The Anniversary Gift

Never would Audrey Lockwood have imagined that the night she planned to save her marriage would be the night the marriage would come crumbling down.

She had been cooking for four hours. Not that the kitchen had been particularly cooperative. Two failed attempts at her husband’s favorite herb-crusted salmon, a pot of risotto she had had to start from scratch and a smoke alarm she had silenced with a kitchen towel.

Audrey wasn't the best cook and she knew it but tonight was different. Tonight, she needed everything to be perfect. 

 She stood back and surveyed the dining table— candles, Derek's favourite wine, his favourite meals — and her phone buzzed against the counter.

She almost didn't reach for it. She was used to it being nothing — a spam email or a package notification. But when she flipped it over and saw Derek's name on the screen, her heart leapt. Derek never texted her, he rarely even talked to her, but here he was, sending a text on their third anniversary day.

She opened the message.

[Come to Lorelia Hotel — Room 1704. I have a surprise for you. Can't wait to see you, baby.]

Audrey couldn't believe her eyes. 

Room 1704. The Lorelia Hotel. The exact suite they had stayed in on their wedding night, three years ago to this day.

He remembered.

She pressed her hand flat against her chest trying to contain all the feelings that crashed over her all at once. The excitement, the happiness, the hope, made her heart flutter in ways it hadn't in so long. He actually remembered something about their marriage.

He was finally seeing her. 

Their marriage was finally working after so long. 

Oh, what a lucky charm their baby was.

She couldn't wait to show him the ultrasound and start a family with him. She couldn't wait to see the excitement on his face when she told him that she was finally pregnant. After trying so many times. 

She rushed upstairs and changed quickly into a soft ivory dress, it was simple but elegant and Derek once mentioned in passing that the dress looked good on her. She put on a little mascara and a touch of gloss and smiled at herself in the mirror.

She grabbed the blue velvet box sitting on the vanity table and wrapped the positive pregnancy result and the ultrasound in it, slipped it in her handbag, and dashed out of the house.

In barely forty five minutes, the cab pulled over in front of the hotel and Audrey stepped out. The Lorelia Hotel rose against the Seattle skyline magnificently, she took one look at the tall building and smiled the way she had on the night of her wedding. 

Her heart continued to feel giddy as she stepped into the elevator and pressed seventeen.

The mirrored doors slid shut and her reflection looked back at her. She looked beautiful and hopeful.

This was it, she told herself. This was what she had always been waiting for. Her husband, Derek was finally seeing her. He finally sees her.

She had prayed for days like this, she had cried for days like this and now she finally had her husband back. She rubbed her tummy gently with a happy smile as the elevator dinged and opened her to the seventeenth floor.

She stepped out of the elevator and with every step she took, she couldn't contain her excitement and anticipation. Soon, she was almost standing in front of Room 1704. 

But as she approached the door, she noticed that a white light was peeking through, spreading over the marble floor. The door was slightly open.

Audrey's heart fluttered again, Derek definitely left the door open because he was expecting her. He was really doing all the things he had never done before. 

She carefully pushed the door open and called out his name softly, “Derek…”

Music was playing in the background and not just any music, it was their wedding song. The song she walked down the aisle to.

Her heart pounded but she wasn't sure anymore if it was still excitement or anticipation, because a terrible, unfamiliar feeling had settled in the pit of her stomach.

Then she allowed herself to take in the suite, it was beautifully decorated. There were dimly lot candles everywhere and rose petals trailing from the living area to the bedroom.

Audrey smiled happily again, was this why he hadn't come home in days? Because he was busy planning all these for her?

Then her gaze fell on the round table by the window— a bouquet of flowers. Lilies.

Her favourite flowers.

Her heart melted instantly, she picked up the flower bouquet as tears welled up in her eyes. Derek had never done anything like this. 

She made her way to the bedroom, trailing the rose petals and following the sound of their wedding song playing. “Oh Derek, this is so–”

She paused abruptly mid-sentence because a loud female laugh spread across the suite and drowned out her voice. 

“Oh my god, and she still believe you love her? How do you even still fuck that thing?” The female voice said with mockery. 

She didn't know how but her legs still carried her further into the bedroom and she reached the doorway and paused. Her body stopped moving.

Like flash, all the feelings she had been feeling since she received Derek's text disappeared. All the excitement, hope, flutters and anticipation, she had been feeling were replaced with something else.

Hurt, shock, disbelief and devastation, all at once as she took in the scene in front of her. Sprawled on the king sized bed in the bedroom was Derek. He was shirtless and not alone.

A woman sat on him, caressing his bare chest with her perfectly manicured fingers. 

But it was not just any woman. 

Audrey felt her legs wobble under her. 

The woman sitting on Derek, kissing him like her life depended on it, was her very own best friend, her friend who listened while she ranted about her marriage like a fool, her friend who always comforted her whenever Derek hurt her.

Her best friend of ten years, Regina.

Her heart pounded heavily and dropped in her stomach, her chest hurt physically as if it was being stomped on.

How…? Why…?

How could they do this to her? How could Regina betray her like this? Sleeping with her husband?? Why??

She felt her legs become jelly. She staggered backwards, all her limbs lost their strength and she almost dropped to the floor. Her body was frozen. She couldn't move. She couldn't think. She couldn't breathe.

Everything around her blurred. The man she loved and sacrificed everything for, for years, the father of her unborn child, was in bed with her best friend, the one person she trusted with her life, in the same hotel suite they had their wedding night.

Audrey felt a wave of nausea rise from her stomach and she quickly had to swallow her saliva before she bawled her breakfast on the carpet.

Suddenly, Derek's voice rang through the room, he sounded disgusted as he said, “Eww, I haven't fucked that parasite in weeks. The last time we had sex, I almost died of boredom. Audrey is good for nothing, not even for sex.”

Regina laughed heartily at what he said. Audrey’s stomach turned and her chest hurt again as she watched Derek kiss Regina harder again— he hadn't even kissed her in so long.

Then he added, “She's nothing more than a stay at home wife. You are the one I've always wanted. You know that, right?”

“Of course, I know,” Regina purred. “If only that thing you call a wife was not so desperate to marry you, I would have had you to myself.”

When she heard those words, the remaining world left for Audrey crumbled right before her eyes. The room spun around and she staggered back.

As if they had a mind of their own, her legs took a shaky step back, and then several others, until she turned around and ran out of the suite, leaving behind the moans and pants of her husband and her best friend.