Maria and I have been best friends since college in Manila. We came from the same town in Batangas, lived in the same poverty, and ate instant noodles together in a damp rented room for four years. After we broke up, we went our separate ways but still talked. Until one day, Maria texted me asking for a loan of ₱350,000 to renovate her parents’ house in the countryside.
She cried and said:
“I’m stuck, the roof is leaking, my father is sick, my mother sells vegetables at the market…”
I gathered all my savings, and I borrowed money from people I knew to give her enough money, and I promised to pay it back within a year.
Soon after, Maria disappeared. No messages, no calls. Deleted Facebook. I was slightly hurt, and ten times sad. I wanted to call the police several times but I thought “He’s a friend, there’s no way…” so I stopped.
Three years later, on my wedding day, while I was entertaining the guests, a luxury SUV pulled up in front of the wedding restaurant in Quezon City. A woman wearing a designer dress, sunglasses, high heels, and perfume stepped out — it was Maria.
The entire family looked at each other in shock. She smiled as if nothing had happened, pushed a thick envelope into my hand and calmly said:
“Congratulations, today is the best day of your life.”
My hands were shaking as I opened the envelope amidst the curious eyes of my husband and friends. There was no money inside, just a folded piece of A4 paper. I thought it was an apology or an explanation. But no — it was a bank statement, with a transfer of exactly ₱350,000 to my account… this morning. Below it was the familiar handwriting:
“I will pay you back with interest. And you… You owe me an apology. – Maria.”
I froze. I looked again – the transfer was not from Maria, but from… my husband, Miguel .
I pulled Miguel into a corner to question him, he sighed:
“Marian and I knew each other before we met. But we broke up. I didn’t know she was your friend… I didn’t expect her to come today.”
Next part
I felt like a lifeless corpse at that entire party. Not because I had paid the ₱350,000, but because I realized: I had been betrayed — both by my best friend and my newlywed husband.
After the party, I received a text message from an unknown number:
“I’m not arguing, I just want you to know the truth. Don’t be like me – blindly trusting someone who doesn’t deserve it.”
I sat quietly in the hotel’s honeymoon suite, listening to the fireworks outside, my heart empty. Miguel knocked on the door several times but I didn’t open it. I knew that from that day on, my marriage had begun a separation that could never be healed.
The next day, I went back to my mother’s house in Batangas. Maria was gone again, but this time, she left me with a bitter lesson: sometimes the most precious wedding gift is not gold or silver, but the naked, painful, but enlightening truth.