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“I don’t need a hug. What I need is an explanation,” I said calmly as I pulled the email up on my phone. “Care to explain to me what you’re doing texting my coworker, Janelle?” I’d planned on waiting until after dinner. But I knew I couldn’t hide my anger or hurt.
Mark’s face drained of all color. He pursed his lips, as if he was thinking of something to say. However, he didn’t let that stay visible on his face for long. He quickly pasted a smile on his face and reached out for my phone.
“Clearly, these have been photoshopped,” he said. “I would never. We’re getting married in a week, Laurel. Don’t you trust me?”
I wanted to hurl at that question. If these texts hadn’t come to me, then yes, I would have whole-heartedly trusted him. However, there was something so soulless about his denial. It was as if he believed that I would instantly believe whatever he told me, and that we could go about this as if I had never received these screenshots.
“I’m not stupid. The only photoshopping is where she’s added emojis on the picture to censor—” I fumble for words as I motion to the pictures of my mostly-naked coworker. Strategically placed emojis grin up at me, protecting small shreds of her modesty. “How could you? We’re supposed to get married in a week! Were you ever planning on staying faithful to me?”
The screenshots dated back almost to around the time he had proposed to me. We’d been planning this wedding for two years because Mark wanted to have the largest, most Kardashian-like wedding possible. I would have been fine going to the courthouse to elope, but since it was Mark’s only wish to have a large wedding with all the family present, we had compromised on having a large, laid-back wedding instead of a full-blown celebrity-level wedding.
“I haven’t received any pictures, of any kind, from this woman. And I definitely didn’t send the messages that say they’re from me. I don’t even know her,” Mark said as he reached for my phone.
I kept a good grip on it and pulled away from him. There was no way I was going to allow him to see who had outed him.
“Then, let me see your phone,” I said. “You’ve always asked to use mine, but every time I ask to use yours, you tell me that I have my own phone. When I say that to you, you get mad that you have to get up for five measly minutes to get your phone instead of using the most convenient one… unless you want to text her, I imagine.”
“Why would you want to see my phone? I just told you that I have nothing to hide!” His face was red and his voice started rising in anger.
“Then show me the texts. If these have truly been photoshopped just to ruin our wedding, you would have no issue showing me that you have not been texting or calling this woman.”
I held my free hand out for his phone. Normally, I hated asking to use his phone anyway because I had everything all set up as I liked it on my phone, while he had his apps everywhere for who-knew-what reasons. Today was the only exception.
He begrudgingly handed it over.
We’d put my fingerprint into the lock when he first got his phone. It unlocked easily, and I opened the messages app. It was entirely empty. Not only were there no messages from Janelle, he’d clearly deleted everything, including all his messages from me.
I frowned, and he reached to take his phone back. I held it away, another idea popping into my mind. If he’d added my fingerprint to his lock, maybe he’d added another person as well.
It didn’t take me long to get to that setting, since he kept the settings tab on his homepage. There were four fingerprints in his system, all named. He had both his thumbprints, my right thumbprint, and – oh surprise! He also had one for Janelle.
“If you’re not seeing her, why do you have her fingerprint in your system?”
Mark’s face froze. He’d clearly kept his phone ready for someone to snoop in his messages. The fingerprints must have escaped his memory when he had prepared this for any kind of argument about the possibility that he was cheating.
As he continued to stare at me like a fish gasping for breath, I decided to check his photo gallery. Scrolling back to match the dates on the texts I had seen, I found the same photos that had been suggestively blurred out in the screenshots… except they had not been blurred on his phone. I shoved it back into his hands.
“I’m done,” I said. “I can’t believe you would do this to me for years.” I turned to stalk out of the kitchen.
Mark grabbed my arm. “It’s not natural to be faithful to just one woman at my age! Or as successful as I am. I attract these women like flies come to honey. You want a faithful husband? Good luck finding someone half as successful as me.”
I couldn’t breathe. He continued to talk about his prowess and a bunch of other bull that I didn’t believe was actually true – just all covers for reasons that I should allow him to cheat on me despite him being the one who had proposed to me.
“Mark…”
“If you can’t deal with the reality of being with someone as great as me, then you can get out of my life,” he said. “I don’t need someone who’s just going to hold me down because they believe in unnatural things for someone my age to do. And if you’re going to leave, give me the ring back. I’ll give it to someone who actually wants me, with everything that comes with it.”
I couldn’t move, as much as I wanted to run out of the room and drive as far away from him as possible. When I didn’t move at all, Mark shook me by the arm, shoving me towards the door.
“Ow!”
“Then you should have moved when I gave you the chance,” he said. “You’re no longer welcome here. Get out of my house!”
“Mark! Wait! When can I come and move my stuff?”
The door slammed in my face, leaving me outside in the sunset. I sighed, refusing the urge to knock incessantly on the door and make the argument worse. I took the ring off my finger, but he didn’t get to demand the ring back. It was a gift to me, even if there were strings attached.
Perhaps I could get some money for it if I took it to a good pawn shop. Thankfully, I knew of one I could go to. It was across the street from where I worked, and with this all going downhill fast, I didn’t think that it would be a good idea to return to work. Especially since Janelle would make my life miserable since she had ‘won’ my man.
