My eyes drifted to my husband,Gale’s phone,where a message thread glowed on the screen.The contact name,’My Lily.’ Novel – My heart clenched painfully. Lilian,Gale’s first love is back.Then suddenly a call came to his phone,it must be from Lilian. “I’ll be there in a minute.” He told me a lie about an emergency at the company.
But I was well aware that he was eager to run into Lillian’s embrace. I trailed him to an apartment. Upon hearing the moans coming from inside the room, I covered my mouth and burst into tears.
The idea of divorce hung over me.That time,I would not hesitate. Tomorrow,I would finally graduate after four years of intense study, majoring in Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design. That was a day I had longed to share with my husband,Gale.But when I mentioned it to him over dinner,his response was as cold as the winter wind.
“I have something to do tomorrow,”he said curtly.”I’ll just send you flowers.” With that,he rose from the table,already engrossed in his phone,leaving me staring at the empty space where he had sat,feeling as though I had been dismissed from his life entirely.
In recent months,just when I thought Gale had started to warm up to me,he grew distant again.The cause of his sudden change was no secret that his ex-girlfriend,Lilian Bowen,had returned from Paris,planning to open her own boutique in Providence.
Since her arrival,Gale has been at her side,like funding her dreams,supporting her every step,as if she were his wife. For a whole month,I watched as he catered to her every need,lavishing her with his time and attention,while I was left with nothing but brief,dismissive conversations and half-hearted gestures.
A month ago,I opened my own art exhibition,a milestone I had worked tirelessly toward.Gale did not come. He could not even spare a day to witness what I had created.Instead,he sent a bouquet of flowers with a generic note,a gesture that felt more like an obligation than a celebration.
Yet,when Lilian needed him to pick her up from the airport,he rushed to her side without hesitation.For her,he even managed to make time to arrange every detail for her boutique’s opening in Providence,as if she was the center of his world. It felt as though I were nothing more than a ghost in my own marriage,haunting the halls of Douglas Manor,invisible to the man I had committed my life to.
Frustration bubbling up inside me,I followed him upstairs,my voice breaking the silence. “Why are you so cruel,Gale?When you didn’t come to my art exhibition last month,I held my tongue.When you went to pick up Lilian from the airport instead of spending time with me,I kept quiet. “And when you poured your time and money into her boutique,I didn’t complain.