Chris Conidis The Bullet You Never Saw Coming

Chris Conidis Writer Improv Performer

There are betrayals that come like summer storms, with a howling wind, thunder that shakes the sky, and a rain so fierce it leaves you gasping for air. You see them from a mile off, and you brace yourself, waiting for the sky to crack open. But then, there are betrayals that slip through the cracks, quiet as shadows, wrapped in the warmth of a smile, calling you by your name, holding your hand, before they take the shot.

Elliot had come to understand this only now. The world had a way of teaching you things when you weren’t looking for them. Life, with all its careful packaging and promises of friendship, had decided, in its own time, that Elliot should know what it felt like to trust in a person only to find that the trust was a threadbare rope, fraying by the minute.

He had spent years defending Mark. He’d defended him against his own mistakes, covered for him when the world began to notice how badly he was falling apart, and kept his back to the wall when Mark needed it. He was the one who said, "Ride or die," clinking drinks like soldiers before battle, only to realize too late that Mark had never intended to ride. No, he was a man content with the easy death, the one that comes without a fight, the one that asks you to take the hit while it laughs behind your back.

And so it happened on a Wednesday. Not the day anyone expects betrayal, not a Friday night full of anticipation, when the world’s failures are cushioned by a curtain of alcohol and good music. No. It was a Wednesday, when the air had that still, forgotten quality to it, like something you should have remembered but didn’t. Elliot sat at their usual café, the one with the chipped mugs and the faded posters of jazz musicians, waiting for Mark to show up. He expected the usual: Mark’s latest story about love gone wrong, another failed romance, another person who was too good for him, another mistake to laugh off.

But when the door creaked open, it wasn’t Mark who walked in first. It was her.

Rebecca.

His Rebecca. The one he had loved, the one who had once sat at this same table and promised him forever. Until she said those words: I need time to think. How many times had she said that, that tired phrase that everyone says when they don’t know how to break the news? But apparently, time was a slippery thing, and Rebecca had used it to slip into Mark’s life, without even the decency to tell Elliot the truth. Two months had passed since she said she needed time. Two months for her to figure things out. And here they were, walking in together, her hand tucked neatly into Mark’s, as if she had forgotten the past ever existed.

Elliot blinked. Once, twice. His coffee cup sat in front of him, untouched. The room seemed too bright, and for a moment, everything felt like a dream. The hum of the café, the steam rising from the espresso machine—it all became distant, like he was standing outside his own life, watching someone else live it.

Mark stood at the door, his hands in his pockets, that cocky grin on his face. He was waiting for something. Maybe he thought Elliot would shout. Maybe he thought Elliot would throw his coffee in his face or storm out, slamming the door behind him in a heroic, cinematic exit. But no, instead, Mark spoke, as though the words were somehow supposed to fix it all.

“I know this is awkward, Elliot,” Mark said, that grin still plastered across his face, the same one that had gotten him out of every tight spot for years. “But I thought I should be the one to tell you.”

Tell him. Tell him what? That his life, the one he had fought to protect, the one he had built with his own hands, was now shattered into pieces, strewn across the table like broken glass? Tell him that the girl he had loved was now the girl he had lost? What kind of kindness was that? It was like a bank robber politely announcing that he was emptying your savings, but hey, don’t worry, he’ll leave a few bucks for the tip.

Elliot didn’t move. He didn’t shout or curse, didn’t hurl the table to the ground in rage, didn’t stand up and storm out of the room like the movies promised. Instead, he sat, the world shrinking to the size of his own breath. The man who had stood by Mark for years—the man who had taken the hits, the man who had always been the first one to say "I've got your back"—was now sitting in front of the very man who had just used his trust as a weapon.

For a long moment, Elliot did nothing. The smile that curled on his lips wasn’t born of humor or relief; it was born of something darker. Something deeper. The people we would die for, the people we would lay down our lives to protect—those are the people who know exactly where to stand when they pull the trigger.

Mark’s words fell away, drowned by the silence between them. Rebecca shifted uncomfortably, her face a mask of apology. But there was nothing to apologize for, was there? She had simply found a new story, a new version of herself, one that didn’t involve Elliot. One that didn’t involve truth.

Elliot stood up slowly, his chair scraping across the floor, too loud for the quiet that had settled around them. He looked at them both, then back at Mark. And with a voice barely more than a whisper, he said, “Good luck, Mark. Good luck, Rebecca.”

And just like that, the door swung open, and Elliot stepped out into the sun-dappled street, leaving the shadows behind him.

Because the real lesson had been learned now. It wasn’t about the bullet. It wasn’t about the betrayal. No. It was about knowing that sometimes, the hardest thing isn’t getting shot—it’s knowing the person pulling the trigger was once the one you’d take a bullet for.