I'm Second Place in My Own Marriage

I looked up the cafe.

Following the location tags, I found my way to Lindsay's profile.

She shot on film and posted pictures of cats, skies, the river at night, and pour-over coffee. She had a quiet and clean presence, like a blank page.

I kept scrolling down until my finger froze on a photo of a night scene.

I knew that riverside all too well. During college, Lionel and I had walked there countless times. I could recognize the railing, the streetlamp, and the shadow of the bridge in the distance with my eyes closed.

The caption simply read, "Someone took me to see the most beautiful night view in this city."

My breath hitched.

That was my place—our place. But Lionel had already walked it all over again with someone else.

I scrolled further down to a photo of a desk. Tucked into the corner was a fountain pen with a black barrel and a silver clip.

It was the Montblanc I had given Lionel.

Back when he got accepted into his graduate program, I used the money I'd been saving for a long time to buy it for him.

Holding my hand, he had kissed it and said, "I'll think of you every time I use it."

Later, he told me the pen had gone missing at the office. I even turned the house upside down looking for it.

It turned out it wasn't lost. He had given it away.

I brushed my fingers over my hand and found the skin there cold to the touch.

In another post, Lindsay had checked in to a documentary—the exact same one Lionel had suddenly started watching recently.

I had asked him to watch so many movies with me, but he always said they were boring, pointless, and that he'd rather just sleep.

In five years, I hadn't managed to change a single habit of his. Yet, in the three months since Lindsay appeared, he'd changed his preferences and even his hobbies.

I slowly lifted my gaze toward the wardrobe in the bedroom. Lionel had added a lot of new shirts lately, with sharper cuts and colors that weren't so dull anymore.

I had once pulled him in front of a department store mirror and picked out a light gray coat for him, only for him to say, "Us men aren't that fussy when it comes to clothes."

I had signed us up for a couple's gym membership, but he never went even once. I had bought a whole box of hand cream, but he found it too much trouble, so it sat there untouched.

But lately, he'd started working out, wearing cologne, and keeping his hands clean and smooth.

Five years of marriage couldn't change him. Lindsay showed up, and he turned himself into a whole new person overnight.

It turned out he was capable of changing for the better after all—just not for me.

That afternoon, I dug out our wedding video.

In it, Lionel was wearing a black suit, his eyes terribly red. He stood under the lights, holding my hand.

He said, "You'll always be number one in my heart. If that day ever comes when you're not, it will only be because I'm not around anymore."

Back then, I couldn't stop crying. He lifted his hand to wipe my tears, and all the guests were clapping.

I closed the video and laid the screen face down on the desk.

When I looked up again, Lindsay's name was already pressed right up against mine.

That night, Lionel came home very late.

There was a faint hickey on the side of his neck.

He didn't even wait for me to ask before explaining with a smile, "The new shirt collar's a bit scratchy."

With that, he went straight into the bathroom and washed off every trace. After he changed into his pajamas and got into bed, he wrapped his arms around me from behind.

"How was your day, honey?"

He lowered his head and kissed me behind the ear. His breath was warm, his movements practiced and familiar—just like every night for the past five years.

But after he fell asleep, I looked up above his head. In second place was Lindsay. And me? I was in third place.

On the very night he held me, called me "honey", and kissed me, I was finally pushed down to third place by Lindsay.

I lay there with my eyes open. Though not a single tear fell, I felt a chill slowly spread from the depths of my eyes through my entire body.

The next morning, I opened Lindsay's riverside night photo again.

The railing and the streetlamp in the picture looked more and more familiar the longer I stared.

It was only much later that I remembered that just around the bend of that river was the little restaurant near the college we used to go to most often.

So, it wasn't just the fountain pen and the coffee preference. Even the places Lionel and I had walked through countless times, he had already revisited with someone else.

I stared at that photo for a very long time, feeling neither anger nor resentment.

Only one thought remained—I had to go see for myself, to find out just how much sincerity could possibly be left in those old places that once belonged only to me, now that he was using them to sweet-talk someone else.