Tears at Midnight
[No matter how carefully you plan, fate can erase everything with a single stroke.]
The moment I confirmed that Delilah Carter was cheating on me, that post appeared on my phone.
I opened it calmly and scrolled to the comments beneath a thread titled "Unfaithful". Then I added a few lines of my own.
[How unbelievable can it be?]
[A coworker snapped a casual vacation photo and posted it online. Out of thousands of people in the background, my fiancee and my best friend just happened to end up in the same frame.]
[Our wedding is in three days, yet here I am, rushing across the country in the middle of the night to catch them together.]
After posting the comment, I locked my phone. The wallpaper display happened to be our wedding portrait.
Leaning against the white wall of the hotel corridor, I closed my bloodshot eyes in exhaustion.
Only after the intense, frenzied noises inside finally stopped did I raise my hand—still wearing my wedding ring—and knock on the door.
"Who is it?"
Delilah opened the door wearing a silk camisole.
I pushed past her and walked inside.
Marcel Graham froze when he saw me, unsure how to react.
"Cedric Davenport..."
Before he could say anything else, the beautiful Delilah threw herself in front of him. "It was me! I seduced Marcel! Whatever you want to do, take it out on me! Leave him alone!"
They clung to each other like tragic lovers facing the end of the world, desperate to hold on to one another.
I stood silently in the darkness, my expression vacant, as I breathed in the lingering musky scent in the room. I didn't argue or make a scene. I simply committed the moment to memory.
I told myself not to look back or forgive.
Then I opened the invitation to Europe that had been sitting untouched in my inbox for months. On the final day before it expired, I accepted.
From that moment on, the two things I treasured most—love and friendship—became nothing more than illusions.