Three days before the wedding, I received a friend request on Instagram. The profile picture was of a cute cat — the British Shorthair my fiancé used to have. The message attached read: “He loves you, but he raised a cat with me.” This message came in while Daniel was in the shower, and his phone was right there on the nightstand. I always prided myself on being calm and rational, but when I picked up his phone to check the cat in that profile picture, a cold shiver ran down my spine. Her Instagram Stories were public, and they were filled with vague, melancholic posts and endless pictures of the cat. Occasionally, there’d be a hand in the frame — not a woman’s hand, but one I recognized. I had held that hand for five years. When Daniel came out of the shower and saw me wrapped tightly in the comforter, he looked puzzled. “Is the AC too cold?” No, it wasn’t. It was set to 77 degrees, but I couldn’t stop shaking. I couldn’t calm myself. Once a seed of doubt is planted, it grows like a weed. I suddenly remembered the time when Daniel left me at the bridal shop to take a call. He had said it was urgent work, but it was a Sunday. He’s a product manager. There are no suppliers working on Sundays. And then there were the nights he’d come home late from “working overtime,” his clothes covered in cat fur. He said he’d gone to a cat café to de-stress. I hate cats. That British Shorthair was given away because of me. Clutching the blanket around me, I forced myself to be calm. “I feel like having some spicy chili bowl, can you go get it for me?” Daniel sighed, a bit exasperated, “I just got out of the shower, and you’re already sending me out again.” But he grabbed the keys and left, as he always did when I asked for something, patient and kind. But inside, I felt like my heart was being torn apart. I accepted the friend request and immediately sent a message: “How far have you two gone?” Her reply came almost instantly, as if she had anticipated my question. “Don’t worry, we’ve never slept together. But I kissed him, and he didn’t stop me.” I laughed bitterly at her response, but the chill in my heart only deepened. “When did it start?” I asked. She dodged the question with another cryptic reply. “My cat is cute, isn’t it?” A wave of pain hit me, and I gasped for breath. I coughed violently, my chest burning from the effort. By the time the coughing fit subsided, I knew. The cat was the beginning. It was a year ago when Daniel’s heart wandered.
I met Daniel during a college Student Government Association event. He was a year ahead of me, already on the executive committee when we met. By junior year, the SGA starts handing responsibilities over to the younger students. That’s when Daniel finally asked me out. Because he didn’t want any gossip, he spent a long time pursuing me in secret, which, to be honest, was pretty thrilling at the time. We flirted for two years. Two blissful years where I felt like I was living in a bubble of happiness. So, when he officially asked me out, I didn’t hesitate to say yes. Now that I think about it, maybe with her, it was the same thrill of secrecy. Maybe back then, Daniel wasn’t just worried about gossip — maybe he just liked the thrill of the chase. The thought made me sick. He’s good-looking by most people’s standards. Patient, too. Comes from a decent family, the type that can afford to pay for a small house in full. Over the years, he’s had his fair share of admirers. But he never gave anyone else a chance. For the seven years we dated, his friends mocked him for being the “perfect boyfriend.” We fit well together, likely because of the long, slow build of our relationship, so our feelings for each other stayed fresh longer than most couples’. Everyone envied our relationship. If there was one major difference between us, it was that he loved cats, and I hated them. Last spring, he found a tiny British Shorthair at a park. The poor thing looked abandoned or lost. It was filthy, its eyes crusted shut, barely making a sound. Daniel had always wanted a cat but held off because of me. The minute he brought that one home, he fell in love with it. He took it to the vet, got it cleaned up, and begged me to let him keep it. I was exasperated and told him he could keep it somewhere else, just not in our home. A few days later, after I didn’t budge, he gave the cat away. We were cold toward each other for a few days, but then things went back to normal. I thought it was just a minor bump in our relationship. I had no idea it was the start of something much bigger. He had started to develop feelings for someone else, and I was clueless. He still wove this perfect narrative of love and happiness with me, proposing and planning our future together, even preparing our new home. I glanced at the clock. The place that makes my favorite spicy chili bowl is a ten-minute walk from here. It’s on a narrow street, packed with pedestrians, so walking is faster than driving. Daniel would definitely walk. Between ordering and walking back, he’d be gone for about thirty minutes. I had already wasted a few minutes. That left me with about twenty minutes to make a decision. Should I pretend nothing happened? Or should I burst the bubble of this perfect love everyone envied? I wiped my red, trembling eyes, took half a minute to decide, and shoved my credit cards, bank cards, and important documents into my bag. The rest didn’t matter. But as I grabbed my keys, I couldn’t hold it together anymore. The keychain was one we’d bought together after Daniel asked me out. It was a cute cartoon couple, a boy and a girl. I had the boy, and he had the girl. We kept them for five years, and even when the paint chipped, we didn’t replace them. I thought it symbolized happiness. Now I see it as a joke. Frustrated, I tried ripping off the charm, but the harder I tried, the harder it was to pull apart. I broke down, sobbing, before finally grabbing a pair of scissors and cutting the charm in half. The house we were about to move into after the wedding was partly his — he’d paid the down payment, but I had paid for the renovations. Our wedding funds were split between two bank accounts, both of which I had with me now. I’m not stupid. I’d wasted nine years of my life on this relationship; I wasn’t going to leave empty-handed. His car was fully paid for, so I didn’t touch it. I slipped out through the back of the building and headed to the Holiday Inn across the street. I checked into a room, dropped off my things, and then my phone rang. It was Daniel, asking me where I was. I looked out the window at the familiar neighborhood, my heart aching. “We’re breaking up.” He was furious. “Sarah, what the hell are you talking about? We’re getting married in three days! Do you even care about my feelings?” I didn’t answer directly. Instead, I asked, “That cat I told you to give away last year… it must weigh about twenty pounds by now, right?” He didn’t say a word. Suddenly, everything felt meaningless. My youth had been a foolish dream, and now my passion had turned cold. “I’ll tell our families I’m sick. The wedding’s off. Dan, let’s end this with some dignity. I want to hold onto at least a little bit of good memory.” Before he could respond, I hung up the phone. Twenty minutes. That’s all it took to destroy the love story I thought would last forever. Like crashing off a cliff, I hit rock bottom, shattering into pieces.
I don’t know how long I cried, but when I woke up, it was already the next afternoon. My eyes were so swollen they looked like walnuts, and I could barely speak. My whole body felt weak. I didn’t even feel hungry. My head was a mess, thoughts tangled up. I kept thinking about that cat, the wedding two days away, the house we were supposed to live in, and the seven years I had wasted on him. I felt so disgusted I had to run to the trash can and throw up. There was nothing in my stomach, so I just dry-heaved bile. Exhausted, I called room service and forced myself to eat something. Once I had some strength back, I turned my phone on. The notifications came pouring in — missed calls, texts, Instagram messages, everything. I knew I couldn’t avoid this. No matter how awful it all felt, I had to deal with it. I called my dad first. As expected, the moment he picked up, he asked, “Where are you?” “You need to stop acting out. The wedding is in two days! What were you thinking, running off like this? Daniel came over last night, said he screwed up and made you mad. Fine, be angry, but don’t joke around with the wedding!” That confirmed it for me. Dan hadn’t told my parents about the other woman. Of course not. The invitations had been sent, the hotel and catering booked, the guest list finalized. Canceling now would be humiliating for both families. But who in their right mind would let this all go on as if nothing happened? When I got home that evening, my parents were both there. So was Daniel. The moment he saw me, Daniel dropped to his knees. My parents were shocked, and I could feel the lump forming in my throat as I asked, “What are you doing?” His eyes were bloodshot, and stubble had started to grow along his jawline. He looked like he hadn’t slept. He grabbed my hands, his voice trembling with desperation as he apologized. “Sarah, I’m sorry. I’m a horrible person. I messed up. Please don’t cancel the wedding. I can’t lose you. We’re about to get married. You can’t just leave me now.” “Oh, so you remember we’re about to get married?” The hurt and bitterness welled up in me, replacing the sadness. I picked up a mug from the coffee table and hurled it at him. “When you were out there walking her cat, holding her hand, kissing her, did you remember that we were getting married?” I slapped him, not once, but twice, as hard as I could. But even that didn’t bring any satisfaction. I was out of control, pulling at his hair, kicking him. Everything was chaos. My parents tried to pull me away, panicking at my wild outburst. Daniel sat on the floor, taking the beating without defending himself, apologizing over and over again. Suddenly, a wave of nausea hit me, and I doubled over in pain, my hand instinctively going to my stomach. My breathing became ragged, and I slumped down onto the floor, gasping. “I’m pregnant.” The room fell into complete silence. Daniel stared at me, eyes wide with a mix of shock and hope. I looked down, and we all saw it at the same time—the dark red stain slowly spreading beneath me. Daniel’s face turned ghostly white as he rushed toward me, arms shaking as he held me close. “I was going to surprise you on our wedding day,” I said, my voice cold and distant. “Are you happy now?”
The baby was gone. When the doctor confirmed it, it felt like my soul left my body. The pain was so sharp that it numbed me entirely. Daniel collapsed to the floor in the hospital, sobbing uncontrollably, screaming at me for not telling him about the pregnancy earlier. I glared at him, every ounce of hatred I’d been holding back now rising to the surface. I wanted to rip him apart. “What right do you have to question me?” I spat, yanking out the IV from my arm and kicking him in the shoulder. “We’re done. Get out of my life.” But he didn’t leave. He wrapped his arms around my legs, weeping loudly. “We’ve been together for seven years! Seven years! I can’t lose you now! I was an idiot! I never slept with her! Please, give me another chance!” I wanted to vomit. If he really cared about me, if he cared about our child, why did he let another woman slip into our life? The baby was gone now, and all those years of love had turned into nothing. It was only now, when everything had fallen apart, that he wanted to beg for forgiveness. “I swear, I never crossed that line with her. We just talked about cats! If I’m lying, may I be struck by lightning!” He was truly desperate now. He even handed me his phone. The messages he showed me were from someone he had saved as ‘Kelly.’ The chats were innocent — mostly about cats and work, nothing incriminating. “She’s new at my company. We only talked a few times outside of work, and it was just about the cat,” he pleaded. “How did it start?” I asked calmly, though I already knew the answer. I wasn’t stupid. If he was showing me these, it was because he had already hidden the real evidence. While I pretended to interrogate him, I quietly navigated his phone. I opened his battery usage log and found a suspiciously high amount of activity on an unfamiliar Instagram account. It wasn’t his main account. The moment he was distracted, I wrote down the handle. His phone had a dual-account feature, and I knew exactly how to access it. I switched to the other account, where the battery log had revealed his secret. There it was—messages and photos with her. She was the woman who had messaged me, telling me she had kissed him. And there were even more messages. Flirty, explicit ones, with private photos of her. My heart felt like it was being torn apart again, but I forced myself to remain calm. I quickly silenced the phone and acted like I was still angry, throwing a pillow at him. “If you really had nothing going on with her, why didn’t you ever tell me about her? You must like her!” As expected, Daniel panicked and began explaining. While he was flustered, I changed the settings on his Instagram account, linking his backup account to my own phone. Then, I returned his phone, pretending to be exhausted from my outburst. “Just go. Let me think about this.” Thinking I had finally calmed down, he reluctantly left. But I was far from calm. My body was shaking, not just from the physical pain of losing the baby but from the overwhelming emotional devastation. I lay in bed, too drained to cry, my soul feeling crushed. My parents checked in on me later, but they could see how bad my state was. They decided to give me some space, promising to bring me soup later. Once they were gone, I sat up, my mind clouded. I opened Daniel’s secret Instagram account and began reading through the disgusting messages between him and her. I had to think about my next move, but my head was pounding, and my ears were ringing.
The next morning, Daniel showed up at the hospital with his parents. His mother was crying, apologizing for her son’s mistakes. Daniel’s father gave him a few slaps on the back to “make up” for what he had done. It was all for show. They apologized, said how much they regretted everything, but soon enough, they shifted the conversation to the wedding. They couldn’t bear the idea of canceling it. The embarrassment would be too much for both families. I felt sick, my stomach turning at the mere thought of continuing with the wedding. “Don’t worry, we’ll punish him for what he did. We’ll make him delete all contact with that woman. If he ever does anything like this again, his father and I will deal with him ourselves!” Daniel’s mom was crying, clutching my hand dramatically. If this had happened five or six years ago, I might have been naïve enough to forgive him right then and there. But I wasn’t that gullible anymore. They thought they could sweep everything under the rug, that I would swallow my pride and continue life as if nothing had happened. But what about my baby? Was that little life just supposed to disappear without consequence? I couldn’t accept that. Anger pounded in my ears. My head felt like it was going to explode. I shoved Daniel’s mother away from me and ran to the trash can to throw up. She gasped. “Are you still pregnant? Could the baby still be alive?” Her words stabbed at my already raw heart. What was she implying—that I had lied about losing the baby? But I knew it wasn’t the time to lose control. I lifted my head and stared straight at Daniel. “The wedding doesn’t have to be canceled.” I told him that I had just gone through a miscarriage, so there was no way I could leave the hospital anytime soon. Besides, his relationship with that woman made me sick. But if he could promise never to make the same mistake again, I would agree to postpone the wedding. However, I demanded that I be the one to hold the keys to the house. Daniel’s mother beamed. “Of course, of course! Postponing is fine! As long as we’re not canceling, everything will be alright.” Daniel, on the other hand, looked uneasy. He asked if I didn’t trust him. My anger surged again, and my ears buzzed. “You caused me to lose my child because you were off playing games with another woman, and now you expect me to trust you? Either agree to my terms or get out!” My parents started shouting at him too. The whole hospital room erupted into chaos again, and I pressed the nurse’s call button. “I can’t hear. I feel like I’m going to be sick.” Two doctors arrived quickly and asked everyone to leave the room. They checked my symptoms and seemed concerned. After a brief consultation, one of them led me to the ear, nose, and throat department for further testing. After running through my medical history and looking at my symptoms, the doctor finally pulled down his mask. His face lit up with recognition as he said, “Sarah Williams, from Class 3 at Lincoln High? Do you remember me? I’m Michael Freed, from Class 2. We danced together for the school anniversary celebration.”
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