Our Love Ends Where His Lies Begin

Sela's POV

I sat motionless on the couch until late into the night.

Finally, Shawn walked in carrying a large bag of groceries.

"Have you eaten dinner?" he asked.

I didn't answer.

He opened the refrigerator, took out a bowl of leftovers covered with plastic wrap, and tossed the entire thing into the trash without even looking at it.

"Stop eating junk like this. I'll hire a maid for you. And a nutritionist. I'll give you a monthly allowance of 15 thousand dollars, plus a credit card linked to my account.

"We won't live like we're broke anymore. Whatever you want, I'll buy it for you, okay?"

Before this, Shawn had only given me 400 dollars a month. He'd said that it was half his salary.

I'd scrimped and saved. I'd haggled with the elderly women at the farmers market and rushed to supermarkets to get discounted groceries. I'd done craftwork every night, under a single lamp, just so we could save up enough money for a house of our own.

Each time, I'd worked on my crafts late into the night, until my eyes grew blurry and my heart became blind—blind to who the man sleeping next to me really was, not knowing who he was anymore.

"What else have you lied to me about?" I asked.

Shawn stiffened, but he didn't answer. Instead, he turned around and walked into the kitchen.

I picked up the phone he'd tossed onto the couch. I'd never checked it before, so he'd never bothered setting a password.

I went through every single app. And then, I discovered that he'd saved my contact as "housekeeper".

My heart went completely cold.

I continued searching until I eventually found the person he'd saved as "Wifey". It was the woman I'd seen at the supermarket earlier today. When I clicked into her social media page, I found plenty of photos, mostly pictures of the two of them together.

Whenever Shawn told me he was traveling for work, he'd been lying. He'd actually been vacationing with this woman.

When I had been hospitalized with appendicitis and in so much pain I couldn't get out of bed, he'd been overseas attending fashion shows with her. His phone had been turned off the entire time. No calls went through, and all my texts went unanswered.

In the end, I'd struggled through the discharge procedures alone, went home, and lay in bed for several days. I lost over ten pounds during that time.

When Shawn finally came back, the first thing he said was, "Why did you send me so many messages while I was working? I don't have time to look at them."

I'd sympathized with how hard he worked, so from that point on, I shared only the good news and kept my worries to myself.

Little did I know, he just couldn't be bothered with me.

As I continued to scroll, I found a photo of Shawn sleeping on a lounge chair, with the woman and the little boy nestled in his arms, a picture of absolute bliss.

The caption read, "The happiness of a family of three".

I took a deep breath and used Shawn's phone to call that woman. She picked up almost instantly.

"Hello, honey—"

I cut her off.

"Do you know that Shawn has a family?"