Alberta posted something new every single day. Some photos showed Conrad in an apron, cooking for her in the kitchen.
Others showed him arranging flowers, head bowed in concentration. Her captions were always short.
Under the cooking photo, she wrote: He spoils me rotten.
Under the flowers: Fresh arrangement every day. A man who pays attention.
Each post left a bitter taste in my mouth. The image of Conrad in an apron hit the hardest. I had never once seen him wear one.
Before we got married, we'd agreed that the kitchen was my domain. It had nothing to do with him.
Conrad was happy to accept that arrangement without argument. For three years of marriage, I prepared every meal and set it in front of him.
Sometimes, when he was deep in his work, I'd even feed him.
He used to wrap his arms around my neck and kiss me again and again, murmuring, “Marrying Serena Henson is the best thing I ever did. What more could a man ask for?”
He bragged about me to his friends all the time. I never thought much of it. We were husband and wife. Wasn't taking care of him just what I was supposed to do?
A week later, I handled my own discharge paperwork. From start to finish, Conrad never showed up.
The moment I pushed open the front door, the apartment looked exactly the way I'd left it. Clean, tidy, and cold as a place where no one lived.
On the shoe rack by the entryway, Conrad's house slippers were coated in a thin layer of dust. He hadn't been home all week.
I already knew that, of course. He'd been with Alberta the entire time. Her social media made that perfectly clear.
On the dining table, the flowers I'd arranged for our third wedding anniversary had wilted in their vase.
I picked up the vase, dead flowers and all, and dropped the whole thing into the trash.
I felt calm. No anger, no disappointment, not even irritation. Just the quiet certainty that none of this mattered anymore.
In the kitchen, the soup I'd simmered the day before our anniversary still sat on the stove. I'd planned for us to share it that evening when he came home.
I lifted the lid. The smell hit me first, sour and spoiled. I poured it down the drain, scrubbed the pot clean, and put it back in the cabinet.
Three years of marriage, and this kitchen was mine. I knew every pot, every pan, every utensil better than the lines on my own palm.
Conrad didn't even know where the gas valve was, let alone how to cook.
I used to think that was my way of loving him. Keeping him out of the grease and the heat. Making sure he never had to lift a finger.
But now, staring at the spotless stovetop, all I felt was the irony.
He wouldn't step into this kitchen for me. Not once. But he'd tie on an apron and stand at Alberta's stove, making her meals with his own hands, and let her photograph the whole thing and broadcast it to the world.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I assumed it was a follow-up call from the hospital, but when I pulled it out, it was a screenshot from a mutual friend. Alberta had posted again half an hour ago.
In the photo, Conrad was leaning back on a couch, his head resting lightly against Alberta's shoulder. They held the same slice of cake between them. The caption read：With him here, every day feels like an anniversary.
The location tag on Alberta's post was a bakery just blocks from the apartment Conrad and I shared.
I stared at the screen for three seconds, then locked my phone without changing expression. I didn't even feel the urge to read the comments.
There was a time when something like this would have made my chest ache so badly I couldn't breathe. I would have turned it over and over in my head, desperate to understand why he treated me this way, humbling myself with excuse after excuse.
He's just softhearted. He's just loyal to old friends. He's just confused right now.
But that day at the hospital, when he told Alberta, “She's not going anywhere,”
I finally understood. Conrad was certain I would never leave him. I would always be the one who came running whenever he called.
And yet, back in college, he was the one who pursued me first.
We had just started school. My mind was on nothing but my studies. After we crossed paths a few times, he began chasing me.
