The flight had been brutal. Twelve hours of recycled air and the relentless drone of engines, but I barely noticed. My head was still spinning from the past few weeks, a blur of hospital corridors and hushed conversations. Coming home felt like both a reprieve and a new kind of dread. He had been so good through it all, sending texts, making sure I ate, even arranging the taxi for my return from the airport. My rock. That’s what I’d always called him.
When I finally landed, the city lights twinkled like a promise through the tiny oval window. A new start. A chance to breathe again. I just wanted to be home, in my own bed, in his arms. The immigration line was mercifully short. I grabbed my carry-on from the overhead compartment, the familiar weight a comfort against my shoulder. Just a few more steps, then a taxi, and then him.
Once in the cab, the hum of the engine was a welcome change from the plane. I slumped back, pulling out my personal bag to find my lip balm. My lips were dry, chapped from the altitude. I rummaged through the usual chaos – wallet, keys, old receipts, a crumpled tissue. My fingers brushed against something hard, smooth, and utterly alien. What is that? It wasn’t my phone. Mine was already in my hand, buzzing with a ‘Welcome Home’ message from him.
I pulled it out. A burner phone. Black, sleek, anonymous. My breath hitched. My heart started to pound, a frantic drum against my ribs. No. It can’t be. Why would this be in my bag? It wasn’t his. His was an older model, a distinctive shade of blue. This was brand new. Panic, cold and sharp, began to spread through my veins. It was hidden deep, tucked beneath my emergency contact lens case and an old scarf. No way I would have missed it packing. No way he would have just ‘accidentally’ put it there.
My hands trembled as I pressed the power button. It flickered to life immediately. No passcode. Just a lock screen with a default image. My thumb, shaking so violently I almost dropped it, swiped up. The screen revealed a single app: messaging. And a gallery. I started with the messages. One contact. Just one. Saved under a mundane, generic name: “Work Contact.”
I tapped it. My eyes scanned the screen, and with each word, the air grew thin, the cab seemed to shrink around me. It was a long thread. Intimate. Flirtatious. Then explicitly sexual. My stomach lurched. It wasn’t just flirting. This was an affair. A full-blown, undeniable, disgusting affair.
My vision blurred. The city lights outside became streaky blurs of colour. I felt a scream rising in my throat, but it was trapped, strangled by the sheer, crushing weight of betrayal. He was cheating on me. My rock. My everything. While I was gone, while I was dealing with unthinkable pain, he was… this.
I scrolled further, numb, detached, a ghost reading a horror story about her own life. The messages got more detailed, more frequent. Dates, times, secret rendezvous. He had even used some of the same pet names with her that he used with me. My head began to throb. My chest ached with a physical pain so intense I thought I might actually vomit.
Then, the gallery. A folder, titled “Memories.” I clicked it. My breath caught. Photos. Not just any photos. Photos of them. Laughing. Kissing. In bed. Each image a knife twisting deeper. I recognized the background in one – our favourite coffee shop. Another, their hands intertwined, was clearly taken in our apartment. He hadn’t just cheated; he’d defiled our home, our sanctuary.
I kept scrolling, desperate for it to stop, for it to be a nightmare, for the battery to die. And then I saw it. The last picture. Not of them together. But of her. A close-up. Smiling. Her hair, long and dark, fell over her shoulder. Her eyes, bright and warm. Her eyes, that were exactly like mine. Her small, distinctive mole just above her lip.
The phone slipped from my grasp, clattering to the floor of the taxi.
NO. IT CAN’T BE.
The face in that photo. The one he was having an affair with. The woman he called “baby” and “my love” in those sickening texts. The woman he was planning a secret future with, while I was crumbling under the weight of my own life.
It was my mother.
MY MOTHER.
The world went silent. My own mother. My own flesh and blood. And him. The man I loved. The man I trusted with my very soul.
The betrayal was a tsunami. It wasn’t just him. It was her. It was everything. Every memory, every holiday, every shared laugh, every family dinner, every single conversation – twisted, corrupted, rotten to its core. I suddenly understood her hushed calls, her sudden visits, her “concern” for my well-being when I was away. It wasn’t concern. It was guilt. Or maybe it was just convenience.
The cab pulled up to my building. The driver turned, smiling. “We’re here, miss.”
But I wasn’t. I was lost. Utterly, irrevocably lost. My life, my family, my future – everything I thought was real was a lie. And the proof was lying on the grimy floor of a taxi, a cheap burner phone revealing a secret so dark, so unspeakable, it had just ripped my entire world apart.
