Chapter 2
That night, Michael came into the bedroom with a bottle of massage oil. Sitting by my side, he gently took my feet into his lap to massage them.
The oil was at the perfect temperature, melting away all my tension.
He kept his head down, meticulously massaging my ankles before picking up a pair of clippers to trim my toenails piece by piece.
The warm glow of the bedside lamp spilled over his hair. His jawline was sharp and clean, and his long eyelashes cast faint shadows on his cheekbones.
This man sitting before me looked as tender and devoted as a saint.
My tears fell silently, streaming down my cheeks.
"Michael," I called out softly.
"Yeah?" he replied.
He didn't look up.
"As for that girl on the side, can you end things with her?" I asked.
His hands stopped moving.
Silence stretched across the room.
The only sound left in the bedroom was the soft clink of the clippers resting against the edge of the bed.
When he finally looked up, his eyes were red.
I honestly believed he was going to say yes.
"Sweetheart," Michael said, gripping my foot, his voice thick with emotion. "She will never show up in front of you. I promise you that."
My lips parted.
A barrage of questions flooded my mind: What did our seven years even amount to? Did I ever truly matter to him? As he sat there massaging me, had he been thinking of me or her?
But I swallowed every single word.
Some questions shattered the moment they were spoken out loud.
Michael left for work the following morning.
Before stepping out the door, he pressed a kiss to my forehead and promised to bring home a slice of cake from my favorite bakery.
His tone was gentle, and his expression was completely genuine. He was as flawless as ever.
I wrapped my arms around him as I always did.
He had no idea, however, that I actually detested sugary things.
After he left, I stood outside his study for a long time before pushing the door open.
In seven years of marriage, I had never touched his laptop. It was not for a lack of opportunity, but because I trusted him.
I used to think that trust was the most precious thing between us. Looking back now, I was merely blinding myself.
The moment the monitor woke up, the desktop wallpaper came into view.
It was a picture of a girl in a white sundress with her hair pulled into a high ponytail, smiling brightly at the camera. She looked incredibly young and vibrant.
It wasn't me.
It felt as though an invisible hand had wrapped around my heart, slowly squeezing the life out of it.
It was not a sudden burst of agony, but rather a slow, suffocating kind of pain.
His iMessage account was still logged in.
Without a second thought, I clicked on the thread with the contact saved as "My Sweetheart."
The chat history dated all the way back to three years ago.
On my birthday, Michael gifted me a ten-thousand-dollar diamond ring. I posted a picture on Instagram with a caption about marrying the right man.
That exact same day, he wired one hundred thousand dollars to "My Sweetheart."
The transaction note read: [For your new apartment.]
I distinctly remembered resting my head on his shoulder that evening, telling him that meeting him was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to me.
He stroked my hair and replied, "Me too."
It turned out that "me too" was not an exclusive statement.
During our date at the amusement park, he excused himself to use the restroom for fifteen minutes.
In that exact window of time, he donated twenty-five thousand dollars to a Twitch streamer. The username belonged to his sweet little girl.
I remember thinking he came back with a smile on his face because he was having a good time.
He was certainly having a good time, but it had absolutely nothing to do with me.
On Valentine's Day, he bought me a limited-edition designer handbag. He actually bought two identical bags, and the second one was shipped directly to a graduate dorm at Westbridge University.
I scrolled through the messages line by line.
Every single memory I thought was exclusively ours had her woven into it.
In the past four years, all of our beautiful moments together were nothing more than the byproducts of his boundless energy.
The tender affection I replayed in my mind and the sweet little details I treasured so carefully were simply a copy-and-paste routine to him.
He meant it when he said he loved me, and he meant it when he told her the exact same thing.
But if a man's heart could be split evenly between two different women, what was the point of having it at all?
I felt physically sick. It was not directed at her but at myself.
I was sickened by my own unwavering certainty and gratitude over the past seven years.
I used to be so incredibly proud to be loved by a man like him, only to realize I was living inside a meticulously crafted illusion.
No, it was not even an illusion.
He did love me, but it was a love that had always been incomplete.