Busy building a devoted-husband persona around his "dead wife."

Busy using my money, my reputation, to pave a golden road for himself and his new lover.

Five years. I'd spent five full years at an aerospace tracking station in the Gobi Desert.

Total lockdown management. Phones were collected and stored during work hours. We got exactly thirty minutes of satellite phone time per week. One home visit per year, and I'd never taken a single one.

Not because I didn't want to.

Because every time I brought it up, Julian would say:

"Mavis, you're doing something important for the country. Something bigger than us. I can't be the one holding you back."

"I've got everything handled here. Don't worry about a thing. Just focus on your work. When you come home, we'll get a cat. We'll have our quiet little life."

I believed him.

For five years, I weathered the sandstorms of the Gobi.

Winters hit twenty below. My fingers cracked and bled, and still I sat in front of the monitors, guarding data streams through the night. Summers, the tin-roofed station hit a hundred and ten degrees, the air conditioning cutting in and out, and pulling all-nighters was just part of the job.

I came away with chronic migraines and a stomach condition that never fully healed.

I turned down three separate transfers back to the D.C. research institute. I declined every public commendation that would have put my face in front of a camera.

All I wanted was to finish the mission and get back to him.

I sent every cent of my salary home. Every last dollar. Out in the desert, I spent maybe fifty bucks a month on soap and toothpaste.

I always felt like I owed him.

I was the one who'd insisted on taking the assignment. I was the one who'd left him alone in the city for five years.

But now, all that guilt, all that consideration, had become a joke.

I stared at the little boy in the second photo.

That familiar feeling when he smiled suddenly had an answer.

I pulled up a photo I'd saved on my phone for nearly ten years. It was a childhood picture Julian had shown me back in college, taken when he was four.

The same eyes. The same parenthetical dimples at the corners of his mouth. Even the way he tilted his head when he laughed was identical, down to the last detail.

The boy didn't look like me. He looked like Julian.

This was not my child.

This was his son with another woman.

He'd told the world I was dead and registered the boy under my name. He'd used the benefits reserved for outstanding aerospace personnel to secure the child a D.C. residency.

And I, the person whose name was on all of it, was still out in the Gobi, risking my health to earn him money, naively dreaming about coming home to surprise him.

I kept scrolling. The top comment, posted three days ago, had the most likes.

The username was "Bianca's Happy Place."

"Julian, you work so hard. You have to take care of yourself. Mavis wouldn't want to see you this sad, even from heaven. I'll be right here with you. We'll raise Nolan together."

Julian had replied with a heart emoji:

"Thank you, Bianca. I don't know what I'd do without you."

Bianca.

Bianca Whitmore.

My bunkmate for all four years of college. My best friend in the world.

Before I left, I'd begged her, over and over. Look after Julian for me. Check in on the house. Keep an eye on things.

She'd kept an eye on things, all right. She'd kept such a close eye that she'd ended up in bed with him.

I closed my eyes. The tears I'd been holding back finally fell.

Five years of my youth. Everything I'd nearly killed myself to earn. All of it had become someone else's fairy tale.

I booked the earliest flight back to D.C. that night. I didn't tell a soul.

The plane touched down the next morning, just after dawn.

The sky was barely light.

A cool wind hit my face.

I couldn't feel the cold. All I felt was the burning in my chest.

I flagged down a cab and gave the driver the address I knew by heart.

The riverfront apartment I'd bought outright with five years of project bonuses. The deed was still in Julian's name.

The cab pulled up to the entrance of the complex.

I was about to step out when I spotted it: parked beside the convenience store, the BMW I'd bought him last year.

The car door opened, and Julian stepped out.

His hair was meticulously styled, and he'd put on some weight since five years ago.

He walked around to the passenger side and opened the door, one hand bracing the roof of the car. The gesture was so tender it was almost dripping with sweetness.

"Careful, babe. The ground's slippery."

The woman in the passenger seat stepped out, smiling as she looped her arm through his.

It was Bianca.

The coat she was wearing was one I'd saved up six months of government talent benefits to buy and had someone bring back from overseas. I'd planned to give it to her as a surprise when I came home. She was already wearing it.

Something seemed to cross Bianca's mind. Her brow creased slightly, and she leaned into Julian with a wheedling pout.

"Oh, by the way, that government talent benefits payment came through, and Nolan's spot at the elite private school is locked in. But I just can't stop worrying..."

"What if Mavis comes back one day and finds out about all this? What do we do then?"

The words said concern, but her eyes couldn't hide the smugness.

She nestled closer into Julian's arms, all soft and boneless.

Julian let out a derisive laugh and tightened his arm around her waist. He dipped his head and pressed a kiss to her cheek, his voice thick with contempt.

"What's there to be afraid of? She's not coming back."

"What do you think that job of hers is, anyway? Stuck in the middle of the desert, working year-round without a single day off. Can't even use a phone. It's basically prison."

"Only an idiot like her would treat some dead-end aerospace gig like it's a treasure. Abandoned her own home, gave up a perfectly good life, just to go suffer out there."

He pinched Bianca's cheek as he spoke. The adoration in his eyes was practically overflowing.

"My Bianca's so much better. Sweet, thoughtful, always knows exactly what I need. Here by my side every single day, keeping the house in perfect order, and giving me such an adorable son."

"Not like her. All she ever cared about were her precious data sets. Couldn't say a tender word to save her life. Like talking to a block of wood."

Bianca lowered her gaze and let out a theatrical little sigh. Her finger poked gently at his chest, her voice syrupy and coy.

"Don't say that. She's contributing to the country, after all..."

"Besides, she sends her entire salary and bonuses to you every month, doesn't she? The house we live in, the car we drive, that shop of yours. It's all her money. It doesn't feel right to talk about her like that."

Julian's smirk turned even more mocking.

"She sends it to me of her own free will. I never forced her."

"She's the one who wanted to go suffer. She's the one who wanted to be some model worker or whatever, leaving her husband behind, abandoning her home. So the money she earns, the benefits she gets, if she's not spending them on me, who else would she spend them on?"

"What, am I supposed to want her back? Go back to seeing her once every six months?"

He paused. Something vicious flickered through his eyes.

His tone was light, almost casual, but every word cut to the bone.

"Besides, the whole internet already thinks she died in an accident on a mission. Even if she did show up one day, who'd believe her? Who's going to take a dead woman's word for anything?"

"I hope she never comes back. Better yet, she can die out there in the desert. Saves her from coming home and ruining things for our nice little family of three."

Bianca finally couldn't hold back her laughter. She burrowed deeper into his arms, her voice cloyingly sweet.

"You're terrible. But honestly, she really is stupid enough to deserve it. Five years, and she never came home once. All it took was a few sweet words from you, and she handed over everything she had. I almost feel bad for her."

"Stupid works just fine for us."

Julian kissed the top of her hair, his voice brimming with satisfaction.

"If she weren't stupid, where would our good life come from?"

"Relax. She's completely cut off from the world in there. She doesn't know a thing. By the time she figures it out, it'll be way too late. For the rest of her life, she's nothing but a dead woman. All we have to do is sit back and enjoy."

I stood not far away, listening to every word they said, trembling from head to toe.

My teeth ground together so hard they clicked, and I tasted blood on the tip of my tongue.

I'd eaten sand in the Gobi Desert, pulled all-nighters until my body gave out, traded my life for money and honors, and poured every last drop of tenderness and trust into this man.

And he'd taken everything I had, handed it to my best friend, and ground my heart into the dirt beneath his feet.

I walked toward them, one step at a time.

The morning wind swept a handful of dead leaves across my path.

They finally noticed. Both of them turned around.