“Those washed-up old hags? Who'd want them?”

“Want them? I wouldn't even waste a second glance.”

She looked me up and down as she said it.

I was wearing a gray utility jacket that day, my hair pulled back in a careless ponytail, not a trace of makeup on my face.

It had rained that morning, and there was still mud on my shoes.

“Sweetie, don't take this the wrong way.”

“You're not that old, right? Early thirties?”

“But look at you. The outfit, the whole look. It's so... plain.”

“You're not even wearing lipstick. Your brows aren't shaped. Your skin is so dry it's flaking.”

“Like this? You've got zero appeal to any man.”

“And don't get mad at me for asking, but does your husband even still touch you?”

There was an innocent kind of cruelty on her face when she said it.

Like she was simply stating a fact.

I tugged the corner of my mouth but didn't answer.

But her words were a needle, pressing into the one place I didn't want touched.

The first three years of our marriage, Robert couldn't keep his hands off me.

Back then we rented a tiny apartment in the old part of town, barely four hundred square feet, with paper-thin walls.

You could hear the neighbor's kid crying and the street vendors shouting below, every word, every note.

But he never cared about any of that. Sometimes I'd step out of the shower with my hair still dripping wet, and he'd wrap his arms around me from behind.

His chin resting on my shoulder, murmuring my name, low and close.

Life was hard back then, but we were pressed together.

Bone against bone. Sinew tangled with sinew.

By the fourth year, he transferred to a new position. Business trips started piling up.

Some weeks he only came home once or twice, and when he did, he collapsed into bed the second he walked through the door.

When I reached for him, he'd say he was too tired, or roll over and pretend to be asleep.

I told myself it was work stress. I was understanding about it.

Then the gap kept stretching. Once a week became once every two weeks. Once every two weeks became once a month.

This year, all told, it had happened twice.

And both times were quick, mechanical, like he was checking something off a list.

When it was over, he'd turn his back to me and scroll through his phone without a single word.

I was thirty-one, not eighty.

Late at night, lying in the dark, I felt the emptiness too. The wanting.

But I'd never said any of this to anyone. Not even my mother.

Marriage was just something you got through.

But now Robert's girlfriend was standing right in front of me.

Dressed in brands I'd never seen, wearing the gold bracelet that should have been mine, telling me men preferred them young and pretty.

Telling me I looked the way I did, so I deserved to be untouched.

Valerie took my silence as confirmation that she'd hit a nerve, and added：

“Don't be sad, sweetie. I know a few decent guys. Want me to set you up sometime?”

“No need.” I gripped the bracelet in my palm, knuckles white. “I'm keeping the bracelet. I'll go see your boyfriend tomorrow.”

“There you go.”

Valerie nodded, satisfied, and pulled the car door open.

“Make sure you actually go. Offer like this won't come around twice.”

The Porsche's engine turned over, and she pulled away.

I stood on the curb, watching the taillights dissolve into traffic, the business card clenched in my hand.

Robert Gilbert.

CEO, Grandview Group.

Two phone numbers were listed below. I only recognized one of them.

I flipped the card over. The back was stamped with Grandview Group's logo, an ornate “G” enclosed in a circle.

The printing was immaculate, the lettering raised beneath my fingertips. It didn't feel fake.

I pulled out my phone and searched for “Grandview Group”.

The first result was the corporate website. I tapped in, and right there on the homepage was a photograph.

Robert stood at the center of a group of men in tailored suits, wearing a deep navy custom-fitted one himself, his hair combed back without a strand out of place.

His face was angled slightly to the side, a faint smile on his lips.

The portrait of a successful man.

That expression was nothing like the bleary-eyed, stubble-covered man I'd seen before I left the house this morning. They could have been two different people.

I scrolled down.

Grandview Group. Core operations spanning real estate, finance, and cultural investment. Annual revenue exceeding $150 million.

Robert Gilbert, founder and chairman, named to multiple "30 Under 40" lists for young entrepreneurs.

I searched for “Valerie Henson” next.

A flood of retouched photos filled the screen.

Her Instagram bio read “Fashion Blogger” and “Lifestyle Creator”, with over a million followers.

Her latest post had gone up three minutes ago. The photo showed a hand gripping a Porsche steering wheel, the road south of the city stretching out through the windshield.

The caption read：“Great mood today. Took the car out for a spin and met an interesting lady.”

Back home, I sat on the worn fabric couch and stared at nothing for a long time.

The living room was small. The coffee table was something Robert had picked up from a secondhand market; one corner sagged, propped up with a folded newspaper.

The TV was a thirty-two-inch off-brand he'd bought years ago. It took half a minute to boot up.

The wedding photo on the wall had faded.

We hadn't had money back then, so we'd gone to a tiny portrait studio. The backdrop was a wrinkled sheet of fake scenery.

In the photo I was wearing a gown the studio provided. It was several sizes too big, clipped together in the back with binder clips.

Robert wore a white suit, his eyes crinkling with his smile, one arm around my waist.

He'd said to me then：“Summer, I promise I'll give you a good life someday.”

I believed him.

Now, looking at that photo again, his smile compared to the one on the corporate website was nothing short of a cruel joke.

A thought crept in. Back then, in that cramped rental in the old part of town, when he held me and said those things, had he meant any of it? Or had the whole thing been an act from the very beginning?

I couldn't figure it out. I didn't want to anymore.

A little after eleven that night, footsteps echoed in the stairwell.

Not heavy, not light, dragging slightly, as if whoever it was could barely keep going.

I'd listened to those footsteps for seven years and never once questioned them.

The door opened. Robert walked in wearing the same dusty old jacket he'd had on when he left that morning.

He spotted me sitting on the couch and visibly paused.

“Why are you still up?”

I didn't move. I hadn't turned on any other lights, just sat there in the dim glow, watching him.

“Couldn't sleep.”

“Robert, there are some things I want to talk to you about.”

He tossed his briefcase onto the shoe cabinet without looking, bent down to change his shoes, and didn't even lift his head：

“What's your problem now? I've been running around on a business trip all day. I'm dead tired. You think I have time to sit here and chat?”

“Where was this business trip?”

“I already told you. The next city over.” He straightened up, frowning at me. “I have to be up early tomorrow to catch a train. Can you be reasonable for once?”

Be reasonable.

I'd been hearing those two words for seven years.

He'd come home late from overtime. I'd tell him to ease up on the coffee because it was bad for his stomach. He'd say, can you be reasonable? I'm killing myself out there and it's all for this family.

He wouldn't come home on weekends. I'd call to ask where he was. He'd say, can you be reasonable? Networking is how I bring in more money.

He wouldn't touch me for months. I'd move closer to him in bed, and he'd roll over. Can you be reasonable? I'm really, truly exhausted.

I'd been reasonable for seven years.

And what I got in return was him keeping a young, pretty girlfriend on the side, showering her with jewelry every few months.

Robert watched me say nothing. He grabbed a change of clothes from the closet and went into the bathroom.

When the water started running, I stood up and walked to the shoe cabinet by the door.

His briefcase was sitting there. Black leather, corners worn white.

All this time, I'd believed he carried that bag onto the subway every morning, heading to his little office job at some company called “Houda Tech.”

There were two phones inside.

One was his everyday phone. The lock screen was our wedding photo, and the passcode was my birthday.

The other was black, thinner, screen-down at the bottom of the bag.

I picked it up and pressed the power button.

The screen lit up. Password required.

I tried his birthday first. Wrong.

Then our anniversary. Wrong again.

I paused. Valerie's face flashed through my mind, then her Instagram bio.

Her profile listed her birthday：March 12th.

I typed it in.

.

The screen unlocked.

My hands started shaking. Not from the cold. Because that passcode told me something more bluntly than anything else could.

The most important place in his life had been given to someone else a long time ago.

The messaging app had a red notification bubble. I tapped it. The first pinned conversation was labeled “Val.”

I opened it.

“Babe, I accidentally clipped some lady on an electric scooter today. Poor thing looked rough.”

“She okay?”

“Yeah, just a scrape. I told her to come by your office tomorrow to pick up some cash. Just give her ten, fifteen grand, whatever.”

“Fine. Handle it however you want.”

“Babe, do you think I'll end up like that someday? All dull and washed out, can't even bother with lipstick, looking ten years older than she actually is. I'm so scared of turning into one of those women.”

“Stop overthinking it. I'll wire you $150,000 later. Spend it on whatever you want. Spa, shopping, all of it.”

The ache hit me again. In seven years of marriage, I'd barely touched a single piece of makeup.

Last month my face was so dry it was cracking, and I'd begged Robert to buy me some sheet masks.

He'd grudgingly ordered some off a bargain site. The cheapest ones they had, less than fifty cents each.

And told me to use them sparingly. Said they were too expensive.

I scrolled further up. More records flooded the screen.

Last Valentine's Day, he'd wired her $75,000. The memo read “Happy Valentine's Day.”

That same day, he told me the company was doing poorly, bonuses had been cut, and asked if I could get by on $500 less for the month.

Last New Year's, he took her to Miami. They stayed in an $11,000-a-night oceanview suite.

He'd told me the company needed him to work the holiday shift. Told me to go spend it at my parents' place.

The year before that, for her birthday, he bought her a BMW. Over $130,000 after tax and registration.

That day he told me his father's illness had flared up again and he needed another $50,000.

So I handed over every cent I'd saved for the better part of a year.

Message after message. Each one a blade, sinking deeper.

What gutted me wasn't the affair. It was that while he was cheating, he was also bleeding me dry.

The water stopped.

I put the briefcase back exactly where it was, sat down on the couch, and slipped the phone into my pocket.

The bathroom door opened. Robert walked out in those faded old shorts, toweling his hair. He glanced at me.

“You're not in bed yet?”

“Going now.”

He grunted, draped the towel over the back of a chair, walked to the bed, pulled the covers back, and lay down.

Within two minutes, he was snoring.

He really was tired.