Chapter 4: The Messages

I don’t even know how I got home. I drove through the empty streets, barely seeing the traffic lights change, my mind reeling. My hands shook on the steering wheel. The world outside felt unreal—a blur of headlights and neon signs.

As soon as I got back, my girlfriend came in right after me. She was in a great mood, humming as she went to shower. She dropped her purse on the kitchen counter and danced her way down the hall. The scent of her shampoo trailed behind her.

The box of pills in her purse was gone.

I grabbed her phone. I’d never checked it before. My fingers trembled as I unlocked it. She’d never bothered to delete her chat history. It was all right there, like she didn’t think I’d ever look. Maybe she thought I was too trusting, or too stupid.

The top of her chat list was someone saved as “Mr. Collins.”

Hundreds of messages between them. The more I read, the colder I felt. My hands went numb, my vision tunneling as I scrolled. I felt like I was reading some twisted script from a bad TV show—except it was my life.

“Stop leaving hickeys on my neck, I can’t keep telling my boyfriend they’re mosquito bites.”

“Behave yourself in front of your daughter.”

“Do you even feel anything when you look at your wife?”

“Honestly, touching her is like touching myself. Her flat chest can’t compare to yours.”

“How about wearing that lace one again tonight?”

“If you don’t give me what I want, I’ll make sure you can’t walk straight tomorrow.”

Scrolling further back, they talked about me too:

“He treats me pretty well, spends money on me.”

“Your boyfriend isn’t good? He can actually hold back?”

“Even if I can’t, I have to. He’d never break up with me.”

“You’re not really going to marry that loser, are you?”

“Never planned on marrying him. It’s nice to have a simp around, I’ll just dump him when I’m bored.”

Even though I thought I was prepared, seeing these messages with my own eyes felt like I’d been sucker-punched at a high school football game, everyone watching as I hit the ground. My whole body went numb. I stared at her contact photo—smiling, innocent, the girl I thought I knew.