When Old Days Burn Out

I tore through every post on my cousin Julian's account like a man possessed.

The first one went up five years ago. Wedding photos. The caption read, [I finally got to take wedding photos with the woman I've loved for a long time. She loves being in front of a camera. We shot all day and she never got tired.]

My eyes burned. Because the day before that post went up, Claire and I had taken our own wedding photos.

In Julian's pictures, Claire smiled. She played along when he suggested a pose. When he kissed her, she went red to the ears. When she'd taken photos with me, her face had been blank the whole afternoon.

Photo after photo filled in five years I'd never known existed. They'd traveled all over the world for destination shoots, one side of the planet to the other.

Claire's a workaholic. At our own wedding she was still answering messages minutes before she walked into the ceremony. Somehow she'd found the time to fly out with Julian every couple of weeks for another shoot.

The last five years started replaying in my head. All those nights she worked late. The weekends when a business trip came up out of nowhere. The anniversaries she missed because the company was slammed. Every excuse had a post to match it.

The week my boss was making my life hell, the two of them were wrapped in the same blanket under the northern lights in Iceland. The night I was in the hospital after my accident, alone, they were kissing outside a little stone church in New Zealand.

Claire had cut her time in half. Half for me, half for Julian. Except my half was always the damaged half.

My chest hurt so badly I could hardly breathe.

I opened my chat with Claire. Her last message had come that afternoon.

[Emergency trip came up. Don't wait up.]

Since the wedding she'd been out all night for work constantly. I always called. She almost never picked up. Sometimes she'd answer the next day, and sometimes her assistant answered for her.

Ryan Cole. My best friend since we were kids. He kept me posted on her schedule, where she was and who she was meeting and when she'd be back, and he'd joked more than once that as long as he was around, Claire would never get the chance to cheat on me.

I called her the way I always did. No answer. A few minutes later, Ryan called back.

"Ethan, Claire had too much to drink and couldn't get to her phone. We're already checked in at the hotel. Don't worry about her."

I was staring at Julian's newest post. He'd screenshotted a message from Claire.

[Not working late tonight. Coming home to you.]

For the first time, I asked. "Are you sure? Are you really on a trip?"

Ryan paused. Then he laughed. "What, you don't trust me now?"

I didn't ask anything else. I hung up, and the tears came before I realized I was crying.

Everyone had lied to me. Even the one person I trusted most.

I went back to that first post and typed a comment under it.

[You took my wife and you're still too ashamed to put it on your real account. I guess even you know what that makes you.]

I hit send.