Chapter 4
On the drive home, I pulled up my messages and texted Zoey.
Me: [Hey girl, you free for dinner this weekend? Feels like forever since we actually talked.]
The bubble appeared instantly.
Zoey: [Omg yes! You pick the place!]
She added three heart emojis at the end.
I stared at those three red hearts.
I let out a small, dry smile.
Fine.
One foot in front of the other. One step at a time.
I started digging.
I kept everything off the grid, playing it cool.
During the day, I clocked in like nothing was wrong. At night, once Ryan was dead to the world, I'd slip his phone from the nightstand.
He hadn't even bothered to change his passcode.
Our wedding anniversary.
The irony was suffocating.
He used our big day as his security code—meanwhile, that phone was a graveyard of lies.
His text threads were completely nuked.
He'd scrubbed every conversation until they were spotless.
But he'd been sloppy with his Venmo and Apple Pay history.
I scrolled through the transactions, one by one.
I started with this January and began the long crawl backward.
2024. 2023. 2022. 2021. 2020.
Five years.
This nightmare started five years ago.
Back then, Zoey was still living out in Silicon Valley.
So that story about her "corporate relocation" to Metropolis two years ago was a total lie.
She didn't move for a job; she moved for him.
The whole "transfer" was just a cover story they cooked up.
Five years ago, Zoey posted to her Instagram: [A fresh start. Let's do this.]
The photo was just a lone cup of coffee.
I liked it and commented: [You got this!]
A fresh start.
A fresh start—with my husband.
I kept scrolling through the transaction history.
March 2020.
It was Zoey's birthday.
A Venmo transfer—3,000 dollars to Zoey.
Memo: [Happy birthday, baby.]
2020.
That same year, for my birthday, Ryan gave me a scarf.
He'd ordered it from Amazon.
30 bucks. That was it.
He told me, "You're always shivering, aren't you?"
A 30-dollar scarf.
A 3,000-dollar bank transfer.
I kept scrolling.
May 2020.
A charge from a women's health clinic—400 dollars.
My heart hit the floor.
I kept scrolling.
July 2020.
Silvercreek Residences, HOA fees.
He's had that place for five years.
It wasn't a recent purchase.
Five years.
He's had an entire second home in Silvercreek.
Five years, the whole damn time.
All those years, I believed he was away on business trips twice a week.
Turns out, he was "commuting"—just not for his company.
He was sneaking off to his "Nook" in Silvercreek.
I checked his Amazon orders.
I had his login—of course I did.
A stroller. Bottles. Tiny onesies.
Delivery address: Unit 302, Building 7, Silvercreek Residences.
Recipient: Zoey.
The order history was a roadmap.
He'd been buying baby gear, piece by piece, for three years straight.
There was already a child three years ago.
Zoey's kid was already three years old.
I sat frozen on the toilet lid, the phone screen going dark in my hand.
The bathroom was so quiet I could hear my own pulse.
Ryan's snoring drifted in from the bedroom, a rhythmic, guttural rumble.
Three years old.
That kid was already three.
Which meant—
When I had my miscarriage, Zoey's kid was already one.
While I was in that hospital, signing the surgery consent forms all by myself, he was already a father to someone else.
It wasn't that he couldn't get there.
He just didn't want to.
He had a new home.
He had a new woman.
He even had a new kid in the picture.
Me and the baby I lost—we were just... extra baggage. Unwanted.
I screenshotted every single thing again.
Then I forwarded the whole deck to Monica.
Monica gave a simple reply.
Monica: [Take your time. Keep digging.]