Betrayed by the Man I Almost Married

The second night of the holiday weekend, Eugene's phone line went dead. Four hours. Not a ring, not a pickup, nothing.

Eight years together, and every time we were aparteven brieflyhe'd never once gone silent like that.

I was sick with it, convinced something had happened to him.

Eighty-three messages. Not one answered. I didn't sleep.

The next morning, Eugene finally called back. His voice was tired, edged with irritation.

"My phone crashed last night, I just saw your calls. What's with the eighty-something messages? I'm a grown man, it's not like I vanished."

It hit me like ice water to the face, and the words died in my throat.

When I didn't respond, his tone softened a fraction.

"I know you were worried, but I really did have something going on. My coworker Lucy Chavez's mother-in-law passed away. I was there helping all night. Left my phone in the car and didn't notice."

The pressure crushing my chest released all at once, like a hand unclenching. I let out a long breath.

After I hung up, I found Lucy's chat window and transferred a thousand dollars.

Sent one line: *My condolences.*

Three minutes later, Lucy called.

"Hey, Lottiedid you send that to the wrong person? Nobody in my family died"

After Lucy's call ended, the screen went dark, and my own face stared back at me.

The awkward smile I'd worn while apologizing to her was still frozen there. It looked awful.

I opened my chat history with Eugene.

The last message was mine, sent at 4:12 a.m.:

*Where are you? I'm really worried.*

I scrolled up. Yesterday's messages.

I'd just walked in the door and snapped him a photoMom's plum-glazed ribs, the ones I always begged her for.

He'd sent back a sticker: *Looks so good I'm drooling.*

Below that, a video call from him. He was curled up on his couch, tilting the camera around lazily.

Mom called me away to help and I had to cut the call short.

After we hung up, he messaged me.

*I miss you.*

*This October I'll come back with you. Try those plum ribs you love. And tell your mom I want to marry you.*

Eight years ago today, he'd asked me to be with him.

He'd sworn that if he ever lied to meever, for the rest of his lifehe deserved to walk out the door and get hit by a car.

Eugene was terrified of dying.

Not long after we first got together, he spiked a fever of 103. When the doctor stepped out to draw blood, he buried his face against me and cried.

He said he'd looked it up online and was scared it might be leukemia.

Voice cracking, he said he wasn't done living yet, but he needed to get his affairs in order.

His forty thousand in savings, he said. Half to his parents, half to me.

He said if it came back positive, I shouldn't wait for him.

I stroked his hair and wiped his tears, laughing at him for acting like a little kid.

But privately I'd thought to myself:

A man this afraid of death, willing to swear an oath like that, would never break it.

But a lifetime hadn't even come close to passing. Not even close. And he'd already lied to me.

Eugene was deeply superstitious. Whoever made him willing to gamble his life on a lie had to matter to him a great deal.

My phone buzzed.

I hesitated, then picked up.

Maybe there's an explanation. Maybe.

"You messaged Lucy?!"

Eugene's voice was low, barely held together, but the anger bled right through.

"Yeah."

"What the hell was that about?"

"You said her mother-in-law died. I sent a gift."

"Is there a problem with that?"

Two seconds of silence on the other end.

"Lottie. You were digging into me."

"I wasn't"

"No? Then why'd you go messaging Lucy?"

His voice cracked upward.

"Nobody in Lucy's family is dead! I was exhausted, I got it mixed upand you just fire that off without thinking? If that gets around the office, where does that leave me?!"

My fingers were cold around the phone.

He was the one who'd liedand somehow every word he said was making me feel like the guilty one.

A heavy sigh came through the line.

Then his voice softened.

"Lottie, I know you worry about me, but do you have any idea how that looked? Lucy's my supervisor. How's she supposed to see me after that? You think she's ever going to put my name forward for anything again?"

"Eight years, Lottie. We've been together eight years, and this is how much you trust me?"

My nose burned out of nowhere.

Eight yearsand Eugene had long since learned every way to turn my worry into guilt.

"Forget it, Lottie. I got too worked up. I'm sorry."

He must have taken my silence as a sign, because his tone went completely gentle.

"It was Stuart Lambertfrom Lucy's officewhose family had the emergency. You added him on WhatsApp at the last company dinner, right? Go ahead and ask him, if you don't believe me."

After we hung up,

I hesitated for a long time before pulling up Stuart's WhatsApp.

I tapped into the chat, typed "Mr. Lambert," and hit send.

The message bounced. Blocked.

Blockedwhen that very morning I'd still been scrolling through his Instagram. Stuart was the person Eugene was closest to at the company, and Eugene had told me to go verify his story, and Stuart had already shut the door in my face.

After the call, Eugene went completely silent.

We'd had plans for the holiday weekend. Disney tickets, booked and confirmed.

But he said he had to work overtime.

He said the bride price was almost saved uphe was so closeand he couldn't pass up triple holiday pay.

So these past few days, when Eugene's messages came less often, I never thought twice about it.

But now...

After dinner, I posted on Instagram. The photo was the scallion oil noodles my mom had made.

The holiday's almost over. Already missing Mom's cooking.

I set it so only Eugene could see it.

After posting, I waited.

One hour. Two hours. Three hours. Four.

Nothing.

In eight years, Eugene had liked every single one of my posts.

I'd asked him onceyou're always so busy, how do you manage to catch everything I post the second it goes up?

He'd laughed, fingers running slow through my hair. *Because you matter to me. So I never stop paying attention.*

My fingertip traced a restless circle against my palm, and my thumb brushed the screen without meaning to.

The page slid to Eugene's X profileand there, posted one minute ago, was a new update: an evening sky, location tagged at the little park near our apartment.

The caption read:

Busy all day. Finally get to breathe.

There was one comment.

You worked so hard today~ My treat next time!

Eugene had replied almost instantly.

Deal. No backing out.

I tapped into the profile of the person who'd commented.

A young woman with chestnut hair.

She hadn't been at Eugene's last company dinner.

1:45 a.m.

Eugene liked my Instagram post.

Then he messaged me, his tone the same bone-deep exhaustion as always.

"Babe, I'm seriously dying. Had no idea holiday overtime would be this brutal..."

"Two more days and you'll be back though. Send me your ticket, I'll pick you up."

"You're probably asleep already, right?"

"Good night. I miss you so much."

I stared at those messages for a long time.

Then I rebooked my ticket.

Mom hadn't expected me two days early. She didn't ask why, just got up at dawn and started pushing things into my bag, hands quick, face tight.

"Lottie, when you get back, you be good to Eugene, okay? That boy came from nothingeverything he has, he built on his own."

"Oh, and tell him thank you for the money he sent me, but I can't take it."

My hands stopped mid-packing.

"When did he send you money?"

"Just now! He didn't tell you?"

"Just now when?"

Mom took out her phone and placed it in my hand.

"See for yourself."

I opened her phone. The transfer had come through at seven that morning.

Two thousand yuan, plus a message:

Mrs. Winfield, I'm stuck at work with overtime so I can't make it back with Lottie to see you this trip. Please keep this moneyI mean it. This October, I'll come home with her for sure, and I'll finally get to call you Mom.

I thought about how I hadn't answered a single one of Eugene's messages since last night.

My hand just went soft. All the resolve draining right out of my fingers.

Eugene always knew. Every thread of feeling I had, every tender weak spothe knew exactly where to press.

I forced myself to stay calm.

I handed the phone back to Mom and smiled.

"You're right not to take it. Things might not even work outwho knows."

"Oh, stop that nonsense!"

Mom laughed and cupped my cheek.

"Your father was just saying yesterdaywhere are you going to find another boy as genuine as Eugene? You'd better appreciate what you've got."

"I know, I know."

I cut her off before she could keep going.

"By the way, Mom, don't tell Eugene I'm heading back. I want to surprise him."

Mom let out a soft laugh.

"Alright. Your secret's safe with me."

At three in the afternoon, I arrived at the apartment Eugene and I rented together.

He wasn't home.

I set my suitcase down inside the door and looked around. Everything looked normal. Nothing out of place.

The first thing I checked was the security cameras.

The footage cut to black three days agothe night I left.

I went to the kitchen. It looked the same as when I'd left.

But a supermarket receipt was sitting in the trash can. Yesterday's date. Dish soap, paper towels, the usual household stuff.

Then, at the bottom of the listthree boxes of condoms.

The brand Eugene had begged me to try over and over, the flavored ones I'd never agreed to.

I clenched the receipt and went straight to the bedroom. Pulled open the nightstand drawer.

Our usual condoms were still there.

Of the three new boxes, only one was left.

I opened the closet.

Right at the front, Eugene's pajamas sat neatly folded.

Eugene never folded his clothesespecially not his pajamas. I was always the one trailing behind him, picking up after him. But those pajamas weren't folded by me.

I yanked them out of the closet.

A long strand of chestnut hair, clinging to the fabric.

My hands were shaking as I pulled out my phone.

I found Eugene's X account, tapped through to the profile of the girl who'd been replying to him.

Stared at her chestnut hair in photo after photo.

The color. The same.

The length. The same.

I ripped the pillows off the bed.

Under mine,

tucked away, overlooked, never cleaned up: more strands of chestnut hair.

I stumbled into the bathroom.

Near the drainchestnut hair again.

My stomach lurched.

I grabbed the toilet and retched, one raw heave after another.

I collapsed onto the tile, legs gone, back against the wall.

My fingers found the girl's profile and kept scrollingpicture after picture after pictureand I couldn't stop.

Three years ago she'd posted a phototwo hands laced together, fingers interlocked.

The caption read:

*Tonight, I bloom for you.*

I recognized those hands instantlythe ones twisting the sheets into knots. Eugene's hands.

Three years ago.

I scrolled like someone possessed, faster and faster, until finallyfour years back, in a group photo from Eugene's companyI found her.

She was his coworker.

Yet in all these years, I'd never once seen her at any of Eugene's work dinners.

All this time, she'd willingly kept herself hidden for him.

I forced down the nausea clawing up my throat

and sent Eugene a message:

*I'm home. I know everything.*

An hour later, footsteps shuffled outside the door, and with them a woman's voice, thick with tears.

"Gene, it's my fault. Let me in. I'll explain everything to her."

"No!"

Eugene kept his voice low, deliberately so, but the force still bled throughcommanding and shielding at once.

The man on the other side of that door was not the one I knew.

With me he was gentle, easygoing. But nowdecisive, hard-edged, yet still somehow soft with her.

I stood before I realized I was moving, my feet carrying me toward the door.

I needed to see him. The Eugene out there. And the girl with the chestnut hair.

I gripped the door handle. They were still arguing on the other side.

I yanked it open.

The door swung wide.

The girl with the chestnut hair was curled into Eugene's chest, crying. His hand stroked her hair over and over, his eyes full of nothing but ache for her.

Watching his fingers rest in that chestnut hair

in a flash, the strands under the pillow, the strands in the bathroom, all of them seemed to stretch out and wind tight around me.

They saw me.

Eugene dropped his arms from around her so fast it looked violent.

The girl wiped her eyes and took a step forward.

"I'm so sorry, Lottie. Pleasethis was all my fault"

I couldn't hold back. My arm swung up and the slap cracked full across her face.

When my hand kept going toward Eugene, he charged in from behind, shoved me hard, and pinned the girl behind himshielding her like a startled rabbit he refused to let anyone touch.

"Lottie, what are you doing?!"

Resentment and raw anger surged behind his eyes.

But mine had already dropped to her left hand.

On her ring finger sat a diamond engagement ring. Massive. Unmistakable.

The exact same design Eugene had put on my finger three months ago when he proposed.

My nails bit into my palms.

I spun around, walked fast to the bedroom, and wrenched open the left drawer of the vanity.

The ring box was empty.

I ran back out, seized the girl's wrist,

and pried the ring off her finger by force.

Under the dim hallway light, the engraving on the inside of the band didn't say *Lottie*.

It was this year's limited edition.

When Eugene and I went to buy it, it had been the last one in stock.

I held the ring in front of Eugene's face.

"Is this mine? Or did you buy two from the start?!"

"I'm the one who begged Gene to get it for me!"

The girl stepped in front of him before he could answer.

"Lottie, I'm sorryit's all my fault. I know I don't deserve to be with Gene. I just I only wanted to stay close to him, quietly, even if it was only for a little while"

I looked past the top of her head and locked eyes with Eugene.

"So you bought two. You bought two from the very beginning?!"

No wonder the sales associate wanted us to sign that exclusive true-love agreement and he wouldn't do it.

No wonder he claimed he'd forgotten his ID the day we bought the ringand paid with his father's instead.

No wonder that same associate took one look at him and said, *Oh, you're back.*

He'd taken her to buy it first.

He'd already signed the agreement with her.

These past few days, when she came to the apartment and saw the identical ring in the drawer, she must have been furious.

So Eugene threw mine away.

Maybe he'd been making her the same promise, day after daythat he'd marry her soon.

Maybe just this morning, he'd done for her mother exactly what he did for mine.

Something thick and wet seemed to fill my chest, pressing down, smothering, an ache so heavy I couldn't draw a full breath.

"Lottie, let me explain"

"Please, Lottie, please!"

Before Eugene could finish, the girl dropped to her knees at my feet with a hard thud.

"I'm sorry. I swear I'll cut things off with Eugene right now!"

"But please, I'm begging you, can you give me back the ring?"

I looked back at the ring in my hand, glanced at her once, and smiledcold, thinthen stretched my arm out the window.

"Don't"

She shot to her feet and threw herself at me. I was standing right at the top of the stairsshe slammed into me full force and we went down together, tangled, tumbling the whole way.

The violent collision tore her dress open at the shoulder.

I saw the scar on her shouldera distinctive petal shapeand my entire body went rigid.

The first year Eugene and I were together,

he'd told me about his father.

His father had cheated when he was young and brought a woman home.

That woman had a little girl with her, and the little girl had a petal-shaped scar on her shoulder.

Because of that woman, his mother killed herself.

After his mother died, his father threw the woman and the child out. He'd heard the woman's life fell apart after that.

I jerked my head toward Eugene.

"Eugene, she"