I miss you.
Those three words glowed on my husband’s phone screen like a warning flare in the middle of our quiet Sunday afternoon. I stood frozen in the living room, staring at the notification that had just appeared while Brian was in the kitchen making his famous chicken parmesan.
The message was from someone named Julia, and the little heart emoji at the end of her name in his contacts told me everything I needed to know.
My name is Jennifer. I am thirty-two years old. I have been married to Brian for seven years, and until that moment, I thought I knew exactly what my life looked like.
We lived in a modest but comfortable home in Nashville, Tennessee, the kind of place with a wraparound porch and enough space for the two children we had been talking about having someday. I worked as a project manager for a furniture manufacturing company called Oaken Light, handling logistics and client relations. Brian worked as a sales representative for a medical equipment distributor, a job that required him to travel occasionally and work late more often than I would have liked.
The signs had been there for weeks.
I had noticed the way he started keeping his phone face down on every surface. The way he would step outside to take calls, claiming the reception was better on the porch. The way he had suddenly become more attentive in the mornings, kissing my forehead before leaving for work, as if trying to convince both of us that everything was fine.
I had noticed the new cologne, the gym membership he actually started using, the careful way he deleted his text messages every night before bed.
I had told myself I was being paranoid. I had told myself that seven years of marriage meant something, that the vows we exchanged in that little church downtown were stronger than my insecurities. I had told myself that Brian loved me, that he would never betray the life we had built together.
But standing there with his phone in my hand, watching Julia’s message light up the screen, I realized I had been lying to myself for longer than I wanted to admit.
The phone buzzed again. Another message from Julia appeared below the first one.
I can’t stop thinking about last night.
My stomach dropped. The air in the room felt thick and suffocating, and I had to grip the edge of the coffee table to steady myself.
Last night, Brian had told me he was working late on a presentation for an important client meeting. He had come home around eleven, smelling faintly of something floral that was not my perfume, and he had kissed me on the cheek before crawling into bed beside me.
I had believed him.
I had believed every single word.
From the kitchen, I could hear him humming along to the radio, completely unaware that his entire world was about to collapse. The scent of garlic and tomatoes drifted through the house, a cruel reminder of the domestic life I had thought we were building. He was making me dinner. He was standing in our kitchen cooking for his wife while his mistress sent him love notes on his phone.
I took a deep breath and made a decision that would change everything.
Instead of confronting him immediately, instead of screaming or crying or throwing his phone against the wall, I did something that surprised even me. I picked up his phone, typed in his passcode that he thought I did not know, and opened the message thread with Julia.
The conversation stretched back for months. Months of flirtation, of late-night exchanges, of plans made and secrets kept. I scrolled through the messages with a growing sense of numbness, watching their relationship unfold in tiny digital fragments. Pet names I had never heard him use. Promises about a future that did not include me. Complaints about his wife who did not understand him, who was too focused on work, who had let herself go.
That last one stung more than the rest.
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