Chapter 15
M y thumb moved rapidly, up and down, as I scrolled aimlessly through my phone. It was something that had become a habit over the last few weeks. I wasn't one to doom scroll through social media, but with nothing on my mind but the possible demise of my marriage, I needed to fill my time with something.
Work was a good distraction, of course. I could compartmentalize my problems into tiny locked boxes and slide them away. I was professional and friendly when out on the field. I’d even done a midweek wedding and only partially wanted to die when the bride and groom promised to be faithful and love each other through thick and thin.
Drew and I had been separated for almost a month, and I was still the same level of heartbroken and pissed off as I was when Drew had dropped his bombshells at my feet over our kitchen table.
We were currently stuck in separated limbo hell. Drew would text me daily asking how I was, saying he was sorry and that he loved me. But he still never asked to meet up to talk. He never spoke about what his next step was, or what we should do to fix things. Sometimes, I wondered if he was waiting for me to make the next decision. Either that or he wanted me to be the one to pull the plug. But I refused to give in.
For one; I'd done plenty of decision making in our marriage. And two—I was too exhausted and hurt to think about what I wanted to do. Did he even care about our marriage? He hadn't shown much interest in fixing it while we were together, and he made no attempt to forge a path to reconciliation…so I could only assume that he was enjoying his time away from me.
In fact, I had proof that he was having the time of his life. And I had my light stalking of Carly to thank.
When Carly first came onto my radar, I hadn't thought much of her. She’d just been a name in a long list of names Drew dropped when he spoke about his work. But then, her name started to repeat itself a lot , and I started to pay closer attention to his work stories. Soon, the texts after work started up. The term "work wife" had also been thrown around, always explained away to me as “work banter” or “office in-jokes.”
That internal alarm that every wife had when another woman came slinking onto the scene had begun to ring softly in my ear. After Drew's holiday party, it started to blare even louder. So, I did what every woman would do in my situation. I looked her up on social media.
Private.
All her profiles were locked down.
Until recently.
Last night, in a moment of weakness, I caved and searched her name again. It was just out of morbid curiosity—and maybe so I could also flip her profile photo the bird for coming after a married man.
Public.
Her page was now public. And once I spied the first picture on her grid, I immediately wished I’d never indulged my curious side.
It was a bar table with two drinks. One; a beer, and the other; a cocktail. A male hand was wrapped around the beer—his distinctive black and silver wedding ring winked at me mockingly in the grainy shadows of the picture.
With a choked sob, I swiped through her pictures, my heart racing at what I would find next.
There was a photo of Drew laughing at something out of sight. His face was lined in candid happiness; the deep grooves of his dimples shining brightly despite Carly's shitty photography.
He looked happy and relaxed—and completely unbothered that he'd broken the heart of his stupidly devoted wife. Unconcerned that he was spending time with the woman he'd promised me he felt nothing for. That he hadn't left me for.
The rest of her pictures were of a live band playing. Did he dance with her like she'd begged him to at their holiday party?
It wasn't until I'd read the few comments on her pictures that I started to feel a little better. It hadn't been a date like I'd feared. It still wasn't great that he was spending time with her again, and just like her sudden public social media profile, I was highly suspicious that she'd curated her photos only to show Drew when they were actually out for Ben's birthday.
A lot could happen on a drunken night out, though. Especially when the nagging, boring wife was out of the picture. Did he confide in her that we were separated? I could just picture her face pouting in sympathy, her hand stroking his arm while she offered her shoulder to cry on.
My phone rang, and I almost dropped it in fright. Nellie. She'd been checking in on me every day, as if I would do something drastic if she didn't keep tabs on me.
"Hey, bitch."
"Hey."
There was a brief pause before a quiet sigh came through the line. "What's happened? What did that dick do?
Nellie loved Drew. She treated him like a brother and had always sung his praises. But the moment I came to her house in tears after that awful moment in our kitchen, she'd called him every name under the sun. She didn't refer to him by his name anymore; she had a whole heap of creative descriptors to call him instead.
I tried to dissuade her from calling him insults; but after the emotional wreck of last night, I didn't have the strength to correct her. Because the way I was feeling right now, he was a dick.
"You're not trawling through Reddit again, are you?"
I rolled my eyes. "No." At least, not today.
On top of doom scrolling, I’d also started a habit of looking up real stories from wronged wives. I'd searched 'husband kept a big secret from me' and 'husband is having an affair. ' I was curious if any of them reconciled—if any of the husbands wised up and groveled to win their spouse back.
Unfortunately, all I got were horror stories where the husband was initially sorry—more so because he got caught—and they reconciled; only for the poor wife to find out that the affair was still ongoing. Or the husband promised that things hadn't progressed past a certain point, only for the spouse to uncover incriminating texts, emails, and photos. Those stories triggered me the most. Because how could I trust that nothing had progressed past an "almost" kiss?
He had deceived me about a lot of things. He'd pretended he'd been on board with having kids, only to discover twelve years later that he had doubts. Instead of talking to me, he went to another woman. Even if things hadn’t become physical, Drew had still been having an emotional affair.
When I’d read some of the stories to Nellie, she'd promptly snatched my phone and deleted my history.
"You're doing it all wrong," she'd said. "You're supposed to search for stories from his point of view. 'I left my wife and now I regret it' or 'how do I win my wife back?' You don't start with her point of view. You're only going to get all the horror stories."
"So what's bothering you, hun?"
I took a breath and shared my stalking last night of Carly. I'd confided in Nellie a lot, and she'd always listened to me without judgment.
"That manipulative little bitch," she growled.
"So you agree? She intentionally made her profile public and made those photos to appear like she was out with just him?"
"Oh, yeah, definitely."
My mouth twisted as tears pricked my eyes. Well, I knew it myself, but some silly part of me had hoped Nellie would tell me I was crazy. I was glad she kept it real with me, but it still hurt.
She tsked at me. "Babe, you're miserable. All you do is work and come home to lounge on the couch and scroll through your phone."
"No, I don't."
"Where are you now?"
I rolled my lips in. "In Drew's Lay-Z Boy." She made a short humming sound.
I rubbed my face and groaned. "I don't know what to do. I'm just so… sad ."
"You still love him."
"Of course I do.” I paused. “Do you think I'm an idiot?"
"No. I think he's an idiot. But never you." I heard her shifting around in her seat. "So what do you want to do?"
I grabbed a handful of Doritos and shoved them in my mouth. "What do you mean?"
"Do you want to fix your marriage?"
Do I?
There were times when my fury and hurt would overwhelm me. Like when I recalled him lying about wanting children, or his relationship with Carly. My emotions would get the better of me and I would start googling divorce attorneys. I'd even gone so far as to fill out an inquiry form.
But the harsh truth was—I wasn’t ready to give up on our marriage. I'd spent twelve years with this man, and I still loved him. That didn't mean I would roll over and let him band-aid over our problems, though. There was a lot of work to do, but he had to be all in to fix it. He had to be willing to try. If not, no 'I love yous' in the world would make me walk back into our marriage again.
"Yes. Yes, I do want to fix our marriage."
"So what are you waiting for? You're a fighter. You love hard, and you're never one to quit until you've given your all."
"What are you saying?"
"If Carly can play dirty, then so can you. Fight for your man."
"I thought you hated Drew?"
She scoffed. "I don't hate him. I don't like him right now and what he's done to you. But marriage is hard. You know my parents divorced when I was two, but my Dad told me a few years back that he wished he'd fought harder for Mom. He thought they gave up too easily. I'm not saying you're doing that, but if there's a sliver of a chance that you two will work things out, I think you should take it."
I took a deep breath, and my hand tightened on the phone. "I'm leaving for Mexico in three days."
"Ask him to go with you. You were planning on doing that before he fucked everything up. The wedding is one day; you can have a beautiful trip afterward."
I'd planned on extending my trip further than Puerto Vallarta. I'd purposely held off accepting bookings for a month after the wedding, deciding instead to travel around Mexico for a bit and take photos to update my portfolio. I'd envisioned Drew taking time off work and coming with me. Maybe not for the entire month, but we could do what we used to do: hike, meet the locals, and take beautiful photos and videos. He had an expensive drone that he bemoaned he never got to use.
I thought of Carly and her stupid passive-aggressive posts, and my mood darkened. I loved my husband, and I wasn't losing him without a fight.