After I Faked My Death, My Cheating Husband Lost Everything

It was past midnight, and my husband was late coming home from work. Again.

When he saw me sitting alone in the living room, he walked over and held out his phone.

"Go ahead. Check it."

"The passcode is your birthday."

Then he headed straight for the bathroom to shower.

I stared at the phone on the table and let out a bitter half-smile.

What was the point of checking? Even if I went through it a hundred more times, it wouldn't matter. He always wiped it clean.

A while later, Benjamin Abbott came out of the shower and wrapped his arms around me from behind, pulling me close.

"Nothing there, right? I told you. You can trust me."

I tilted my head up, and that's when I saw them: thin, angry scratch marks trailing down the back of his neck.

My lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile.

I didn't explode. I didn't scream.

I just calmly pushed him away.

"Let's get a divorce, Benjamin."

I was done living like this.

——

The air between us went still.

Then came the sharp, brittle sound of something breaking.

Benjamin had knocked the vase off the side table. It shattered across the marble floor.

That vase. We'd bought it together our first year of marriage, wandering through IKEA like two kids furnishing their very first home. It had followed us from that cozy one-bedroom apartment to the sprawling penthouse, and finally to this sprawling mansion. We used to joke that it was our good luck charm, a witness to every stumble and triumph along the way.

Now it lay in pieces on the floor.

Just like our seven-year marriage. Beyond repair. No going back.

I pulled my gaze from the wreckage and looked at him.

"I've already had a lawyer draft the divorce papers. Just make sure you sign—"

Benjamin cut me off before I could finish.

"My hand. The vase cut my hand, Sharon Matthews."

I blinked, then glanced down.

A shard had sliced across his palm. Bright red blood dripped steadily onto the white floor.

"Sharon, help me with this." His voice was low and rough.

He rarely showed vulnerability. But I knew exactly what this was. It was the same trick he always used to smooth things over. If I took the bait, if I rushed to bandage his wound and fuss over him, then we'd be "fine" again. Back to normal. Swept under the rug.

Not this time.

I looked away, my voice flat.

"It's just a scratch. Put some ointment on it."

I paused, then circled back to where we'd started.

"After you've taken care of it, sign the papers."

Something in Benjamin's eyes went dark.

"Sharon, I'm bleeding, and you're still doing this? How long are you going to keep this up?!"

His tone was incredulous. Genuinely baffled.

In his mind, the affair wasn't really wrong. After all, once I'd screamed and cried and made my scene, he'd started deleting those flirtatious messages on a regular schedule. He'd even changed all his passwords to my birthday. So what was the problem? Why was I still "throwing a tantrum"?

My fingers drifted to the faded scar on my hand, tracing its rough edges. I said nothing.

That was when his phone rang.

That ringtone. The familiar one. The one that had been cutting through the silence of our bedroom at all hours for nearly a year.

Benjamin had told me it was the company's emergency line. I'd believed him.

Until his birthday. I'd been at the grocery store, picking out the fish he loved, debating whether to braise it in soy sauce or make it with pickled mustard greens. I looked up from the seafood counter, and there he was in the snack aisle, his arm draped around another woman as they browsed the shelves together.

That was the moment it all clicked into place.

Benjamin had been cheating on me. And the other woman was Bertha Sawyer, the childhood sweetheart he'd once mentioned in passing.

Maybe because the truth was already out between us, Benjamin didn't bother making excuses this time. He answered the call right in front of me.

"I'm on my way. Wait for me."

He hung up, forgot all about the blood still dripping from his hand, grabbed his car keys, and walked out the door.