When my spouse became distant, I confided in my closest friend for comfort. She said I was overthinking things. I wasn’t. Three years later, destiny let me see their treachery play out.
I thought treachery occurred to others. You know, web articles, party gossip, and excessively dramatic TV plotlines. This couldn’t happen in my peaceful, average existence.
Betrayal doesn’t knock. It appears, sits by you, and claims to be your closest friend.
Aaron and I lived simply for five years. Though not spectacular, it was full of love—slow Saturday mornings, pizza evenings on the sofa, and inside jokes that made us cry. It felt solid, substantial, and most importantly safe.
Throughout it all was Tessa, my closest friend since sixteen. The type of friendship where you don’t knock and know each other’s coffee orders. She cried with me during my wedding, just as I did when I said “I do.”
So discovering I was pregnant seemed like a new great chapter. I saw us getting old together—Aaron and I starting a family and Tessa adoring our kids as honorary aunt.
Life has other ideas.
The initial alteration was slight. Aaron stopped laughing at our jokes. He worked later and kissed less at the door. I blamed stress—we were working, pregnant, and adapting to everything new.
It worsened. His SMS responses were brief. My eyes were ignored. Some evenings, he lay in bed with me silently. I felt like a shadow beside him.
When everything became too much, I went to the one who had always been there.
“I think he’s pulling away from me,” I said to Tessa over the phone one night, touching my pregnant tummy in our dark bedroom. It seems he’s already gone.
“You’re just hormonal, Liv,” she whispered. He adores you. You both have a lot going.”
I really wanted to trust her.
But everything disintegrated one day.
One morning, my stomach felt strangely pressured. I was in a hospital bed with white walls and antiseptic lighting listening to a doctor say the words I never wanted to hear as the sun set.
Not beating.
Babyless.
Unimaginable suffering. The type that entirely emptied me.
But Aaron? He sat silently next me. No weeping. No warmth. Like a stranger waiting for a cab, motionless and frigid.
A month later, he said it across the breakfast table to me.
“I’m unhappy, Liv.”
The end. Five years of love and marriage—reduced to a mirror-rehearsed statement.
I looked at him, thinking I misunderstood. “What?”
“I haven’t been happy in a long time,” he replied, like I was bothering him.
Since the miscarriage? My voice broke as I asked.
He ignored me. “Not just that.”
I nearly chuckled at the irony. “You barely held my hand in the hospital. You seemed to be waiting for a bus, not grieving our child.”
He got up and grabbed keys. “I’m staying elsewhere temporarily.”
His farewell was silent. He left.
Tessa followed soon after.
Start with tiny things. She disregarded messages. My calls went to voicemail. She instantly barred me—on everything. Social media. My number. Absent without explanation.
Until I discovered the truth.
Even my mother phoned one night. “Honey,” she said softly, “I think you need to see this.”
I received Tessa’s Instagram link.
There they were.
Tessa and Aaron. Kissing, hugging, drinking, and laughing like they didn’t leave a crater on a beach. Post after post—ski excursions, candlelight dinners, wine getaways. All grins. I was his legal wife.
Blinding betrayal.
I didn’t collapse.
I became clever.
Aaron became reckless in his imaginary world. His affair was documented in social media posts, images, and comments. A lawyer had enough leverage.
It seems the divorce was clean. Got the home. About half our assets. I saw his immaculate world destabilize. He moved in with Tessa. No longer cozy townhouse. No more perfect, weeping husband figure.
He stole my heart. I took my due.
It took time to recover. Some days, I scarcely left bed. I lay awake at night wondering whether I could trust again or was irrevocably shattered.
Slowly, the parts fit again.
I met Noah a year later.
He was unlike Aaron. Noah was quiet but nice, unlike Aaron, who was charming but distant. He really listened and never made me feel embarrassed of my wounds.
I expected discomfort when I told him about Aaron and Tessa and the miscarriage.
Instead, he hugged me and whispered, “You deserved so much better.”
First time I believed.
Took our time. We learnt kind, honest, funny love. One year later, we married. A little wedding with relatives and friends in a wildflower garden.
Finally, our daughter came.
Hazel.
My eyes and Noah’s dimpled grin. After her birth, I sobbed with delight and relief that I had survived the storm.
Three years after Aaron departed, destiny brought me pure, sweet closure.
One wet Tuesday night, I drove home from work. A petrol station on the outside of town served me. The flashing fluorescent lights illuminated an almost empty room.
I saw them then.
Tessa and Aaron.
They were no longer Instagram’s golden pair.
They drove a rusty, ancient vehicle on its final leg. Tessa tried to calm a sobbing infant outdoors in a sweatshirt, her face contorted in anguish. Her hair was dirty and face weary.
Aaron argued with the cashier inside.
He slipped his card once. Then again.
“Declined,” the cashier said.
Aaron yelled, “Just run it again.”
“I’ve tried three times.”
Tessa stormed in, jiggling the infant. Are you serious, Aaron? We have no gas money?”
“I told you things were tight,” he murmured. “Maybe if you stopped spending—”
She screamed, “Oh, so this is my fault now?” Maybe if you could keep a job longer than six months—
“Don’t start,” he advised.
Their voices raised as the infant cried. I watched from my vehicle, hiding in the darkness, laughing hard.
Tessa snapped, “God, I gave up everything for you.”
Aaron faced her. “Maybe you shouldn’t have.”
She blinks. “Wow. You’re incredible.”
The last hit seemed like a complete circle.
“You know what?” she said, shaking her head. Liv probably got the better deal.”
I grinned.
No vengeful grin. A non-angry smile.
A peaceful, content grin.
Selecting each other. I was betrayed. The disaster they made now trapped them.
I left the petrol station and went home.
To Noah. To Hazel. To laughter, bedtime tales, and forehead kisses.
Not once did I glance.
