Say goodbye to your cheating lover

The day I cut my business trip short.

I was planning to slip back into our marital home, set the place up, and give Victor Sanchez a birthday surprise.

But when I pushed the door open, all I saw was a mess strewn across the floor.

Victor had already started his birthday celebration with his junior from the lab.

My beige sheets had been swapped out for the blue bunny print Kathleen Fox loved best.

Even the vanity was lined with cosmetics that weren't mine.

Half a month away on business, and nearly every trace of my life here had been wiped clean.

Worse still, even the entry code had been changed.

I knocked until the door opened, and met Victor's startled eyes.

"Why are you back so early."

I didn't answer. I turned and looked toward the living room.

On the table, the dishes I'd treasured and tucked away in the cabinet, the ones I'd never let myself use, were spread out and piled with the Japanese food Kathleen loved, and a cake.

"So the two of you started the birthday early. Why didn't you call me?"

I reached toward the cake, and Kathleen instantly knitted her brow.

"I'm so sorry, Marie Henson. I have a thing about germs. Could you use a different dish?"

But the cabinet was bare. There wasn't a single spare plate left.

The next second, Victor picked up the dog bowl off the floor, set a slice of cake in it, and handed it to me.

"There aren't any other bowls in the house right now. Just make do with this for now."

I stood there, frozen, not moving, and he let out a sigh.

"This bowl is clean. It's been washed."

"There's nothing I can do. Kathleen has a thing about germs. Those dishes are hers. If you touch them, she'll cry."

His face wasn't joking, and my throat tightened.

"Victor, are you serious?"

He frowned a little.

"What's there to turn your nose up at?"

"I washed it three times. Used the same dish soap you always use, the lemon-scented one. Smell it."

He pushed the bowl up under my nose.

I didn't pull back, and I didn't smell it. I just looked at the faint pale band still circling his ring finger.

Worn for three years. Off for how long now?

Half a month?

I didn't even know. And I didn't want to know anymore.

"Victor, move."

I turned sideways toward the bedroom. He shifted to block me without thinking, and my shoulder shoved past him.

Kathleen suddenly let out a yelp, as if she'd been startled.

"Marie, I'm so sorry, I didn't know you'd be back early, Victor said you wouldn't be until next week"

I ignored her and went straight for the bedroom door, opening it.

The next second, I froze.

My beige bedding set was gone, replaced by a set of bright blue bunny-print linens.

A few plush rabbits slumped beside the pillows.

On the vanity, everything that belonged to me was gone too.

My heart dropped, and I crossed the room fast to dig through the drawers.

"What are you looking for?"

Victor had followed me in, leaning against the doorframe, frowning at me.

"You're back two minutes and already tearing the place apart. I forgot to tell you, Kathleen's been using your bedroom these past few days."

"She doesn't like people barging into her room. Come out first."

I lifted my head in disbelief. "Her bedroom?"

I almost laughed from sheer anger.

"Victor, have you lost your mind? I bought this place. I'm still paying off the mortgage."

"It's already generous of me to take you in here, and you actually wait until I'm away on business to hand my bedroom over to someone else?"

Three years together, and Victor had drifted from place to place, away on business most of the time.

I'd ached for him, with nowhere to call home, so I let him move into my place.

But now, he'd made himself master of this house, plain as day.

He could even decide whether I stayed or went.

"Marie."

Victor closed his eyes for a moment, forcing down his temper. "Kathleen was going to celebrate my birthday tonight. I don't want to fight with you."

But I wanted to fight with him even less.

Victor, of all people, should have known that my parents died in a car crash because of an argument, and that it had haunted me my whole life.

The thing I feared most was fighting.

"Where are my things?"

I turned and yanked open the drawer, digging through it for a long time. Nothing.

Every single thing that belonged to me was gone.

"What things?"

"My earrings, the pearl pair, and that thin gold chain."

I could let everything else go.

But that one pair of earrings

they were the only thing my mother had left me.

Victor frowned and tilted his head toward the living room.

"Kathleen said she just wanted to borrow them for a few days. Don't be so petty."

"Give them back."

My voice came out ice-cold.

Victor looked a little taken aback. "Once she's worn them enough, she'll definitely give them back to you"

"I said now. Give them back to me right now!"

Hearing the urgency in my voice, his expression darkened too.

"Kathleen, where are those pearl earrings?"

Kathleen shrank her neck in like some pitiful little rabbit, her eyes already going red.

"I'm so sorry, Marie."

"I was going to give the earrings back to you when I came home today, but by the time I noticed, they weren't in my ears anymore. I lost them"

"Lost them where?"

My face fell, my voice sharpening along with it.

"What good is an apology? If you know it's wrong to lose someone else's things, then go find them right now."

Kathleen cast a timid glance toward the window.

"But it's dark out now. I'm scared"

I kept my eyes locked on her.

"That's all I have left of my mother. I don't care if it's dark out, I don't care if it's hailing or raining knivesyou're going out there to find them."

Tears spilled down Kathleen's face. She stamped her foot and made to run outside.

"Kathleen, don't go."

Victor's expression turned cold as he pulled her behind him. "Marie, are you done making a scene?"

"It's just one cheap pair of earrings. Is there any need to be this aggressive?"

I studied the anger on his face and let out a slow, amused smile.

"Victor."

"Did you sleep with her?"

He choked, his face flushing red. "What kind of nonsense are you spouting?"

"Kathleen's just staying for a few days. A pipe burst at her place and it's being fixed. She's just a young girl, soaked through and miserable. I couldn't stand the thought of her checking into a hotel"

"So you brought her back to our marital home, let her sleep in our bed, wear my clothes, put on my jewelry, eat out of my bowl. Is that right?"

"And then, because she mentioned a germ phobia,"

"I got driven out of my own home like some miserable stray dog with nowhere to go."

Victor's expression shifted again and again. "Could you not be so snide?"

"Did I ask you to come back early?"

"You just had to come home today, walk in on this, and make a scene. What's the point?"

Listening to him scold me without the slightest hesitation, I went numb.

Tomorrow was Victor's birthday.

To get back early and put together a birthday surprise for him, I'd pushed myself to the brink all week on that business trip, racing to stay ahead.

A workload that should have taken seven days, I'd crammed into five.

Tonight I'd even turned down my coworkers' get-together and the celebration dinner.

I'd flown back overnight.

Only to see this.

Only to see the "surprise" Victor had prepared for me with his own hands.

Sensing my silence, Victor finally noticed the birthday gift box I'd put together myself, sitting beside the suitcase at the door.

"You... you rushed back early to celebrate my birthday?"

It used to be.

But not anymore.

Victor's tone softened a little. "I'm sorry. I lost my temper just now and said things too harshly."

"You've been on edge ever since you got back today. You're my girlfriend, and Kathleen is a guestmore than that, she's my advisor's daughter."

"If you make her cry, my advisor and all the guys in the lab are going to want my head the next time I see them."

Victor came closer, reached out, and wrapped his arms around me from behind.

"Come on, Marie. Stop making a scene."

"Kathleen's only staying a couple more days. Once the pipes at her place are fixed, she'll move out. You'll just have to put up with a hotel for a little while."

There was a time when Victor pulling me into his arms like this would have left me smug, riding the high for ages.

But now his embrace felt like it was covered in thorns.

"Victor." I broke free of his hold. "When it comes right down to it, you still want to throw me out. Throw me out of my own home. Is that it?"

Victor knotted his brows and stared at me for a long moment, then sighed.

"If you don't want to move out, that's fine too."

He raised his hand and pointed toward the study and the storage room. "You can lay out a mat in there. Rough it for a few nights."

People really do laugh when they're past words.

I looked down and let out two short laughs. "So you're the one who changed the door code. Right?"

Victor froze for a second, then nodded.

"The old one was too simple. Kathleen said it wasn't very safe, so I changed it."

"Then why didn't you send me the new code?"

I was the owner of this place, and I didn't even know what the new code was.

Victor paused. "Sorry, I was so busy with my experiments I forgot. I'll send it to you now."

My phone buzzed twice.

Victor put his phone away. "There. Nothing else now, right?"

He pointed at the dog bowl sitting on the floor.

"Eat the cake if you want it, leave it if you don't. Just stop making a fuss."

I didn't say anything. I just turned and started packing my things.

There wasn't much to pack, really. It had all been gathered into one spot already.

As if someone had boxed it up for me ahead of time, leaving only the act of tossing it out the door.

As for the birthday gift box I'd prepared from a thousand miles away.

I never got to give it to him. I dropped it straight into the trash.

I dragged out the storage bin and stuffed clothes in one by one, working fast, the fabric rustling against itself.

The sound caught Victor's attention.

"What are you doing?"

He came over, startled, and pressed his hand down on the lid. "It's the middle of the night. Why are you even pulling out your off-season winter clothes?"

I didn't lift my head. My voice came out cold.

"Let go. I'm moving out."

"Moving out where? This is your home!"

I looked up at him. For an instant there was panic in his eyes, but it was quickly buried under impatience.

"Marie, can't you be a little more mature?"

"I already told you, there's nothing between me and Kathleen. We're just friends. She's my advisor's daughter, and my advisor has helped me out plenty. I can't just let her end up out on the street."

I gave a cold laugh.

"So you can stand to let me, your girlfriend, end up out on the street?"

Victor's frown deepened.

"You've got somewhere to go, don't you? You're a few years older than Kathleen, you travel for work all the time, you're used to hotels. You can adapt. Kathleen can't."

"Kathleen was pampered her whole life. She's a germaphobe. She can't handle living somewhere unfamiliar."

Kathleen padded in from the living room, barefoot.

"Marie, I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were coming back today... Maybe I should just go. I'll stay at a hotel. Please don't fight over me."

Her eyes were rimmed red, and she looked like a startled little rabbit, so pitiful it tugged at the heart.

Victor turned at once, his tone going soft.

"Where do you think you're going? It's freezing out there, and you just got over a cold."

"But..."

"No buts."

He glanced back at me, as if he'd finally found his way out. "I'll just make things clear with her. You go wait in the room, and don't come out."

"Kathleen is my advisor's daughter, and my junior in the program too. Looking after her is the right thing to do."

"Everything I have today, I owe to my advisor."

"Marie, I'm telling you, don't be petty about this."

I refused to give an inch.

"That your advisor did you a favor is your business. It has nothing to do with me."

"Victor, we aren't even married yet. Whoever you want to take in is your affair. Go ahead and bring her to your own place."

"But this is my home. You made it all the way to a doctorate, all that education, and you still don't get something this simple? Don't be generous with what isn't yours."

Just then, Victor's phone rang, and he took the call.

By the time he hung up, his words had changed.

"Fine. Don't bother moving out."

He grabbed his coat, took hold of Kathleen's suitcase, and turned to head out the door.

"I'll go find her another place to stay in a bit."

The two of them turned to leave, one behind the other, but my gaze was fixed on Victor's travel bag.

"So you're going to stay at a hotel with her too?"

"Marie, I already told you, she's my junior in the program. She's just come to my city. There's no way I can leave her to fend for herself."

Kathleen stepped back in to help him gather his clothes into the suitcase, then flashed me a smile.

"Marie, don't worry. I promise I'll take good care of Victor."

"You'll take care of him?"

I let out a cold laugh. "That's what you said last time too, and you ended up taking care of him all the way into the same hotel room, didn't you?"

"Marie!"

There was anger in Victor's voice. "Can you stop stirring up trouble out of nothing?"

"I already told you, that one time was colleagues snapping photos out of context. We were just talking in the same room, that's all. Don't go spreading filthy rumors."

With that, they turned and slammed the door on their way out.

For the two days that followed, Victor never came back.

Before dawn on the third day, Victor sent me a message.

"The lab got an assignment out of nowhere. I'm going out of town on a business trip, a week long. Don't wait up for me."

Any other time, the moment his message came in, I'd have fired back a reply instantly.

But I stared at this text for a long while.

Then I tapped delete.

Before that, I'd already come across Kathleen's social media feed.

The ones going to the same place on this "business trip" were the two of them, traveling together.

Calling it a business trip was generous. It was more of a company-funded vacation, all eating, drinking, and play.

I closed the chat and called an agent right away to put the home up for sale.

I moved fast. In the span of a single day, I scrubbed away every trace of myself from the marital home, clean and complete.

Even when the agent came to view the place,

he praised how the floors gleamed.

You couldn't even tell anyone had ever lived there.

Hearing that, I gave a bitter smile without meaning to.

Just like me. After all these years, I never really made it into his heart either.

"Miss Henson, this place is excellent in every way, the location, the neighborhood, the layout. With a little more time it would sell easily."

"Are you sure you want to rush it like this, sell within a week? I'm afraid the price might..."

"The price doesn't matter."

I said it without a shred of hesitation. "As long as it sells, the faster the better."

As long as I could get out of this city, the sooner the better.

What Victor didn't know was that while he and Kathleen were off on their so-called research trip, I had already filed a work transfer request with my company.

That city a thousand miles away, the one he'd flown off to, would become the place I settled for good.

Cora Chavez, the cleaner, suddenly came over and asked, "Miss Henson, what should I do with these?"

I stared at the photos, caught off guard for a moment.

Every one of them had been dug out of Victor's drawer in the study.

Most were instant photos, black and white, no lamination, the kind that had clearly been sitting around so long the color had oxidized and faded.

They had some years on them, yet Victor had kept them like treasures.

All because the person in every one of those photos was his junior from school, Kathleen.

The cleaner had come across them while tidying up, and now she looked at me, hesitating to speak, something like pity in her eyes.

"Miss Henson, don't take it too hard. Everyone's got a past, right?"

I knew she meant to comfort me. But there was no need.

"Cora, put these and that pile of Victor's personal things by the door into the parcel pickup locker for now."

"When he's back."

"Have the courier hand them all over to him."

On the surface, Victor and Kathleen had gone out of town for a research trip.

But really, they were out eating, drinking, and having the time of their lives.

One day Disney, the next snapping photos at all the scenic spots.

They worked their way through every good thing to eat and every fun thing to do.

Every post Kathleen put up was a full grid of nine pictures.

Kathleen's father, for his part, clearly had it in mind to push the two of them together.

"Victor, you're my star student. Have you ever thought about carrying on my legacy someday?"

"And taking my daughter while you're at it?"

Victor always declined politely, every single time. He'd say the timing wasn't right, that he was busy with his career, that he just wasn't thinking about that for now.

But out of those thousand and one excuses,

not one of them had ever been that he already had a girlfriend.

Once, that would have stung. I would have complained.

But by now, nothing stirred in me at all.

Since the gentleman was willing and the lady was eager, then I, the girlfriend in the way, might as well step aside and let them have it.

Three days later, just as I'd signed the sale contract and was walking out of the complex,

Victor sent me a message.

"Flight lands at 8 tomorrow night. Come pick me up."

I stared at that text for a long time.

Then I picked up my phone and calmly typed out a few words in reply.

"Sorry, it's not convenient."

Every other time, rain or shine, the second I saw a message from him I'd come scrambling over to pick him up, eager as anything.

So much so that he'd come to take it for granted.

He treated me like free labor.

Even that time I was running a fever of 102, I still forced myself out of bed and drove over, and nearly got into a wreck on the way, almost hitting someone.

The car slammed into a wall, and it set me back.

When Victor heard, he barely reacted, just said flatly,

"I'll just grab a cab over. I've still got things to deal with at the office."

And I, dragging my sick body along, was left to clean up the whole mess from the crash.

Later I passed out, and someone called an ambulance and got me to the hospital.

When Victor heard, all he did was bring a fruit basket to see me.

But that fruit was so familiar. I'd seen it on Kathleen's social media feed.

It was the kind she didn't like.

So Victor had just handed it off to me.

Figures. In his eyes I was always the backup.

Always the one who could come or go and it wouldn't matter.

But this time, I was truly tired.

And I didn't want to play along anymore.

Maybe Victor never saw that text about it not being convenient, because the next day, he messaged again to remind me.

"The flight lands in two hours."

"Marie, I know you've been swamped with work lately. Plan your time properly. Don't make me wait at the airport."

"You know how precious my time is."

His messages popped up one after another while I was wrapping up the last of my handover at the office.

Hilary Chavez, who had always looked out for me, shook my hand with red-rimmed eyes.

"Marie, congratulations on the promotion. I know it means transferring to Southport, but every one of us is going to miss you so much."

"Wishing you nothing but the best ahead!"

My coworkers crowded around too, saying their goodbyes or pressing little gifts into my hands.

Then someone asked, out of nowhere.

"Marie, weren't you getting married in the second half of the year?"

"With this sudden transfer to Southport, is your boyfriend going with you?"

I lowered my head and gave a small smile. "He doesn't know. And there's no need for him to know anymore."

My coworkers insisted on dragging me out to a farewell dinner, a proper send-off.

At the table, my phone buzzed again and again. Every call was from Victor.

I glanced at the time. Eight thirty-nine in the evening.

Victor had probably already landed. All those calls were just him hounding me to come pick him up.

I ignored it, switched the phone to silent, and turned it face down on the table.

Over at the airport, rain came down hard outside. Victor stood among a crowd of people craning their necks, his face dark.

Kathleen pouted as she spoke.

"Victor, I remember Marie always used to drive over to pick you up, no matter what. That's strange. Why didn't she come this time?"

"And she's so late that you've gotten all wet."

"She isn't still angry about what happened last time, is she?"

"Marie's being so petty. Does dating her really mean you can't even be around another woman?"

Kathleen pursed her lips and said it like she'd been wronged, but her tone sounded more like someone happy to stir the pot.

"Enough. Stop talking."

Victor's expression was grim. He looked down and opened our chat for the ninth time.

"Marie? What are you doing? Why aren't you answering?"

"Are you busy?"

"Or sleeping at home?"

"Say something. Reply when you see this."

""

Just then, someone beside him suddenly cried out: "Marie's here!"

Victor's head snapped up. "Where is she?"

The man scratched his head and waved his phone. "I just saw Marie's update on my feed. Look, Victor."

He held the post out for him to see.

It was a photo I'd posted five minutes earlier, with the airport in the background.

The caption read: "Someone who loves you will never let you down. And the same goes the other way."

Victor studied it for a few seconds, then smiled, satisfied.

"See, I knew it. There's no way Marie wouldn't come for me."

"Every single time my flight lands, she comes to get me herself."

"This time's no different."

But he didn't know.

This time I wasn't at the airport to pick him up.

I was there to leave.

After Victor and his group had waited two hours with no sign of me, Kathleen grew more and more restless.

"Is this for real? Is Marie even coming to get you or not?"

"If not, let's just grab a cab and go. I really can't take it anymore, I'm dead tired."

But Victor kept his eyes locked on the exit.

"No. Marie will come. She has to."

Yet even as he said it, his heart was unsteady, his fingers trembling slightly.

He thought back to the last time they'd seen each other.

The way Marie had looked at him then, so cold, so final. And something inside him began to waver.

Would she really come?

It was then that one of his companions finally noticed something off.

"Dr. Sanchez, look. That photo of the flight in Marie's post, it doesn't look like ours. It looks more like she's boarding"