He had reasoned, I am certain, that if anything ever went wrong, if any suspicion ever fell on him, his oldest friend the respected surgeon would be the first to defend him, would vouch for his character, would say to any detective what everyone always says: I’ve known him forty years, he would never. Our friendship was, in his plan, a shield.

And he was not entirely wrong to think so, because that is exactly how friendship usually functions in these cases — the loyal friend who cannot believe it, who explains away the evidence, who protects the person they love from the terrible conclusion.

He counted on my love making me blind.

What he failed to understand — the single miscalculation that undid four months of perfect planning — is that love does not only make us blind.

It also makes us fierce.