Technically this was stabbing both my brother and I in the back, but a few years ago, I learned the hard way that one of my closest friends was a compulsive liar. My family was going on vacation over spring break the year that it happened, and she ended up coming with us. While we there, she started spending more time around my brother than me, and it felt a bit like I was being tossed aside, but I didn’t even bat an eye toward the odd behaviour. My mom definitely knew what was up though, because she accused my friend of being too friendly with him. Naturally I stuck up for her, but on our fourth day there while at the beach, I learned that she had been cheating on her boyfriend with my brother the whole time. She made me promise to keep it a secret, and from then on, I lied and dodged my mom’s questioning for fear of getting them both in trouble and ruining the rest of the vacation. When we got back, she started inviting him along with me to outings, but my mom would always say no. My mom started being rather hostile towards the idea of me hanging out with my friend, and I snapped at her more than once because I was convinced my friend would never do anything wrong. A few weeks after we returned home and my relationship with my mother started to decline, my friend texted me asking if I’d hate her if she said she’d had sex with my brother. I just kinda… stared at it, for a long time, before telling her that I didn't hate her. My friend made me swear silence after that, to never tell anyone about what had happened and demanded that I delete the text messages. She was so afraid of her parents and boyfriend finding out that she’d had sex with my brother that her own paranoia and guilt caused her to do some really stupid things. She was called to the principal's office for getting caught smoking on school property as well as impersonating her parents and skipping an entire week of school, and instead of explaining herself or coming up with some other kind of excuse, she claimed that my brother had forced her into having sex and the stress had caused her misbehaviour. I ended up believing her over him because of my poor relationship with my brother at the time, and her accusations caused a huge mess for my family. It didn’t take long for me to realize she was lying, and shortly after that, her family dropped the charges. I’m pretty sure she got caught, but I’ll never know for sure, as I haven’t spoken to her in nearly three years. I sometimes see her glaring at me when we pass each other in the hallway at school though, as if somehow the whole ordeal was my fault.