Liam's shower ran for exactly eight minutes. I knew because I counted.
The moment I heard the water kick on, I moved.
No cane. No shuffling. No tilted head searching for sound. I walked through the apartment like I owned it—because I did, once. My bare feet were quiet on the hardwood. I went straight to the bathroom door first. It was cracked open two inches, steam curling through the gap.
He was facing the mirror. His back was to me.
I raised my phone and steadied my hand. There it was, on the left side of his chest—a cursive script, dark ink, slightly raised at the edges like it was still healing. *Haisley.* Her name. On his body. I took three photos. Clear. Timestamped.
I didn't feel anything. That surprised me. I thought I would. Instead I just thought: *folder.*
I moved to the bathroom cabinet next. His side: razor, cologne, deodorant. Her side—and yes, it was her side, I could see that now—was full. Pink moisturizer. A travel-size dry shampoo. The same perfume bottle I'd found yesterday, but also a backup. A spare toothbrush. A box of her brand of birth control.
Seven years. She'd been here for seven years and I never knew.
I photographed all of it. Then I went to his phone on the nightstand. Still unlocked. He always left it unlocked around me. Why wouldn't he? I was blind.
I opened his texts with Haisley. I scrolled fast, reading in chunks. There were hundreds of messages. Thousands, maybe. I didn't have time for all of them. I screenshotted the most recent thread and stopped on one message from four days ago. His words.
*Three more days and we're done with her.*
I read it twice. Then I screenshotted it and uploaded everything to the cloud before I heard the shower shut off. I was back in bed with my eyes closed and the cane propped against the nightstand by the time he walked out.
---
Haisley arrived at seven.
Liam called it a wedding planning meeting. He said it with a straight face, standing in our kitchen, pouring wine. I sat at the dining table with my hands folded and my cane against my chair and I said, *Oh, that's so thoughtful of her to come.*
I heard the exact moment she settled onto his lap. The shift in his voice. The low laugh he tried to swallow. I kept eating. Pasta. It was good, actually. I'd made it myself.
My left hand dropped to my pocket and pressed the voice memo app. One tap. Recording.
I set my fork down and turned toward the sound of them. I aimed my face slightly to the left of where they actually were—old habit, from the blind years—and said, "Liam, did you ever confirm the honeymoon hotel? I keep forgetting to ask."
A half-second pause. His hand probably stopped moving on her waist.
"Yeah, baby," he said. Smooth. Practiced. "The Amalfi place. Five nights. It's all set."
"Wonderful," I said. I picked up my fork again. "Haisley, you must be so tired, helping with all of this."
Her voice was sweet as poison. "I don't mind at all. You know I'd do anything for you two."
"I know," I said. "I know you would."
I ate the rest of my pasta and let the recorder run.
---
I waited until two in the morning.
Liam slept on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. He snored lightly. I watched him for a moment—really looked at him, maybe for the first time since I got my sight back. He looked younger when he slept. Softer. I tried to find the man I'd loved in that face.
I didn't find him. Maybe he was never there.
I slipped out of bed and went to his home office. The door was unlocked. I sat in his chair and opened his laptop. He used the same password he'd had for four years—our anniversary date. I logged into his email.
It didn't take long to find what I was looking for.
A forwarded travel itinerary. Two first-class tickets. Milan. Departing the day after our wedding. The names on the booking were Liam Shaw and Haisley Mendez.
Below that, a draft email to someone named R. Holloway at a law firm I didn't recognize. The subject line was *Re: Lease Removal — E. Vasquez.* The body was three short paragraphs. Clinical. Clean. He'd written it like he was canceling a subscription.
I photographed everything. Every page. Every line.
Then I sat there in his chair for a moment, in the dark, in the quiet apartment where my name was already being erased, and I felt something settle in my chest. Not peace exactly. Something harder than that.
Readiness.
I closed the laptop, walked back to the bedroom, and lay down beside him. I stared at the ceiling—white, textured, beautiful—and kept my eyes wide open.
Three more days.
Fine by me.
