The glow from his phone cut through the romantic torchlight of our anniversary dinner, displaying a message from a woman named Chloe that reduced my entire life with him—our son, my cancer recovery, twenty-five years—to a single, dismissive word: “obligation.”
He had the nerve to tell me I was overreacting.
That this little fling, this secret life he kept on a second screen, was “not a big deal.”
This trip was supposed to be our fresh start after a brutal year, a trip I planned to celebrate surviving, to celebrate *us*. Instead, I was just a box he had to check before he could get back to his real life.
He had meticulously documented his own betrayal for years, and he never expected the ‘obligation’ would be the one to find that digital diary and forward it to his entire world.
A Paradise Built on Sand
The air in Maui was thick with the scent of plumeria and promises. It was the kind of air that was supposed to scrub you clean, to bleach the gray stains of the past year and leave you sparkling. I breathed it in, a deep, deliberate gulp, trying to force the hope past the lump of anxiety lodged in my throat.
Twenty-five years. A silver anniversary. It felt less like a celebration and more like a treaty negotiation held in a neutral, beautiful territory. The last year had been a slog through mud, my health scare a sudden, terrifying pit that had swallowed us both. Mark had been there, technically. He’d held my hand in the sterile white rooms and brought me lukewarm tea, but his eyes were always somewhere else, distant and hazy.
He had promised things would be different. “A fresh start, Di,” he’d said, his hand on my arm, the gesture feeling practiced. “Just us. We deserve this.” And I, flush with the relief of a second chance at life, had chosen to believe him. I’d planned this whole trip, every detail curated to spark a memory of the couple we used to be. The small business I ran, a bespoke floral design shop, could practically run itself for two weeks. This was for us.
He was already on his phone, scrolling with that intense, focused frown he usually reserved for stock market tickers. “Look at that water,” I said, my voice a little too bright.
Mark grunted, his thumb making a furious little swiping motion. “Incredible.” He didn’t look up. The turquoise water could have been a sheet of plywood for all the notice he gave it. A familiar prickle of irritation started behind my ribs. This was day one. Hour one. And already, I was fighting for a scrap of his attention.
Whispers in the Code
We settled into the resort, a sprawling palace of white columns and lush greenery that seemed to mock the decay I felt in my own marriage. Mark was all smiles for the bellhop, charming and easy, a version of himself he rolled out for strangers. With me, the mask slipped.
Later, as I unpacked, he sat on the edge of the king-sized bed, his phone buzzing intermittently on the nightstand. Each vibration was a tiny electric shock against my nerves. He’d pick it up, tap out a quick reply, and set it down screen-side down. A new habit.
“Who keeps texting?” I asked, trying to sound casual as I hung up a sundress.
“Just work,” he said, the words automatic. “Henderson is having a meltdown over the quarterly reports. The usual.”
It was a plausible lie. Henderson was always having a meltdown. But there was something in the speed of his reply, the way his fingers flew across the screen, that didn’t feel like work. It felt like muscle memory. It felt secret. I remembered a time, years ago, after our son, Kevin, had left for college, when I’d found the first evidence. The credit card statements with hotel charges in our own city. The hushed phone calls. He’d sworn it was a one-time mistake, a symptom of his mid-life crisis. He’d begged. I’d stayed.
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