Chapter 3
I pulled up Anna’s Instagram-
but her page was totally blank.
That’s when I realized…
she’d blocked me.
I switched to a burner account.
Sure enough, it was full of posts.
She’d been back in the States for three months.
The timeline lined up perfectly.
On Valentine’s Day,
she posted a photo of her marriage certificate.
Dashiell’s name and face were blurred out.
The caption read:
“Real love is patient.”
“After seven years, I finally made it back.”
A few days later, she uploaded their wedding photos,
videos from the ceremony,
pictures from their honeymoon-
candlelit dinners, cozy breakfasts,
every frame dripping with sweetness.
Sweet for her.
Devastating for me.
All those times Dashiell claimed he was stuck at the office,
or flying out for a business trip…
It was all a lie.
Cam for Mo
23.4%
Chapter 3
And there I was-
cooking dinner, setting the table,
waiting up like an idiot.
God, I was pathetic.
I shoved the marriage certificate back into his coat pocket.
Copied every file from his laptop to a flash drive.
Then I canceled our plane tickets and wheeled my suitcase out of that so–called “home.”
When I got to the airport,
Dashiell texted me.
“Babe, work’s a mess.”
“I don’t think I can make it in time.”
“Want to reschedule the flight?”
I didn’t reply.
Instead, I opened Anna’s Instagram again–on the burner.
She’d just posted a bowl of ginger tea.
“Caught a little cold, but my amazing husband made this for me.
So grateful to have you by my side for the rest of this life.”
I let out a dry little laugh.
But the tears came anyway-
and this time,
I didn’t try to stop them.
