I Faked Being Sick to Avoid My Own Friend's Wedding

She is my friend. Has been for twelve years. I love her.

But her husband is a man I despised, and watching her marry him felt like watching something happen that I could not stop and should not have had to witness.

So I called two days before the wedding with a "serious stomach situation." She was concerned. She sent me food through her driver. I ate it on my couch while watching Netflix.

I know how this sounds. But I had tried twice before to tell her my honest opinion of him — once after he screamed at her in front of us all and she defended him, once when he went through her phone at dinner and made her explain a text from her own brother. Both times she told me I didn't understand him.

So I made my peace with not being there. I could not celebrate something I genuinely believed would hurt her. And I could not sit in a church and smile for hours pretending.

She forgave me for missing it. We are still friends.

He is exactly who I thought he was. She knows it now too. We have not discussed it. But she knows I know. And sometimes that is enough.