The Reunion Nobody Should Have Had

Adora had done the hard thing — she cut off her best friend, a woman she's calling Fish, because the friendship was exhausting and toxic even when it was fun. She took months to herself, healed, got her head right. Then, because it was a new year and she was lonely and bored, she called Fish back. That decision is the domino that knocked everything else over.

They went out for drinks. Fish caught Adora up on her life, including a casual mention that she'd recently gotten out of jail. Adora filed that away and kept the night going. By the end of it, Fish was singing the praises of a male friend — a Leo, which happened to be exactly what Adora had just said she was into. Fish called him right there at the table. He was good-looking. Adora gave him her email. And just like that, a man named Tree was in her life.

The Red Flags Were Not Subtle

Tree's first disclosure when they started getting to know each other: he'd just been released from jail. Adora kept talking to him. They went on a couple of dates, and on the second one — a picnic — he told her he was a drug dealer. She actually pumped the brakes at that point and stopped talking to him for a stretch. Good instinct. But it didn't hold.

While she was in that pause, her mother sent her a text out of nowhere. The message was specific in a way that stopped Adora cold: there's a girl you recently reconnected with, her mother wrote, and she's going to introduce you to a man who sells cocaine. This man is going to get you caught up with the police and try to ruin your life. At the time, Adora thought Tree only sold weed — small-time stuff, nothing like what her mom was describing. She dismissed the warning. She went back to Tree. And as she got deeper into the relationship, she discovered he was thoroughly embedded in the cocaine trade. Her mother had named the drug specifically. Before Adora even knew.

“Boredom will kill you. As a woman, do not let yourself be bored.”

— Adora, the storyteller

Fish Was Playing Both Sides the Entire Time

As Tree started spoiling Adora — covering her Ubers, taking her shopping, loading her up with birthday gifts for weeks leading up to June — Fish started unraveling. The questions got more invasive: what did he buy you, did you sleep with him, why does he like you so much? Fish began making subtle digs, telling Adora she'd never get married, warning her that Tree talked to lots of women and was love-bombing her. She even called in a third-party friend at a bar one night to co-sign her concerns, which Adora found bizarre.

When Adora left for a two-week trip — first to Houston, then Canada — Fish called her every single day with new information. Tree was at the mall talking to a girl. Tree was at a party talking to women. Tree had told Fish he still missed his ex from New York and was basically just using Adora as a replacement. It was relentless. And it worked, at least temporarily — Adora came home shaken and ready to confront Tree.

Except when she laid everything out at dinner, Tree's response wasn't defensive deflection. He was stunned. He told her Fish had been feeding him the same kind of poison about Adora — warning him to be careful with her, that she plays men, that she can't be trusted. Fish had been running a two-front disinformation campaign, telling each of them damaging things about the other while presenting herself as the loyal confidant to both. The moment Adora and Tree compared notes, Fish's whole operation collapsed.

“This guy is going to sell coke. He sells coke. And he's going to get you caught up one day and ruin your life.”

— Adora, recounting her mother's warning text

The Fallout, and What Tree Actually Was

Adora cut Fish off immediately after that conversation. Fish sent a long paragraph about feeling disconnected and wondering why things had gotten weird between them. Adora didn't respond. Then came the final confirmation of what Fish had really wanted all along: after Tree eventually blocked Fish, Fish sent him a lengthy message confessing her feelings, saying Adora had ruined what they had, and asking why he was letting Adora come between them. The friend had never been a friend. She'd introduced Adora to Tree hoping, it seems, to stay close to both of them and benefit from his money — and when that stopped working, she tried to burn it all down.

But cutting out Fish didn't fix the Tree problem. As Adora spent more time with him, the narcissistic behavior became impossible to ignore. He competed with her over everything, including something as strange as being upset that her veins were more visible than his. When she filmed her first music video — a real milestone — he drove her there, made the day miserable, and eventually forced her to Uber home alone while he talked about her disparagingly on a FaceTime call with his friend. She started getting physically sick. She stopped eating, stopped talking to people, withdrew from her whole life. She looked back at her mother's text and finally understood it wasn't metaphor. She got out.

“I really sat down and I was like, that message my mom sent me — it was about you, wasn't it?”

— Adora, on the moment she finally connected the dots

How it unfolded

  1. The ReunionAdora, bored and isolated after cutting off Fish, reaches back out and they go for drinks — where Fish introduces her to Tree that same night.
  2. First Red FlagsTree discloses he just got out of jail, then on a second date reveals he's a drug dealer; Adora briefly stops talking to him.
  3. Mom's WarningAdora's mother sends an unprompted text predicting a reconnected female friend will introduce her to a cocaine dealer who will ruin her life.
  4. The Spoiling and the JealousyTree begins lavishing Adora with gifts and money; Fish grows visibly envious, starts making digs and asking invasive questions about their relationship.
  5. The Vacation CampaignWhile Adora travels to Houston and Canada, Fish calls her every day with new allegations about Tree's behavior and his feelings for his New York ex.
  6. The Confrontation and ExposureAdora confronts Tree at dinner; they compare notes and realize Fish had been lying to both of them simultaneously to split them up — and that Fish was in love with Tree herself.
  7. The EscapeAdora cuts off Fish permanently, then eventually leaves Tree too after his narcissistic abuse leaves her physically ill, depressed, and isolated.

Our take

The thing that makes this story genuinely hard to shake is the mother's text. Before Adora even knew Tree sold anything harder than weed, her mom named the drug, described the danger, and predicted the outcome almost exactly. That's not a lucky guess — that's a parent seeing something their child couldn't yet see, and being ignored anyway. We get it. We all think we know our own situations better than someone on the outside. But the warning was RIGHT THERE. What Fish did is its own category of betrayal. She didn't just set Adora up with a bad man — she actively worked to sabotage the relationship while pretending to protect it, because she wanted Tree's attention and resources for herself. That's not a toxic friend. That's someone running a deliberate play. The boredom angle is real too: Adora said it herself, the friendship was like adrenaline. When peace feels dull, chaos looks like fun — until it's making you sick and landing you in the hospital every other week.

Your mother's nightmare about a coke dealer and a jealous friend was not a coincidence — it was the whole story, delivered early enough to matter. The red flags don't have to be subtle for us to walk past them anyway.

Questions people ask

What does love bombing look like in a new relationship?

Love bombing is when someone showers you with gifts, attention, and affection early on — before they really know you — as a way to create emotional dependency. In Adora's story, Tree was buying her things daily before her birthday, covering all her expenses, and making her feel like a priority, which the hosts note is a classic pattern even if it feels flattering in the moment.

Can a toxic friend deliberately set you up with a bad partner?

Adora's story suggests yes — Fish introduced her to a man she already knew was deep in the drug trade, then spent months trying to sabotage the relationship while extracting information from both sides. Whether it was calculated from the start or evolved out of jealousy, the effect was the same: Adora was placed in a dangerous situation by someone she trusted.

Why do people go back to toxic friendships after cutting them off?

Adora described the friendship as feeling like adrenaline — exhausting but exciting. After months of healing and quiet, boredom made the chaos feel appealing again. This is a common pattern: the peace of distance gets mistaken for emptiness, and the familiar pull of a high-drama relationship starts to look like fun rather than a warning.