I had to hold it together. Now wasn't the time to bring up divorce. With what I had on him so far, filing now wouldn't hurt him badly enough.
I was going to drag him all the way down. Three years of marriage, and I would make him answer for every single one.
Early the next morning, he knocked on the bedroom door, careful and soft. ：“Babe, the company's sending me on a last-minute trip. I'll be back in about a week.”
“Take some time to cool down. We'll talk properly when I get back.”
I didn't answer. After he went downstairs, I stood by the window and watched him climb into the white Mercedes.
The moment Martin was gone, I logged into his phone cloud backup.
His password hadn't changed. Still our wedding anniversary.
Everything was there in the cloud: every chat log, every photo, every video. Most of them were about Eleanor Butler. The earliest message dated back to last March.
“Baby, it's getting cold today. Bundle up!”
“You're so sweet, hubby. Love you!”
Last March. He'd told me the company had landed a major project. Working until the small hours every night, sometimes sleeping at the office.
Now the truth was obvious. He'd been in the thick of a new romance with Eleanor.
I kept scrolling.
“Does your wife know you transfer money to me every month?”
“She doesn't handle the finances. No way she'd find out. Relax, she's too stupid to notice.”
“But what if she finds out about us?”
“Then we divorce. Honestly, ever since I got with you, I've been done with her. Just looking at her face makes me sick.”
My hands were shaking so hard I could barely hold the phone. I wanted to tear Martin apart with my bare hands.
Everything I'd given him, and to him it was just proof I was gullible.
How had I ever been blind enough to fall for this man?
Over the next two days, I gathered every piece of evidence I could think of.
Martin's bank statements showed that starting last March, he'd been transferring twenty thousand dollars a month to Eleanor like clockwork.
On our anniversary last year, he'd sent me a fifty-dollar digital gift. And I'd been so stupidly happy about it the entire day.
On my birthday, he'd been at some off-site meeting. Didn't even call.
On Eleanor's birthday, he'd booked a Michelin-starred restaurant. Twenty-three thousand on the card.
But the thing that broke me was a photo I found in his cloud backup: a purchase contract for a condo at Moonview Bay.
Martin had taken me there once to look at the units. I'd fallen in love with a river-view apartment the second I saw it.
I handed him my savings for the down payment. Spent months counting the days until it was finished, dreaming about moving in.
Then he told me the developer's funding had collapsed. The project was dead. The down payment was gone.
And I'd been fool enough to comfort him. Told him not to make himself sick over it.
Now, staring at the names on that purchase contract—Martin Delgado and Eleanor Butler—I finally understood. I was the biggest joke under the sun.
I was nearly done compiling everything when a friend request from Eleanor popped up on my phone.
The moment I accepted, she started sending photos.
Their fingers laced together. His face in profile while he slept. The soup I'd spent hours making for him, dumped into a trash can.
I knew exactly what she was doing. Trying to provoke me. I didn't give her a single word.
The harder she pushed, the quieter I stayed.
And the quieter I stayed, the more it gnawed at her.
A guilty conscience doesn't fear a fight. It fears being ignored.
