The week before Christmas, I flew home early to surprise my boyfriend. I was planning to propose, so I stopped by the flower shop near his office to pick out the perfect roses. While I was choosing, the woman next to me was on the phone, gushing to her friend about her boyfriend’s prowess. “You just can’t beat a younger guy’s stamina. He insisted on getting it on right there in the weight room at the gym. We went eight rounds last night.” She giggled. “He’s even bought us a house at the Oakhaven Estates, says he wants to give me and the baby a proper home. He’s meeting my parents right after work today.” Her friend on the line must have been skeptical. “A guy that perfect? Pictures or it didn’t happen.” The woman laughed and unlocked her phone. I couldn’t help but glance over. The man in the photo had a stunning side profile. But… wasn’t that my boyfriend? 1. Thorns of Blood “Honey, what’s taking you so long? My legs are killing me from standing around,” the woman cooed into her phone, her voice sickly sweet as she tucked a stray hair behind her ear. I froze, my hand clenched around the bouquet of red roses I hadn’t even paid for yet. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. My mind was a complete blank. With trembling fingers, I sent a message to Grant, clinging to one last, desperate thread of hope. [Hey, Grant. It’s the night before Christmas Eve. Are you still stuck working late?] The woman beside me was still whining into her phone. “Don’t rush me, I can see your car. I’m coming out now.” Grant’s reply was instant. [In a critical meeting. It’s a total lockdown, they’re about to collect our phones. Be good, baby. Get yourself something nice for dinner.] We’d been together for over twenty years, high school sweethearts. When he was struggling to launch his startup, I borrowed money from my father to help him through the roughest patch. Once the company was stable, he gave me his debit card, the PIN set to my birthday. “Scarlett,” he’d said, “everything I have is yours.” Just last week, during a video call, he was holding the blueprints for the home we’d designed together, dreaming about our future. “Once we’re married, I’ll take care of you for the rest of our lives.” I tried to soothe myself. Maybe I was just seeing things. Grant was still at work. A similar profile didn’t mean it was him. The woman hung up, grabbed a large bag of imported cherries she’d just bought, and clicked her way out of the shop on high heels. I couldn’t let it go. I followed her out of the flower shop, hiding in a shadowy corner. A black Audi A6 was parked by the curb. Grant had bought the exact same model when he was starting out, a way to project success. I’d maxed out three of my credit cards for him. I remember that day, he’d spun me around in the dealership, dizzy with excitement, and sworn, “The passenger seat is reserved for my wife, for life.” Now, as the car window rolled down, I saw that a pink lumbar pillow was nestled cozily in that very seat. And then I saw the face, a profile etched into my soul. Grant. The face I had loved for my entire life. An invisible hand squeezed my heart, and I couldn't breathe. On our video calls, his brow was always furrowed with exhaustion. He’d complain about work, about needing rest. But now, his face was lit with a smile, his eyes soft and tender. “Daddy!” A small, innocent voice shattered the last of my sanity. A little boy, maybe three or four years old, with a chubby, adorable face, darted out from behind the woman and ran straight for Grant. Grant opened the door, got out, and swept the child up into the air. “Hey there, champ! Did you miss me?” “Yes!” the boy giggled, wrapping his arms around Grant’s neck. I stared, my blood running cold. “Scarlett, childbirth is too painful. I could never bear to see you suffer,” he’d told me once. To prove his devotion, he’d even gotten a vasectomy right in front of me. This picture-perfect family scene was a knife in my eye, and tears welled up, blurring my vision. The woman walked over and linked her arm through Grant’s, chiding him gently. “It’s freezing out here. Don’t hold him up so high, you’ll give him a chill.” Grant immediately lowered the boy, taking the woman’s bare hands in his and blowing on them to warm them up. “You’re right, my bad. Let’s get in the car.” She stood on her toes to straighten the scarf around his neck, which had been ruffled by the wind. It was the scarf I had spent half a month knitting for him last winter, stitch by painstaking stitch. The three of them, a happy little family. They got into the car with a seamless, practiced grace. And there I stood, under a streetlamp in the falling snow, a ridiculous, pathetic clown. The thorns of the roses in my hand had long since pierced my palm. Crimson drops of blood fell from my fingertips, staining the white snow. My hand shaking, I dialed Grant’s number. “We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is currently busy…” 2. Betrayal on Video The car’s red taillights disappeared at the end of the street. My phone buzzed again. A new message from Grant: [Just got out of the meeting. I’m exhausted, still have to type up the minutes. Go to sleep, baby, don’t wait up for me. Love you.] The man who once told me, “I will never lie to you,” was now spinning falsehoods without a flicker of hesitation. After all these years, I had never truly known him at all. When I first moved abroad, I would buy the cheapest, most inconvenient flights just to come home and see him. I once sat upright for over twenty hours, my back aching so badly I could barely stand. When I arrived at his apartment building, I called and asked if he could come down and help me with my luggage. “I just got off work myself,” he’d said. “I’m dead tired. Just carry it up yourself. Think of it as a workout.” Back then, my heart ached for him, for how hard he was working. I actually hauled two massive suitcases up six flights of stairs by myself. Now, I see he can be thoughtful. I just wasn’t the one who deserved it. A bitter smile twisted my lips. I stood in the biting wind for a long time, until my legs were numb with cold. I hailed a cab and checked into the nearest hotel. The room was warm, but a deep, chilling cold radiated from my very bones. I grabbed my phone and created a new, anonymous social media account. Using the tidbits of information I’d overheard in the flower shop, I started searching. For two hours, I scoured local accounts. Finally, a profile named “Lynn’s Happy Days” caught my eye. Her banner photo was the back of a man cooking in a kitchen. The broad shoulders, the narrow waist, the brand of loungewear, even the tiny, inconspicuous mole on the back of his neck… it was identical to Grant. I clicked on her feed and my fingers began to scroll mechanically. The past year was a dense tapestry of their cozy family life. May 20th: [Hubby took us to Disneyland! The baby got scared by the fireworks for the first time, and my husband was so patient, calming him down the whole time.] That day, I had ordered his favorite mechanical keyboard and had it shipped to him as a surprise. I waited up until midnight, but he never replied. The next day, he said: “We had a project launch yesterday. Pulled an all-nighter. My phone died.” Turns out, he was pulling an all-nighter watching fireworks at Disneyland. August 15th: [Spent the weekend car shopping with my husband. He said all that matters is that the baby and I are comfortable. The passenger seat is my throne. <3.jpg] That day, I had video-called him, and it was noisy in the background. He said he was entertaining a client. I thought I heard a woman’s laugh and asked about it. He exploded. “I’m out here killing myself to build a future for us, and you have the nerve to doubt me?” November 11th: [Hubby’s back from his business trip! He brought me a full set of La Mer. Mwah, love you!] Around that time, he’d told me cash flow was tight and asked to borrow fifty thousand dollars. He said it was an emergency, to make payroll for his employees. As I transferred the money, I was so worried about him that I sent an extra ten thousand for his living expenses. And then there was today… My stomach churned violently. With a shaking hand, I sent her a private message. [Is Grant your husband? Are you aware he has a fiancée?] Her reply was instant. A six-second video. I tapped play. The room was instantly filled with the sounds of heavy, ragged breathing and the violent rocking of a bed frame, all under dim, moody lighting. The camera shook, and for a fleeting moment, I saw Grant’s bare torso. His back was covered in angry, red scratches, and sweat trickled down the tense lines of his muscles. The video cut off. My hands and feet turned to ice. In all the years we’d been together, Grant had always insisted on waiting until marriage to be intimate. I had been so moved by his principles, thinking he was a modern-day saint, a once-in-a-lifetime man. Now, watching the rapacious stranger in that video, I felt like I didn’t know him at all. Another message arrived. A photo. In it, Grant was asleep in the woman’s arms, his brow smooth, sleeping as peacefully as a baby. My stomach seized. I scrambled to the bathroom, barefoot, and collapsed in front of the toilet, dry-heaving until my throat was raw. 3. The Severing in the ER The relentless barrage of emotional trauma was too much for my body. Before I could even pull myself up from the bathroom floor, a searing pain ripped through my abdomen. I curled up on the cold tiles, a cold sweat instantly soaking through my clothes. It was an old problem. Acute gastroenteritis. I remember it happening once in college, in the middle of the night. Grant had sprinted two miles in his slippers to a 24-hour pharmacy, then climbed the wall of the women’s dorm to bring me the medicine. He stood outside in the freezing wind all night, texting me every hour to ask if I was feeling any better. Now, the pain was just a bitter mockery of his betrayal. Summoning my last ounce of strength, I managed to get a cab to the nearest hospital, City General. The emergency room was a cacophony of noise and chaos, but I felt completely alone, adrift on a desolate island. A doctor pressed on my stomach, his brow furrowed. “This looks serious,” he said. “It could be a precursor to a ruptured appendix. We need to operate immediately. Is your family here?” My family… On the verge of blacking out, I instinctively dialed the number that was etched into my very being. It rang. And rang. Just as I thought it would go to voicemail, he picked up. “Hello?” In the background, I could hear a child’s piercing cries and a woman’s soft, soothing voice. “Grant…” I whispered, my voice hoarse and weak. “I’m back in the country. I’m at City General, in the ER. The doctor says I need surgery…” His voice on the other end was frantic. “You’re back? Why didn’t you tell me? I’m out of town on a business trip right now, I can’t possibly make it back.” Lies. More lies. “Out of town.” I closed my eyes, a tear escaping and tracing a cold path into my hair. “Out of town? Where?” “I’m… I’m in the next city over. Look, I can’t talk right now, there’s an emergency with the project here.” Just then, the woman’s anxious voice cut through from his end. “Grant! Hurry up, the baby has a fever! We need to go, get the car started!” The voice was crystal clear, a slap across my face. It sounded like he covered the receiver. “I know, stop shouting!” Then, back to me. “Scarlett, I really can’t get away, it’s urgent. Just hire a nurse, or call your parents. I have to go.” The line went dead. I clutched the phone, listening to the monotonous dial tone as my tears finally broke free. When I was five, I fell off a swing and gashed my knee. Grant carried me on his back for two miles to the clinic, crying the whole way. “Don’t be scared, Scarlett,” he’d sobbed. “I’ll protect you for the rest of our lives.” That promise had been my anchor through countless lonely nights in a foreign country. Now, it was nothing but a cruel joke. The doctor returned with the consent forms. “Miss, were you able to reach your family? If not, you can sign yourself, but there are risks with this surgery…” I wiped the tears from my face and took the pen. My hand was shaking so badly I could barely hold it, but I scrawled my name in the signature box. “I’ll sign.” As they wheeled me into the operating room, I hit send on one last message. [Grant, we’re over.]
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