Chapter 3

I know Henry better than anyone. He had always been honest with me, and he had never acted like this before.

A wave of dread washed over me.

I spoke slowly, my voice barely above a whisper.

"I'll leave once Abram is better," I said.

Henry didn't want to agree, but with Abram crying his eyes out, he could only nod in silent acceptance.

I picked Abram up and carried him to the car.

All the way there, I kept trying to calm myself down.

There had to be a reason why Henry was the one pushing for a divorce this time.

I wasn't about to let him walk away from our marriage that easily.

I was determined to get to the bottom of this and make him pay for what he'd done.

By the time we got to the hotel, Abram was already fast asleep.

I grabbed some meds online and had him take them right away. If he still wasn't better by tomorrow, I'd take him to the hospital.

Daniel stormed over, his chin jutted out as he yelled at me, "Mom! Why didn't you just get in the car? You made us run around for nothing!

"This trip was supposed to be fun, and now you made Grandma and Grandpa sad!"

My mood was already shot, and now Daniel had totally bought into Henry's side of the story.

"Your dad ditched me on purpose!" I spelled it out for him.

"You stay at home all day. If it weren't for my dad supporting you, you wouldn't even have food to eat. Why didn't you try to come find us?" I shot back at Daniel.

"You're the reason we ended up like this!" I snapped.

Wow, he really was Grandma and Grandpa's favorite. I bet those two were talking trash about me behind my back.

I bit back my anger.

"Where's your dad?" I asked.

"No idea! He vanished the moment we got to the hotel. You're ruining everything, Mom!" Daniel snapped.

With that, he stormed off.

It was like someone punched a hole right through my chest. All those years I'd poured in, just wasted, gone down the drain.

I opened up Circlo, and sure enough, the screen was full of nasty comments.

I clicked on a few random profiles just to check them out.

Turns out, one of them wasn't a throwaway account. Their pinned post read, "Three years of online dating and we're finally meeting in real life!"

And the profile picture? It looked uncannily like Lailah.

I skimmed through all their dating diary posts, and the more I read, the more suspicious it seemed.

I tried calling Henry, but his phone was off.

We always used the same password for WhatsApp, so I tried logging into his account, but the password was changed.

That confirmed it. Henry was cheating on me.

Before I knew it, my hands were shaking and my heart was thumping in my chest.

I never thought this would actually happen. But here it was.

I quickly put together a new post. [The one who helped me bust my cheating husband? She was the side chick all along!]

I posted a side-by-side comparison of Lailah and her main account, clear as day, it was her.

Her main account had three years of flirty messages and online romance.

I matched up her chats with the ones Henry sent me, screenshot by screenshot.

The way they texted, the punctuation, even their go-to emojis. Everything matched up perfectly.

People in the comments were losing their minds: "Spilling the tea! Major drama! This is wild!"

Lailah, fed up, dropped screenshots of our private messages, telling everyone I was the one who asked her to test if Henry was cheating.

She said I was the puppet master, running the whole show from behind the scenes.

But nobody believed her, except for her own alt account, hyping her up in the comments.

Soon enough, the trolls started flooding the comments with trash talk.

[Is this blogger delusional or what?]

[So just because they're both in the same spot, they're the same person? LOL.]

[It's all photoshopped, can't trust any of it!]

[She should be blocked. Just farming views here!]

Let them keep sharing and commenting. The more people watching, the better.

I put down my phone and waited for even more people to tune in.

I was running around like crazy, juggling everything by myself, taking Abram to the hospital, getting him hooked up to an IV, and looking after him with no help at all.

Henry hadn't shown up for two days, and his phone was still switched off.

His parents didn't even care enough to ask how we were doing.

The family vacation we'd planned turned into everyone holed up in their own rooms at the hotel, pretending the others didn't exist.

I told the local cops I couldn't find my husband after he came here for vacation.

The officer ran Henry's details for me, and found out he was staying at a hotel in Eldenburg.

I thanked the officer for helping me out.

Jumping into a cab, I went live on Circlo. "Guys, the big tea is about to drop!

"I need you all to witness this with me. Let's find out if my husband's really cheating!"

I walked into the hotel, phone in hand, streaming live for everyone, ready for the big reveal.

The moment the door opened, my jaw dropped.

I knocked, and the door just swung open on its own.

Henry was sprawled out on the bed, completely stark naked and motionless.

I quickly stuffed my phone into my bag.

I tapped his face a few times, trying to wake him up, but he didn't respond at all.

Suddenly, a blinding pain shot through the back of my head. As I collapsed to the floor, I barely saw Lailah coming at me, swinging something with all her might.

I had no idea how long I'd been knocked out, but when I finally came to, everything around me was pitch black.

I reached back and felt the back of my head. My hand was covered in blood.

"Henry, this isn't going to get someone killed, right?" Lailah's voice trembled.