Chapter 2

Mabel’s Point of View:

My hand shook as I held the phone against my ear, my cheek damp with sweat from how tightly I had pressed it against my face.

The woman had just said, “He loves me more.”

I tried to speak, but the words seemed to get stuck somewhere in my throat. My eyes wandered around the dining room, searching for something I couldn't even name.

The candles had burned almost completely down. The food I had spent hours preparing sat untouched, cold and unappetizing. The cake I had fussed over all afternoon was still sitting in the middle of the table, the little decorations I had carefully placed around it looking ridiculous now.

A few minutes ago, I had been worried that Dexter had forgotten our anniversary.

Now I was trying to understand how another woman had ended up on his phone at midnight, telling me that my husband loved her more.

What was I supposed to do with that?

I had spent the entire day making everything perfect for him. His favorite food. His favorite color. His favorite cake. I had even made some of the decorations myself because I wanted the evening to feel personal.

And apparently, none of that mattered.

The woman was still waiting on the other end of the call, probably enjoying my silence.

I refused to give her the reaction she wanted.

“Put Dexter on.”

She laughed softly.

For some reason, that little laugh made my stomach twist.

“He's busy.”

My fingers tightened around the phone.

“I said put my husband on the phone.”

For a few seconds, there was silence.

Then I heard a man's voice somewhere in the background.

My breath caught.

Dexter.

I could recognize that voice from anywhere. I had heard it first thing in the morning for years. I had fallen asleep listening to it. I had memorized the way he said my name, the way his voice changed whenever he was tired or irritated.

There was no mistaking it.

He mumbled something I couldn't make out, but it was enough for me to know he was there.

The call ended.

My hand went slack, and the phone slipped from my fingers onto the floor.

I didn't throw anything or scream.

I just sat there.

The ticking of the wall clock suddenly seemed deafening in the silence.

I stared at the phone on the floor for several seconds before bending down to pick it up. My hands were still shaking.

Maybe I had misunderstood.

Maybe it was a business meeting.

Maybe—

I stopped myself.

I called Dexter again. Straight to voicemail.

I tried again, and nothing.

I went through our old messages instead, scrolling past conversations from months ago, then years ago, all the way back to when we were dating.

I had backed those messages up to the cloud because I couldn't bring myself to lose them. At the time, I thought they were little pieces of our history that I would keep forever.

I found a picture from one of our first dates.

We were sitting at a coffee shop, his arm wrapped around my shoulders while he held the phone out for the picture. I was holding the flowers he had bought me, smiling so hard my cheeks looked painful.

He was smiling too.

Back then, he had looked at me like I was the only person in the room.

I remembered how safe I had felt beside him.

How certain I had been that whatever happened, we would figure it out together.

I scrolled a little further and found a message from him: ‘You make me believe I can actually become somebody. I don't know where I'd be without you, Mabel. When I finally have everything I've ever dreamed of, I promise you'll be standing beside me.’

I stared at the message until the words blurred.

My chest tightened.

I remembered reading it for the first time. I remembered smiling at my phone like an idiot, then saving the message because I thought one day we'd look back at it and laugh about how young and ambitious we had been.

I locked my phone. That somehow hurt more.

Maybe the woman was lying.

Maybe she was some obsessed woman who had gotten hold of his phone.

Maybe she was jealous of us.

Maybe Dexter was helping someone.

Maybe—

I exhaled sharply.

“Fuck it.”

I couldn't keep doing this to myself.

Why was I the one sitting here inventing explanations for my husband's behavior?

Why hadn't he explained anything himself?

Because why would another woman be answering my husband's phone at midnight on our anniversary?

That was the one question I couldn't explain away.

I picked up my phone and walked into the living room, then up the stairs. My footsteps echoed through the quiet house.

I went straight to our bedroom.

This was where Dexter should have been.

Beside me, where he had promised to be.

I didn't need some extravagant gift or expensive dinner date. I had never asked him for those things. I had prepared everything by hand. I wanted his presence. I wanted to spend one evening with my husband without feeling like his work was more important than me.

That wasn't asking for too much. It was the fucking bare minimum.

I stopped in front of the mirror.

The woman staring back at me looked nothing like how I felt.

My red dress hugged my body, the tiny beads catching the light whenever I moved. The fitted waist made my figure look even more defined, while my black hair fell to my waist before I had pulled most of it into a high ponytail. I had left two pieces loose at the front and curled them carefully around my face.

My makeup was still intact.

My cheeks were sculpted with contour and blush, my skin smooth beneath the warm bedroom light, and my brown eyes looked brighter than usual because of the soft shimmer I had placed around them.

I had taken my time with everything.

I had wanted to look beautiful for my husband.

I reached for a makeup wipe and started wiping every damn thing.

Slowly, I wiped away the foundation, the blush, the eyeshadow, everything I had spent nearly an hour perfecting.

Then I slipped out of the dress and changed into my pajamas.

I crawled into the bed that should have held both of us and pulled the duvet over myself.

One hour passed, then another.

Sleep refused to come.

Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the woman's voice, “He's with me.”

I turned onto my side, then my back, then the other side.

Eventually, exhaustion won.

I woke to a sound.

Sunlight had already spilled through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors, turning the room bright and painfully cheerful.

For a few seconds, I didn't remember what had happened.

Then I heard it again.

A woman's voice. Not talking.

Instead, moaning.

My eyes flew open.

“Ugh…. What a stupid dream.” I said it aloud because I needed to believe it.

Then I heard another voice.

A man's voice I could recognize even in my sleep.

Dexter.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

I threw the duvet aside and got out of bed so quickly that my feet nearly tangled beneath me. I followed the sound down the hallway until I reached the guest room.

The door was slightly open.

I already knew what I was going to see, but I still looked.

Dexter was in bed, fucking another woman. The sound of their skin smacking each other filled the room.

For a moment, my mind refused to process the scene in front of me. Everything seemed to slow down, like my brain was desperately searching for another explanation.

Then the woman turned.

Blonde hair. Short with bangs. I knew her.

My stomach dropped.

Rosaline.

My best friend.

My entire body went still. I felt heat crawl beneath my skin while the rest of me turned cold. Tiny beads of sweat gathered along my forehead, and I didn't even notice the tear slipping down my cheek until it reached my jaw.

Rosaline looked toward the door. Our eyes met.

I expected shock or guilt or at least fear. Anything.

Instead, her lips curled into the smallest smirk.

Dexter followed her gaze. His eyes met mine, and he didn't flinch.

He didn't scramble out of bed, he didn't look ashamed, he didn't even look surprised.

Instead, he looked annoyed.

That hurt more than seeing him with her.

I had spent years imagining what Dexter would do if he ever hurt me.

I had imagined an apology.

I had imagined panic.

I had imagined him looking at me and realizing what he had done.

I had never imagined irritation.

Rosaline touched his cheek, casually pulling his attention away from me.

I pushed the door open and stepped inside. Ain't no way I'm letting the p**n show go on.

My voice barely came out, “Rosaline?”

She stopped and looked at me.

Then she rolled her eyes before getting off the bed and walking into the bathroom without saying a word.

Dexter sighed.

“Mabel, can we not do this right now?”

I stared at him, “Do what?”

He reached for his clothes, “Make a scene.”

I almost laughed, “A scene?”

He said nothing.

I looked around the room, then back at him, “You're fucking my best friend! She was just about to suck your dick!!”

Dexter looked away.

Rosaline came back from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her body. She walked straight toward Dexter and rested a hand against his head like she was comforting him.

I looked at the two of them, “How long?”

Rosaline stayed quiet.

Dexter answered for her, “A while.”

My eyes snapped toward him, “A while?”

“Don't make this bigger than it is.”

I stared at him.

The words didn't make any sense, because what the fuck was that supposed to mean?

That he didn't think this was big. He didn't think cheating on me was big. He didn't think sleeping with my best friend was big. He didn't think our marriage was big enough to lose over this.

I swallowed.

“Did you see the dining table I set for you?”

He barely glanced at me.

“Mabel.”

“No. Did you?”

“I saw it.”

“And you still did this?”

His expression remained frustratingly calm as he said “Our marriage hasn't been the same for a long time.”

I felt something inside me sink.

“So you decided to sleep with Rosaline?”

“I didn't plan for this to happen.”

I let out a bitter laugh.

“You ACCIDENTALLY ended up naked with my best friend?”

He rubbed his jaw.

“Mabel, I'm tired of being treated like a bad guy for wanting something different.”

I stared at him.

He spoke like this was an inconvenience we needed to discuss, and not the destruction of something we had spent years building.

“When we were younger, you were exactly what I needed,” he said. “You believed in me when nobody else did. You stayed when I had nothing. You supported every stupid idea I had, every little collection, every late night. You made me feel like I could actually build something.”

My eyes burned with tears.

He continued, “But things changed.”

I said nothing.

“My company grew. I have money now. I have a name. I have employees, clients, investors, an entire fashion network depending on me. My life isn't what it was when we met.”

He looked at me, “And neither am I.”

I waited.

His next words came without hesitation, “You were perfect for the life I had before.”

My throat tightened.

The past? That was where he had put me? Not beside him? Behind him.

“And what am I now?” I asked.

His eyes moved over me from head to toe, “You're still….. you.” He paused.

I waited for the rest as his jaw tightened slightly.

“That's the problem.”

I stared at him.

For years, I had thought the things he loved about me were the things that made me his wife.

My patience, my loyalty, the way I remembered how he liked his coffee, the way I stayed awake when he came home late, the way I celebrated every tiny achievement like he had just won the biggest award in the world.

Now he was looking at those same things like they belonged to a version of me he had outgrown.

He wanted someone who matched the man he had become. Someone who understood designer labels, expensive parties and the kind of lifestyle that came with being photographed everywhere.

My eyes moved toward Rosaline. Suddenly, everything made sense.

She was beautiful and confident.

Always dressed like she was on her way to a luxury event. She knew brands I had never cared enough to memorize. She could spend an afternoon shopping without thinking twice about the price tag.

Maybe that was what Dexter wanted now. Someone who fit neatly into the world he had built.

I looked back at him, “So she's better?”

He didn't answer immediately. When he finally did, his voice was almost indifferent, “She understands the life I'm living now.”

That answer hurt more than a “yes” would have.

I looked down at myself. I had never hated my body. I had never needed to compete with my best friend. But for the first time, I wondered if Dexter had been comparing us all along.

“Did you ever love me?”

His face remained unreadable, “I loved what we had.”

My chest tightened, “That isn't what I asked.”

He looked away, “I loved the support you had to offer then.”

Then.

The distinction was almost crueler than the betrayal itself. I looked at him for a long moment.

“I gave you everything!!” My voice cracked, my heart pounding in my chest.

“I appreciated that.”

I blinked.

“Appreciated?”

“What did you want me to do?” he asked. “Spend the rest of my life thanking you for being my wife?”

Rosaline spoke from beside him, “He never forced you to do any of that.”

I looked at her, and suddenly, I understood.

To them, everything I had done was simply what I was supposed to do, not love, not sacrifice, not something I had willingly chosen. Just my responsibility as his partner.

Dexter's eyes hardened, “You act like I owe you because you supported me before I became successful.”

The words went deeper than I wanted them to.

Then Rosaline spoke again, “Why don't you stop lying to her and just tell her the truth, baby?”

Dexter looked at her and nodded.

Rosaline walked toward the nightstand and bent over to open the drawer, the short towel exposing her butt. Papers shuffled inside the drawer before she pulled out a file.

She picked up a pen too, then she walked toward me.

I didn't understand until she held the papers out. I took them.

My eyes moved over the first page.

DIVORCE PAPERS.

For several seconds, I couldn't breathe. My breathe came out hitched. My fingers went numb.

Rosaline watched me with an expression that made my stomach turn.

“Sign it.”

I looked up slowly.

She wasn't asking, she was ordering me, the same person she used to sit to gossip with.

My eyes dropped back to the papers. A line, a name, and a date.

My eyes moved over it again, unable to believe what I was reading.

I looked at her. A small smile appeared on her face.

“Oh.” She said as she placed a hand over her stomach.

“I suppose he should have told you.”

My eyes dropped to her hand then back to her face, “Told me what?”

Dexter remained silent, but Rosaline's smile widened, “I'm pregnant.”

I stared at her, waiting for someone to laugh. Nobody did.

My fingers tightened around the divorce papers until the pages crumpled beneath my grip.

Pregnant?