I clenched the receipt and went straight to the bedroom. Pulled open the nightstand drawer.

Our usual condoms were still there.

Of the three new boxes, only one was left.

I opened the closet.

Right at the front, Eugene's pajamas sat neatly folded.

Eugene never folded his clothes—especially not his pajamas. I was always the one trailing behind him, picking up after him. But those pajamas weren't folded by me.

I yanked them out of the closet.

A long strand of chestnut hair, clinging to the fabric.

My hands were shaking as I pulled out my phone.

I found Eugene's X account, tapped through to the profile of the girl who'd been replying to him.

Stared at her chestnut hair in photo after photo.

The color. The same.

The length. The same.

I ripped the pillows off the bed.

Under mine,

tucked away, overlooked, never cleaned up: more strands of chestnut hair.

I stumbled into the bathroom.

Near the drain—chestnut hair again.

My stomach lurched.

I grabbed the toilet and retched, one raw heave after another.

I collapsed onto the tile, legs gone, back against the wall.

My fingers found the girl's profile and kept scrolling—picture after picture after picture—and I couldn't stop.

Three years ago she'd posted a photo—two hands laced together, fingers interlocked.

The caption read:

*Tonight, I bloom for you.*

I recognized those hands instantly—the ones twisting the sheets into knots. Eugene's hands.

Three years ago.

I scrolled like someone possessed, faster and faster, until finally—four years back, in a group photo from Eugene's company—I found her.

She was his coworker.

Yet in all these years, I'd never once seen her at any of Eugene's work dinners.

All this time, she'd willingly kept herself hidden for him.

I forced down the nausea clawing up my throat

and sent Eugene a message:

*I'm home. I know everything.*

An hour later, footsteps shuffled outside the door, and with them a woman's voice, thick with tears.

"Gene, it's my fault. Let me in. I'll explain everything to her."

"No!"

Eugene kept his voice low, deliberately so, but the force still bled through—commanding and shielding at once.

The man on the other side of that door was not the one I knew.

With me he was gentle, easygoing. But now—decisive, hard-edged, yet still somehow soft with her.

I stood before I realized I was moving, my feet carrying me toward the door.

I needed to see him. The Eugene out there. And the girl with the chestnut hair.