Hidden for 7 Years while He Flirted on His Secret Account Novel – Chapter 1 My boyfriend was crazy possessive. For seven years, Ethan Cole’s favorite lines were always the same. “My girlfriend is adorable, you know that? If you know, you’re dead.” “Baby, you’re so beautiful anyone would fall for you. I get jealous if someone so much as looks at you.” That’s why he never let me anywhere near his world. Until I found his social media through a burner account. Three years. Over six hundred posts. Every single one of them captured moments with another girl. They strolled through Rocky Mountain National Park, made wishes on the peaks of Aspen, and kissed on Miami Beach. The latest post was a photo at the beach, him kissing her while a crowd of friends cheered and screamed. The caption read: [Loving someone means you can’t help but show her off to the whole world.] My fingers trembled.
I backed out of the page silently and booked a flight to Havenport. Turns out, letting go of seven years really only takes a single moment. *** The second the booking confirmation lit up my screen, Ethan video-called me. He was standing in front of a hotel window, smiling. “Baby, what are you still doing up?” If I hadn’t just seen those posts, I probably would’ve melted at that one word. I didn’t say anything right away. Ethan did what he always did and coaxed me. “You miss me? Don’t worry, the project’s basically done. Three days, tops, and I’m back. I’ll bring you something.” I asked, “Are you at the hotel alone?” His expression didn’t flicker. He even smiled more easily. “Of course, alone. Didn’t I promise you I don’t wander around on business trips?” Right then, a girl’s laugh came through the call. Ethan’s smile froze for a split second. He angled the camera away and said, sounding deliberately annoyed, “Colleagues are having a meeting next door. So loud. I’ll call you back later.” I stared at the black screen, my fingers ice-cold.
He used to keep me out of his life, saying he was afraid other people would want me. So I skipped his friends’ parties, his office holiday parties, even his buddy’s wedding. He’d just say, “Baby, you’re way too gorgeous. I hate the idea of other guys even looking at you.” My eyes stung. I pulled up his profile again and zoomed in on that photo. Ethan was in a white shirt, ocean wind in his hair, kissing that girl with a smile like a boy who finally got everything he wanted. In seven years with me, he never posted a single photo of us. That was his excuse, “Baby, I don’t want people intruding on what we have. A relationship’s between two people. There’s no reason to put it on display. I’m too possessive. I don’t want anyone else knowing how amazing you are.” I used to believe him. Now I understood. It wasn’t that he didn’t like showing off. He just didn’t want to show off me. Someone had commented under his post, [Ethan’s a real one, man.
Public from day one—three years now, right?] Ethan replied, [Couldn’t let her follow me without being Facebook official.] I stared at those words for a long time. In seven years, he never gave me that. We lived together, had a cat, went through everything. But I wasn’t on his profile. His friends didn’t know me. All that love he flaunted went to someone else. I was just an old shirt locked in his closet—clean, quiet, waiting for him to put me back on whenever he felt like it. My phone buzzed again with a text from him. [Baby, signal was crap earlier. Get some sleep. Don’t overthink it. I love you more than anything.] I didn’t reply. I opened the closet and pushed his shirts aside. Hanging in the back was the white dress I bought last year.
The one I wore waiting for him to come home for his birthday dinner. He never showed up that night, said he got stuck working late. But his posts showed that exact day he was with her at a concert at Lincoln Center. Caption: [I remember everything she loves.] I yanked the dress off the hanger and tossed it in the trash. Then I grabbed my ID, bank cards, laptop, a few changes of clothes. In seven years, what I could actually take with me was pathetically little. What I couldn’t take wasn’t worth keeping anyway.