But now, he sounded… broken.
A thousand ugly thoughts rushed through my head at once.
Does he have another woman?
Is he in trouble?
Did he lose all our savings?
Is he sick?
Is he leaving?
I lay there in the dark, clutching the sheet until my knuckles hurt, feeling like my whole life had been quietly tilting without me noticing — and tonight it had finally started to fall.
The next morning, I played dumb.
I got up, cooked breakfast, packed the kids’ lunches, poured his coffee. I made stupid little jokes, pretending everything was normal.
But he wasn’t normal.
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. His hands trembled when he reached for his cup. He looked like a man who had swallowed glass and was trying to pretend it didn’t hurt.
All week, he was distant.
He’d come home, sit on the couch, stare at nothing. He’d respond when I talked to him, but his answers were short, distracted. He held his phone a little too close, his shoulders a little too tight.
And every time he turned away, my mind went back to those two sentences:
“I don’t want to hurt Mia.”
“If I confess… I might lose her.”
By midweek, my imagination had already destroyed our marriage ten different ways.
One evening, after dinner, when the kids had gone to their room and the sink was full of plates, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore.
I stood at the counter, hands in the soapy water, and asked quietly, without looking at him:
“Love… is something wrong?”
Adrian looked up from his phone, startled. For a moment I saw the truth in his eyes — panic, guilt, fear — and then he plastered on a smile.
“No, no. Just tired from work,” he said, like he’d rehearsed that line.
But I didn’t believe him. Not for a second.
The next day, I came home early from work.
The house was unusually quiet. No TV, no kids, just the faint murmur of a voice coming from the bedroom. Our bedroom.
I stopped in the hallway.
Adrian was on the phone. His voice was low, urgent.
“I can’t hide it anymore,” he said. “I have to tell Mia before it eats me alive.”
My bag nearly slipped from my hand.
I stood there, half-hidden, heart going wild. I wanted to burst into the room and scream, “Tell me WHAT?” but I didn’t.
