The day I discovered that he'd saved Juliana Fox's contact name as "Baby" in his phone, he told me it was just an inside joke between coworkers.

I believed him the first time.

The second time was at our engagement party. Juliana called, slurring that she'd had too much to drink, and he abandoned a room full of guests to go pick her up.

My mother's hands shook with rage. He still had the nerve to tell me, "Don't be childish."

The third time. The fourth.

It wasn't until I slammed the divorce papers down in his face that he looked at me, eyes red, and asked, "Why?"

Why?

Because the day I had my miscarriage, he was out celebrating Juliana's birthday.

Betrayal after betrayal, until there was nothing left inside me to break.

——

I first noticed something was off with Clay Dickerson last autumn.

He was in the shower. His phone lay on the bed, and the screen lit up.

I hadn't meant to look, but a text notification popped up. The contact name read "Juliana."

"Thanks for helping me pick out that gift today. Your girlfriend won't be mad, will she?"

I froze.

Girlfriend?

We'd been together five years. Engaged for three months. She didn't know he was engaged?

I scrolled up. The entire chat history had been wiped clean.

But that single message was enough to keep me up all night.

Clay came out of the bathroom, towel around his shoulders. He saw me staring at his phone, and something flickered across his face. "What are you looking at?"

"Who's Juliana?"

His hand paused mid-stroke, toweling his hair. Then he laughed. "A coworker. New girl in the marketing department. What, jealous?"

He walked over and wrapped his arms around me. He smelled like body wash, clean and warm.

That scent. It suddenly felt unfamiliar.

"She said you helped her pick out a gift."

"Yeah, her boyfriend's birthday is coming up. She asked me to tag along, help her decide. She just moved to Graystone City, doesn't know anyone yet, so I've been looking out for her." He pinched my cheek. "What's going on in that head of yours? Me and her? Seriously?"

I looked into his earnest eyes and swallowed the words then why did you delete the chat history?

Five years. He'd started pursuing me junior year of college. Chased me for a full year before I said yes.

My family hadn't approved. They thought his background was too ordinary. So he threw himself into work, grinding through overtime for three years until he'd saved enough for a down payment on a house.

Everyone said Clay Dickerson was the kind of good man you'd be lucky to find once in a lifetime.

I believed him.

Late October.

It was raining. He came to pick me up from work.

The car was parked outside my office building. He sat in the driver's seat, scrolling through his phone, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

I opened the passenger door. He killed the screen instantly.

Too fast. Deliberately so.

"What were you looking at?"

"Nothing. Just watching some videos." He slid the phone into the cupholder and started the engine. "What do you feel like eating tonight?"

As I buckled my seatbelt, I caught the screen lighting up again out of the corner of my eye. A social media notification. But the car was already pulling away, and I couldn't make it out.

That evening, he cooked dinner with his phone glued to his side. He'd never been like that before. He used to toss his phone on the couch the second he walked in, then stand beside me at the counter chopping vegetables. Now he checked it every few minutes, the corner of his mouth twitching upward each time.

I finished washing the vegetables and walked up behind him.

He flinched.

"What are you doing?" He flipped the phone face-down on the counter.

"Getting the salt."

He stepped aside but kept his eyes locked on me. I scooped out the salt and walked back to the cutting board.

Neither of us said a word through the whole exchange, but something between us had already shifted.

Mid-November. The first time he stood me up.

I had a fever that day and had called in sick. I lay in bed, shivering under the covers.

That morning, before he left, he pressed his palm to my forehead and promised he'd come home early. Said he'd bring me some soup.

I waited all afternoon. Five o'clock turned to six. Six turned to nine.

No soup. Just a text: "Got stuck at work last minute. Go to sleep."

I called him. No answer. Sent a text. No reply.

At one in the morning, he came through the door.

I pretended to be asleep, listening as he tiptoed into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed for a while before heading to the shower.

I picked up the jacket he'd tossed over the chair.

On the collar, a single long strand of hair.

My hair was short.

I kept that strand for a month. Tucked it between the pages of my journal. Never asked. Never threw it away.

The first real confrontation came in December.

He was in the shower that night when his phone buzzed again. Almost without thinking, I picked it up. The passcode hadn't changed. Still our anniversary.

I opened his messages. Pinned at the top was a contact named "Juliana."

The last message was from her: Thanks for keeping me company today! Next time dinner's on me~

I scrolled up. The history was all there. He'd bought her bubble tea, taken her to the hospital, driven her home late at night.

She'd written: I'm scared of being alone.

He'd written: I'm here.

No explicit words. No inappropriate photos.

But every single message carved into my chest like a blade.

He came out of the shower and saw me holding his phone. The color drained from his face.

"Lydia, let me explain—"

"Explain what?" My voice was steady. So steady it surprised even me. "Explain how you've been playing boyfriend to another woman?"

"She just went through a breakup. She's emotionally fragile. I was just looking out for her—"

"She goes through a breakup, and you're her shoulder to cry on. I'm burning up with a fever, and where are you?"

He froze.

"That night, I had a hundred-and-two-degree fever. You were with her until one in the morning."

His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

I tossed the phone onto the bed, walked into the guest room, and locked the door.

He didn't sleep that night. He stood outside the door, knocking every few minutes. I didn't open it.

The next morning, when I finally unlocked the door, he was still there. Red-eyed, standing in the same spot. "I was wrong. I was really wrong. I've cut her off. Deleted her from my phone. I'll never contact her again. Please forgive me this once."

I looked at him and thought of the boy who'd chased me for a year. The way his voice had trembled so badly during the proposal he could barely get the words out.

"One last chance," I said.

I forgave him because of those five years.

Not because he deserved it. Because I couldn't bear to let go.

But once a heart cracks, no amount of mending can make it whole again.

I started tracking the times he left the house. Counting the nights he claimed to work late. Watching his face whenever he checked his phone. I nodded at everything he said, but the thorn lodged in my chest only drove itself deeper.

In January, he said his department was having a dinner. I drove to his office building and found him sitting alone in his car. No dinner.

In February, he said he was on a business trip. I checked his flight. His name wasn't on any manifest.

I didn't argue. Didn't make a scene. I just opened that journal every night before bed and took out the strand of hair to look at it.

Everything finally shattered in early March.

It was his birthday. I'd reserved a table at a restaurant and invited a few of his closest friends for a surprise. At five o'clock I was waiting at the restaurant when he texted that traffic was bad and he'd be late.

Five-forty. Still no sign of him.

I called. His phone was off.

I called his office. A coworker said he'd taken the afternoon off and left hours ago.

I sat in that restaurant until eight, then packed up an entire table of food and brought it home. When I walked through the door, he'd just gotten out of the shower, hair still dripping.

"Where were you this afternoon?"

"Working late."

I stared at him, and then I laughed. Something about that laugh must have been unsettling, because he flinched. "What's wrong?"

"Clay, did you know that when someone lies, their eyes wander?"

He said nothing.

Silence.

"Fine. Don't want to talk? Forget it." I walked into the bedroom and shut the door.

He followed me in, grabbing my arm. "Juliana's in the hospital. I went to see her. She had an appendectomy. She's all alone in Graystone City with no one to take care of her. What was I supposed to do, just ignore that?"

I turned to look at him.

"Your birthday comes every year. She's only having this surgery once."

He said it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world.

All at once, I didn't want to fight anymore. I was tired. So goddamn tired.

"Okay." I nodded. "Go take care of her. You should."

He hadn't expected me to say that. He just stood there, frozen.

That night I slept like the dead. No dreams.

The thing that truly killed whatever was left in me came in April.

I'd been having stomach pains for a while. I didn't think much of it—figured it was just a bad stomach.

The morning of April tenth, the pain bent me double. Clay was still asleep.

I shook him awake. Told him I needed to go to the hospital.

He glanced at his phone. "I've got a meeting this morning. Can you take an Uber? I'll come find you after it's done."

I said okay.

I went alone. Registered alone. Paid alone. Waited for the results alone. The doctor held my chart, his expression grim. "You're pregnant, but it's ectopic. You need surgery immediately."

I couldn't move.

"Where's your family?"

"In a meeting."

The doctor frowned. "We need a family member to sign the consent form. Call someone. Now."

I called Clay. No answer.

I sent a message: Ectopic pregnancy. Need surgery. Get here now.

Read. No reply.

I waited forty minutes. The nurse came to check on me three times. In the end, I signed the consent form myself. Walked into the operating room alone.

Lying on that table, I stared up at the overhead light. It was blinding, searingly bright.

If I die here, I thought, what would he be doing? Sitting in his meeting? Or sitting with her?

The surgery went fine. I didn't. A nurse wheeled me back to my room, got me settled, and left. I lay in bed shivering, unable to speak.

At eight that evening, Clay showed up.

The second he pushed the door open, I knew where he'd been.

He'd changed his clothes. He'd left the house that morning in a blue dress shirt. Now he was wearing a white T-shirt. His hair was freshly washed too—I could smell the shampoo from across the room.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, the meeting this afternoon was really important, my phone was on silent, I didn't hear it—" He walked toward me, reaching for my hand.

I looked at him. "Where were you today?"

"The meeting, I told you, that project—"

"Clay."

"You're not wearing the same clothes you left in."

He froze.

"You changed. Your hair's wet." I held his gaze. "Where were you?"

He said nothing.

"Today's her birthday, isn't it?"

The color drained from his face.

"You remembered her birthday. You made sure you were there to celebrate it with her. And while I was lying on an operating table, your phone was off." My voice was steady. Perfectly steady. Like I was talking about someone else's life. "Clay. We're done."

"Lydia, just listen to me—"

"Get out."

After I was discharged, I moved in with a friend.

Clay came looking for me a few times. He'd stand outside the entrance to my friend's apartment complex, just standing there for hours. I never went down.

At the end of May, I went back to the apartment we'd shared to pack my things. When I opened the door, he was there.

He'd lost a lot of weight. His jaw was covered in stubble, and the skin beneath his eyes was bruised a deep purple-black.

"Lydia." He stepped in front of me. "Let's talk."

"About what?"

"There's nothing between me and her. We're just friends—"

"Just friends." I laughed. "You spent her birthday with her. I was having a miscarriage, and you were by her side. That's what you call 'just friends'?"