You almost died.”

“I took those pills because the man I love was marrying someone else. And you let him. You could have stopped it. You could have told Veronica about me. About how I felt. And you didn’t. You just let it happen.”

“That wasn’t my place, Elena. That wasn’t my decision to make.”

“It should have been.” Elena was crying now, but it was different from before. This wasn’t performance. This was real. “Someone should have fought for me. Just once. Someone should have looked at me and said, ‘You matter more.’ But nobody ever does. Not you, not Veronica, not Leo. I’m always the one who gets left behind.”

The cops pulled up outside, red and blue lights flashing through the windows. Elena saw them and something in her changed. The fight went out of her completely. Her shoulders dropped. Her head fell forward. “It’s over, isn’t it?” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“You’re going to get help,” Beatrice said. “Real help this time.”

“And when you’re better…”

“I’m never going to be better, Mom. Don’t you get it? This is who I am. This is all I am.”

The officers came through the front door. They took in the scene quickly: an older woman crying, a man holding a limp woman in his arms, me standing against the wall.

“She’s having a psychiatric episode,” Beatrice told them. “She needs to go to the hospital. Ask for Dr. Dixon. He treated her before.”

The officers approached slowly. “Ma’am, we need you to come with us,” one of them said gently.

Elena looked up at Leo one last time. “I would have been so good to you,” she said quietly. “I would have loved you better than anyone ever could. You’ll never know what you missed.”

Leo released her and stepped back. The officers took her gently by the arms. She didn’t fight them. She didn’t scream. She just walked between them like she was sleepwalking, like she’d already left her body behind. At the door, she stopped and turned back. She found Leo’s eyes across the room.

“I’ll wait for you,” she said. “However long it takes, I’ll wait.”

They put her in the back of the car. Through the window, I could see her pressing her face against the glass, still watching Leo. Still waiting for him to change his mind, to run out and tell her it was all a mistake. He didn’t move.

The car pulled away. The sirens faded into the distance. Leo came and stood beside me in the doorway. Neither of us spoke. Behind us, Beatrice was sitting in her armchair crying quietly into her hands.

“It’s over,” Leo said finally.

“Is it?” I asked. I didn’t know if I believed it.