I let my husband’s friend stay in our guest room for one week, and I thought I was uncovering an affair. Instead, what I found under her bed forced me to face a betrayal far stranger – and far more devastating – than anything I had imagined. By the time my husband, Drew, asked if Lila could stay with us, I’d already wiped down the kitchen counters twice and lined up the spice rack.
That was what stress did to me. It didn’t make me cry first; it made me tidy up. “She has nowhere else to go, Aria,” Drew said.
“Her apartment’s gone. It’s just for a week, maybe two.”
I kept scrubbing a clean counter. “You haven’t mentioned Lila in years.”
“We reconnected a few months ago.”
I looked up.
“A few months ago?”
He nodded. “Aria, please. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t serious.”
That should have bothered me more than it did.
But after seven years of IVF clinics, shots, failed transfers, and careful heartbreak, I had started to hate the version of myself that looked suspicious all the time. So I said yes.
Lila arrived two days later with one suitcase and a tired smile. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“The guest room is down the hall,” I said. Drew stepped past me and took her suitcase. “And watch the loose board by the linen closet,” he told her.
I turned. “I didn’t know you remembered that.”
He paused. “I almost tripped on it once, Aria.”
Lila moved through the house carefully, but not like a guest.
She moved like someone trying not to disturb a place that was already settled. ***
That first night, Drew made her tea in my favorite mug. The next afternoon, my best friend, Naomi, called while I was reorganizing the fridge.
“You’re stress-cleaning,” she said. “Girl, you once polished a toaster because your aunt asked if you were nervous.”
I shut the fridge and picked up my phone, turning off the speak. “Drew’s college friend is staying with us for a while.”
Naomi sighed.
“That’s why your voice sounds strained.”
I glanced down the hallway. “Something feels off.”
“In what way?”
“Different how?”
I hesitated. ‘I woke up at two this morning, and he wasn’t in bed.
He was standing outside her door with his face pressed to it.’
“Doing what?”
“Listening, I think.”
“Oh, absolutely not, Aria. This sounds creepy.”
“No,” Naomi said. “You always say that right before you start explaining away your own instincts.”
“I don’t want to be cruel.”
Naomi’s voice softened.
The story doesn’t end here – it continues on the next page.
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