Nine Years Wasted The Betrayal That Set Her Free

Keith tugged at the corner of his mouth but didn't argue. He just looked up at me. I could barely imagine what I looked like right now. I was standing on the display platform in a wedding gown worth a fortune, seven or eight attendants fussing around me, showering me with compliments. I should have looked beautiful. Happy. But my heart felt like it was splitting apart. Keith's gaze settled on my face. "How does it look?" I asked, my voice trembling. Other people were still in the room. I tried to force a smile for him. But before my lips could even finish curving upward, he had already looked away. "It's fine." The attendants exchanged uneasy glances. One of them tried to smooth things over. "Mr. Harding, if this style isn't to your liking, we have other options. Perhaps Miss Mason could try—" "No need." Keith didn't even lift his head from his phone. "They all look the same." His phone buzzed again. He stood abruptly and headed for the door. Before it closed behind him, I heard his voice—low, warm, tender. "Why the sudden call?" Every pair of eyes in the room landed on me with unspoken pity. I opened my phone. The latest post from the anonymous thread was the man asking for advice. My little secretary wants a lipstick. Which shade suits her best? In the photo, a young woman was wearing a lucky charm pendant around her neck. Years ago, when Keith had just started his company, I'd gone to a temple to pray for his success. I climbed nine hundred and ninety-nine stone steps on my knees, bowing at every single one, just to have that pendant blessed. When he saw the state of me afterward, his eyes went red. He cursed me for being superstitious. But he wore it anyway. Nine years straight, never once taking it off. Once, at a business dinner, a potential investor joked that if Keith would just remove it for one minute, he'd throw in a few million dollars for free. Keith's response was to pick up his glass of red wine and pour it down the man's suit. "Something from the woman I love isn't here for your entertainment." But now, on my screen, someone had asked about that same pendant. And his answer was: My little secretary likes it. So I let her have it. No big deal. When I stepped out of the bridal shop, I realized Keith had already driven off with the car. I walked home, refreshing the thread over and over. Most of the posts were complaints about me. He said I was childish for building snowmen in the winter. Yet in the blazing heat of summer, he'd told me he was away on business—while he was really boarding an Arctic cruise with Sophie. He said I was always hung up on meaningless gestures, that my obsession with sentimental occasions left him numb with boredom. He said every gift I gave him felt exactly the same. But then he turned around and set off fireworks all night long to celebrate his fifty-second day of knowing Sophie. He said that when he went out to dinner with Sophie, I'd call three, four, five times to check up on him, ruining the mood. That night was my thirtieth birthday. I'd thought he'd forgotten. I just wanted to remind him. But he hadn't forgotten. In the thread, his tone was indulgent, almost affectionate. The girl insisted I spend my girlfriend's birthday with her instead. Even snatched the birthday gift I'd bought for my girlfriend. But that bratty little look she gets when she knows she has me wrapped around her finger—it's kind of adorable. Guess I'll just spend more time with her from now on. In the photo, two people were pressed close together. Behind them was the apartment Keith and I had bought for our future together. I couldn't understand how everything had come to this. Because years ago, he had held my hand and sworn to me with such certainty. "Sarah, I'm going to give you the best of everything." "I'll make you the most beautiful bride." For the sake of that promise, he'd drunk himself into a hospital bed at a business dinner, vomiting blood from a ruptured stomach lining. I sat beside him, crying so hard I could barely breathe. But he reached for my hand and smiled through the pain, trying so hard to comfort me.

"What are you crying about?" "I bought life insurance." "If the drinking actually kills me, at least you won't have to suffer alongside me anymore." Now the villa cost well over a hundred thousand a square foot, and the underground garage was lined with luxury cars we never could have dreamed of back then. But my eyes were on the screen. The little minx has all sorts of tricks up her sleeve. She says on our wedding night, she wants me to get my girlfriend drunk and then sleep next to her. The comments below treated it like a joke. But when I pushed open the door, the housekeeper was carrying cases of hard liquor into the wine cellar, box after box. Why? We had been one single step away from happiness. That night, I drank too much. I stumbled out of the villa and got lost. Disoriented, I called him. I didn't remember what I said. All I remembered was crying. Nonstop. Keith was always terrified of my tears. His panic sounded exactly the way it used to. "What's wrong, baby? I'm working overtime. Why are you crying? Did someone upset you?" In the background, a woman's voice, soft and coaxing, urged him along. He said something to her. I couldn't make it out. I just kept crying into the phone, repeating the same words over and over. "I can't find my way home!" "I don't have a home anymore!" "You don't want me anymore!" Keith's voice turned urgent. "Stay where you are. Don't move. I'm coming to find you right now." "Can you do that for me? Just stay put?" "Okay." I nodded hard, gripping the phone, confirming again and again. "You'll come back to me, right?" Silence on the other end. I thought I heard the faint rustle of someone getting dressed. When Keith spoke again, his voice had gone soft, the way you'd soothe a frightened child. "Of course. I promise." "Before sunrise, I'll take you home." He had never lied to me before. He would come back to me. Holding on to that thought, I collapsed on the steps and fell into a deep sleep. In my dream, I was in our home, mine and Keith's. There was a soft bed. On the vanity sat a framed photo of us together. He was still that boy who used to bike miles through pouring rain just to bring me roasted chestnuts. A gentle breeze drifted past me. Warm sunlight settled on my eyelids. Car horns and the hurried footsteps of strangers bled together. I opened my eyes. A moment of blank confusion, then my phone buzzed, late and insistent. I tapped in. The thread had been updated with a new photo. A rumpled bed. A woman's bare back. Someone in the comments had tracked down the hotel name. I looked up. There it was, spelled out across the massive revolving doors. The same name. The hangover made me a beat too slow to put it together. Over the past eight hours, all Keith had to do was walk downstairs. No, he wouldn't even have needed to do that. One glance out the floor-to-ceiling windows, and he would have seen his girlfriend passed out on the street. But he didn't. He was upstairs, having the time of his life. I was downstairs, dead drunk on the pavement. Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the numbness that floods in when grief hits its absolute limit. Either way, once I'd worked through all of it, a strange calm settled over me. I texted the housekeeper and asked her to pack my things. Then I booked the next available flight. And finally, I dialed Keith's number. A few seconds later. A familiar ringtone went off behind me. I turned around. The first thing I saw. Hickeys. Covering Keith's neck. A whole constellation of them.