“Something isn’t right,” a voice inside me screamed. “Something is very, very wrong, Anna.”
My gut whispered that something wasn’t adding up. But instead of asking Eric outright, I decided to keep an eye on him.
Little did I know how much my world was about to change. One morning, I got up early, careful not to wake the boys. I stood by the window, watching as Eric laced up his pristine running shoes and grabbed his water bottle.
“Going for a run?” I asked casually, leaning against the doorway, my voice deliberately light. “Yep,” he said, barely glancing at me. The coldness in his tone was unmistakable.
I gave him a small smile, even though my stomach felt like it was tied in knots. “Be safe,” I whispered. He nodded and headed out the door, not looking back.
I waited a few minutes before grabbing my car keys and following him. My hands trembled slightly on the steering wheel. “What am I doing?” The rational part of my mind screamed.
“This isn’t me. I’m not the type of woman who follows her husband.”
But something deeper and primal drove me forward. At first, everything seemed normal.
He jogged down the street, his pace steady and unremarkable. I stayed far enough behind so that he wouldn’t notice me. I was guilty but I had no choice.
After two blocks, he slowed down. Then, he turned down a quiet residential street. That’s when things got STRANGE.
Eric stopped in front of a modest blue house — nothing fancy, but well-kept. He glanced around, as if checking to see if anyone was watching, then pulled a key out of his pocket and let himself in. I sat in my car, FROZEN.
“What the hell?” I whispered to myself, a cold fear spreading through my veins. After a few moments, I got out and walked quietly up to the house. I felt ridiculous, like some kind of amateur detective, but I had to know what was going on.
My mind raced with a thousand possibilities, each more terrifying than the last. I peeked through the window, and my stomach dropped. There he was — my husband — wrapped around HER.
Lucy. His new secretary. The woman I’d welcomed into our home.
The woman I’d trusted. I watched in stunned silence as they kissed, laughing like two people without a care in the world. Their intimacy was casual and comfortable…
like this wasn’t a new affair. This was something that had been happening for a while. My hands shook as I pulled out my phone and snapped a few pictures of them.
Betrayal burned through me like acid. Memories flashed: our wedding day, the births of our sons, and the quiet moments of shared laughter. I wanted to scream, barge in, and demand an explanation.
But I forced myself to stay calm and I stormed back to my car. “Not yet,” I told myself. “Not yet, Anna.
This isn’t the time for confrontation.”
My hands were trembling, and my face felt hot with anger. I couldn’t stop replaying what I’d seen — the way he touched her, the way he looked at her… the way they both…
Oh my God. “Fourteen years,” I thought. “Fourteen years reduced to this moment of betrayal.”
But I wasn’t going to fall apart.
If Eric wanted to betray me, I was going to make sure he REGRETTED it… BIG TIME. My hands shook as I pulled over and walked into a small print shop, the photos burning a hole in my phone’s gallery.
The man behind the counter greeted me with a polite smile, but I barely managed to nod back. “Can you print these?” I asked as I slid my phone across the counter. He glanced at the images briefly, his brows rising slightly, but he didn’t say a word.
He just nodded and got to work. Each click of the printer felt like a bullet of revenge. My heart pounded as the images began sliding out, vivid and damning.
I stared at the glossy prints, anger coursing through me like fire. “He thinks he can do this to me? To our family?” I thought.
By the time the man handed me the stack of photos, my grip was steady, and my resolve unshakable. “Thank you,” I said curtly, tucking the prints into my bag. Walking out of the shop, I couldn’t help but smirk to myself.
“This is going to hurt, Eric. And you deserve every second of it.”
I grabbed the photos I’d taken and headed straight to his office. I wasn’t subtle about it.
I marched in, ignoring the startled glances from his employees, and started pinning copies of the photos to every desk. Each one had a caption scrawled in bold red letters:
“Look at your perfect boss,” I muttered under my breath. “Look at the man you respect.
He’s in her house right now!”
Gasps filled the room as people stared at the images, their whispers growing louder with each passing second. I saw shock, disgust, and disbelief spreading across their faces. Some looked away.
Some stared, transfixed. And some started whispering things. Ten minutes later, I heard the sound of the door slamming open, and there he was — Eric, his face red with fury.
“Anna, what the hell are you doing?”
“Oh, don’t play dumb,” I said, crossing my arms. “Your employees deserve to know the kind of boss they’re working for. The kind of husband you are.”
His eyes darted to the photos, and for a moment, he looked panicked.
The confident man from the blue house was gone. Now, he looked like a child caught in a lie. But then he composed himself, his voice lowering dangerously.
“We need to talk. Now.”
I smiled, tossing my car keys at him. “Oh, we absolutely do.”
We argued the entire ride home.
“You had no right —” Eric began, his voice desperate. “No right? You had no right to destroy our family.
What were you thinking, Eric? Did you even think about Max and Stuart?”
Tears threatened to spill, but I fought them back. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me break.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he muttered, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Wasn’t supposed to be like what?” I screamed. “A lying, cheating husband?
A father who betrays his family?”
“No, Anna —”
“Then how was it supposed to be, Eric? You cheat on me, lie to our kids, and sneak around with your secretary, but hey, as long as you’re happy, right? You’re free to do anything you please…
only because you’re a man, right?”
A flash of shame crossed his face. For a moment, I saw the man I married — the man who used to look at me like I was his whole world. He didn’t respond.
The silence was deafening. When we got home, I grabbed my things and locked myself in the bedroom, ignoring his pleas to talk. Each knock on the door felt like another betrayal.
I wasn’t ready to listen… not yet. Not when my entire world had just shattered into a million pieces.
I refused to talk to him after that. And within the next few days, Eric’s business was in shambles. When word of his rendezvous with his secretary became public, employees began resigning in large numbers.
No one wanted to work for a man who promoted mistresses instead of merit. Each resignation was another nail in the coffin of his professional reputation. I filed for divorce a week later.
The paperwork felt like liberation — each signature a step towards healing. When I told the boys, Max was quiet for a long time. The silence was heavy, laden with disappointment and confusion.
Finally, he looked up, his eyes filled with a pain no 13-year-old should ever have to experience. “I always thought Dad was a hero,” he said softly. “Guess I was wrong.”
Those words shattered something inside me.
Not because of Eric, but because of the innocence my son had lost. Hearing those words broke my heart, but I knew I’d done the right thing. The last time I saw Eric, he looked like a shell of himself.
His business was gone, his reputation was ruined, and Lucy? She’d left him for someone with a bigger bank account. Gone was the confident man who used to stride through life.
In his place was a broken, desperate stranger. “Anna,” he pleaded on the road. “I made a mistake.
Please… can we fix this?”
The audacity. The absolute audacity of that request. I stared at him for a long moment, letting his words hang in the air.
Every memory of our marriage — the good and the bad — flickered through my mind like an old movie reel. Then I smiled… a cold, empty smile that didn’t reach my eyes.
“You know, Eric, you were right about one thing. Jogging really does clear your head.”
And with that, I turned and walked away to my new apartment, leaving him to deal with the mess he’d made.
