The Day After Forever
A day after our wedding, the restaurant manager called me and said quietly into the phone: “We reviewed the security camera footage again, and you need to see this in person. Please come alone and don’t tell your husband anything.”
After those words, everything inside me tightened, although at that moment I still didn’t understand why.
Anna opened her eyes and saw the white ceiling of the bedroom, flooded with soft morning light. She stretched, smiled, and turned her head. Beside her, he was sleeping peacefully—her husband. The word “husband” still sounded unfamiliar, but pleasant, like a new dress you are just getting used to. Yesterday had been their day. Their wedding day.
Anna quietly slipped out from under the blanket, put on a robe, and went to the kitchen. She turned on the kettle, took out the box with the leftover cake, sat down at the table, and broke off a small piece. With her eyes closed, she replayed the previous evening like frames from an old film reel.
A small restaurant, cozy, without unnecessary pomp. Only the closest people. Her father walked her to the altar, holding back tears, and Marcus waited for her at the end of the aisle, looking at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. Everything felt right and real.
They had met just six months earlier, in an ordinary bookstore. Anna was reaching for a worn copy of Hemingway when his hand touched hers on the spine. They both laughed, embarrassed. He insisted she take it. She insisted he did. They ended up at the coffee shop next door arguing about which Hemingway novel was best, and by the time they left three hours later, she had his number saved in her phone and a warmth in her chest she hadn’t felt in years.
Then came the dates, long walks, late-night conversations where he told her about his work in finance, his travels, his dreams. He proposed in a park with no witnesses, on one knee beside a duck pond, holding a simple ring with an engraving inside: “Forever.” Anna believed every one of those words.
The wedding had been perfect in its simplicity. Thirty-five guests at Riverside Restaurant, a venue they’d chosen for its intimate atmosphere and exposed brick walls covered in ivy. The first dance to slow music, his whisper right by her ear: “Thank you for being here.” The way he looked at her when she walked down the aisle, the vows he’d written himself about partnership and trust and building a life together.
Marcus came out of the bedroom, kissed her on the top of her head, and said with a smile, “Good morning, wife.”
They had breakfast with leftover cake, talked about the wedding, and joked about how her aunt had gotten too drunk and tried to teach everyone the Charleston. Then Marcus went to take a shower, and Anna absentmindedly glanced at her phone. Five minutes to eleven.
The screen lit up. An unknown number.
She answered. “Hello?”
“Hello, Anna. This is David Chen, the manager of Riverside Restaurant where you celebrated your wedding yesterday.”
“Oh, hi! Is everything okay? Did we leave something?”
There was a pause. A long, heavy pause that made Anna’s stomach clench.
“We reviewed the camera recordings again. You need to come in. Preferably alone. And please don’t tell your husband anything.”
The words hung in the air like smoke. Anna’s hand went cold around the phone. “What? Why? What’s on the recording?”
“I’d rather show you in person, Anna. I’m here until five today. Come as soon as you can.”
He hung up.
Anna stared at the phone, her heart hammering against her ribs. She heard the shower turn off, heard Marcus humming something cheerful in the bathroom. She stood up quickly, grabbed her purse and keys.
“I’m running to the pharmacy!” she called through the bathroom door. “Need some ibuprofen. Be right back.”
“Okay, babe!” Marcus’s voice was muffled through the door. “Pick up some orange juice too.”
Anna drove to the restaurant with her hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles ached. She kept telling herself it must be a mistake, a misunderstanding, perhaps a lost item or some kind of administrative issue. Maybe someone had left their credit card. Maybe there was damage to something and they needed to discuss payment.
But David’s voice on the phone—quiet, careful, almost apologetic—suggested something else entirely.
The restaurant was closed on Sundays, but David was waiting at the front door. He was a man in his fifties with graying hair and kind eyes that now looked deeply uncomfortable.
“Anna. Thank you for coming.” He held the door open. “Please, come to the office.”
She followed him through the empty dining room, past the tables where just yesterday she’d sat with her family and friends, past the small dance floor where Marcus had spun her around during their first dance. Everything looked different in daylight—smaller, sadder somehow.
David’s office was cramped, filled with filing cabinets and a desk covered in receipts. A computer monitor sat in the center, screen dark.
“Please sit,” David said, gesturing to a chair.
Anna sat. Her legs felt weak.
“I’m going to show you something,” David began, his voice gentle but firm. “And I want you to know that we discovered this purely by accident. One of our servers reported her phone missing after your event. We review the security footage to try to locate it. That’s when we saw… this.”
He turned the monitor toward her and pressed play.
The footage showed the restaurant from a high angle—the security camera mounted in the corner of the main dining room. The timestamp read 11:47 PM. Most of the guests had left. Anna could see herself on screen, talking with her father near the bar. She was laughing, her white dress catching the low light.
David fast-forwarded. The timestamp jumped to 12:15 AM. Anna’s father was hugging her goodbye. She watched herself wave at the remaining guests.
“Where’s Marcus in this?” Anna asked. “Where’s my husband?”
David didn’t answer. He just fast-forwarded again.
12:23 AM.
The angle switched to a different camera—one showing the narrow hallway that led to the restrooms and the storage room in the back. Anna leaned forward.
A figure appeared in the frame. Male. Dark suit. She recognized the cut of the jacket immediately—it was the custom suit Marcus had ordered specifically for the wedding. She recognized his walk, the way he ran his hand through his hair, the exact slope of his shoulders.
Marcus.
He glanced over his shoulder, checking if anyone was watching, then pushed open the door to the storage room and disappeared inside.
Anna’s breath caught in her throat. “What is he doing?”
“Wait,” David said quietly.
Thirty seconds passed. The hallway remained empty. Then another figure appeared, walking quickly, heels clicking on the floor that the camera couldn’t capture but Anna could imagine.
A woman. Long dark hair. Emerald green dress that Anna had complimented at the reception.
Lily.
Her bridesmaid. Her friend since college. The woman who had helped her pick out the wedding dress, who had organized the bachelorette party, who had given a toast about friendship and forever at the reception.
Lily glanced over her shoulder exactly the way Marcus had, then pulled open the storage room door and slipped inside.
The door closed.
Anna stared at the screen. “No. No, that doesn’t mean anything. They probably just—maybe she needed something from storage, or—”
David’s face was full of terrible compassion. “Anna, the camera in the storage room isn’t supposed to be active. It’s an old one we forgot to disconnect. But it still records.”
He clicked something on the keyboard. The screen went black for a moment, then a new angle appeared.
The storage room.
The quality was poor—grainy, with harsh overhead lighting—but it was clear enough.
Clear enough to see Marcus grab Lily the moment the door closed. Clear enough to see her laugh and press herself against him. Clear enough to see them kiss with an urgency that made Anna’s vision blur.
Clear enough to see his hands slide up her thighs, bunching the emerald fabric of her dress. Clear enough to see her wrap her arms around his neck. Clear enough to see them stumble backward against shelving units stacked with linens and supplies.
Clear enough to see everything.
Anna couldn’t breathe. The room spun. She gripped the armrests of the chair so hard her nails dug into the leather.
On the screen, Marcus and Lily were pulling at each other’s clothes, kissing like they’d been starving for it, like this wasn’t the first time, like they knew each other’s bodies in ways that suggested history and practice and routine.
At one point, Lily pulled back and said something. The camera didn’t record sound, but Anna could read her lips: “Your wife—”
Marcus pulled her back in, cutting off the words with his mouth.
The timestamp showed they stayed in the storage room for seventeen minutes. Seventeen minutes while Anna was saying goodbye to guests. Seventeen minutes while her father was paying the final bill. Seventeen minutes while she was holding her bouquet and thinking about how perfect the day had been, how lucky she was, how everything was exactly as it should be.
David reached over and stopped the video.
The screen froze on an image of Marcus buttoning his shirt, Lily smoothing down her dress, both of them looking flushed and satisfied and not remotely guilty.
Anna couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. She could only stare at the frozen image of her husband of less than twenty-four hours, fixing his appearance after betraying her.
“I’m so sorry,” David said quietly. “I thought you should know. I didn’t know if maybe you’d want to… handle this privately. I haven’t told anyone else. The footage is only on this computer.”
Anna finally found her voice. It came out as a whisper. “Can you send me a copy?”
“Of course. I’ll email it to you right now. What address?”
She gave him her personal email, not the one Marcus had access to. Her hands were shaking so badly she had to spell it out twice.
While David transferred the files, Anna sat in the chair feeling like her body wasn’t her own anymore. Like she was watching this happen to someone else from very far away. The woman on the screen getting married yesterday, laughing with her father, dancing with her husband—that wasn’t her. That was someone who didn’t know. That was someone who still believed in forever.
“It’s sent,” David said. “Anna, is there anything I can do? Anyone I can call?”
“No.” She stood up. Her legs felt like they were made of paper. “Thank you for showing me. I need to go.”
She walked out of the restaurant into bright Sunday afternoon sunshine that felt obscene in its cheerfulness. She got into her car, closed the door, and sat in the parking lot staring at nothing.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Marcus: “Where are you? Did you get lost at the pharmacy? “
Anna looked at the message, at the laughing emoji, at the casual affection of a man who had no idea she knew. She started the car and drove. Not home. She couldn’t go home yet. She drove to the park where Marcus had proposed, parked by the duck pond, and finally, finally let herself cry.
She cried until her throat was raw and her eyes were swollen and she felt empty. Then she opened her email on her phone, found the file from David, and watched the video again. And again. And again. Not because she didn’t believe it, but because she needed to be absolutely certain before she did what she was about to do.
On the fourth viewing, she noticed something. In the final seconds before Marcus and Lily left the storage room, they stood by the door for a moment. Lily said something that made Marcus laugh. Then she pulled out her phone, typed something, and showed him the screen. He nodded and kissed her one more time before they left separately, thirty seconds apart, like they’d planned this timing carefully.
Anna sat up straighter. Lily had texted something. To Marcus, probably. A message that was still on one of their phones.
She opened her contacts and scrolled to her sister’s name. Rachel answered on the second ring.
“Hey! How’s married life? Are you guys still in bed celebrating?” Rachel’s voice was bright with happiness for her.
“Rachel.” Anna’s voice broke. “I need your help. Can you come to Memorial Park? By the duck pond. And don’t tell anyone. Please.”
The brightness vanished. “Anna? What’s wrong? Are you okay? Did something happen?”
“Just come. Please.”
Rachel arrived twenty minutes later, pulling into the parking spot next to Anna’s car. She took one look at Anna’s face and didn’t ask questions. She just got into the passenger seat and pulled her sister into a hug.
“Tell me,” Rachel said when Anna finally pulled away.
Anna handed her the phone with the video queued up. “Watch this. All of it.”
Rachel watched in silence. Anna saw the exact moment Rachel understood what she was seeing—her eyes went wide, her hand flew to her mouth, and she made a sound like she’d been punched.
“Oh my god. Anna. Oh my god, that’s Marcus. And Lily. At your wedding. What the—how could they—” Rachel couldn’t finish sentences. Her face had gone pale.
“I need to know how long this has been going on,” Anna said. Her voice was steady now, cold and clear. The crying was done. Now came the work. “If this was just a one-time thing or if there’s more. I need evidence. I need to know everything before I confront him.”
“We’re going to the apartment,” Rachel said immediately. “While he’s there alone. You’re going to ask him to run an errand—a long one, thirty minutes minimum. And I’m going to search his things.”
“Rachel, I can’t ask you to—”
“You’re not asking. I’m telling you. He did this to you on your wedding day, Anna. Your wedding day. We’re finding out exactly who we’re dealing with.”
They drove back to the apartment in two cars. Anna parked first, waited for Rachel to park down the street, then took a deep breath and walked inside.
Marcus was on the couch watching a basketball game, still in his pajama pants, looking relaxed and content. He looked up when she walked in and smiled.
“There you are! I was starting to worry. That must have been some pharmacy trip.”
Anna set her purse down carefully. “The pharmacy was out of the ibuprofen I wanted. And I forgot to get the orange juice. I’m sorry—I’m not feeling great. Would you mind running back out to the store? I made a list.”
She pulled out her phone and texted him a list she’d composed in the car: orange juice, ibuprofen, sparkling water, those crackers he liked, and a few other random items scattered across different aisles to maximize his shopping time.
“Of course, babe.” Marcus stood up, kissed her forehead. “You go lie down. I’ll be back soon.”
The moment he left, Anna texted Rachel: “Go.”
Rachel had a key to the apartment—she’d been Anna’s maid of honor, had helped set up before the wedding, had needed a spare key for coordinating deliveries. She let herself in thirty seconds after Marcus’s car pulled out of the parking lot.
“Where do we start?” Rachel asked, all business now.
“His phone is the goal, but he took it with him. Laptop is in the office. Start there.”
They worked quickly and quietly. Rachel opened Marcus’s laptop—password protected, but Anna knew it. He’d used the same password for years: his mother’s maiden name followed by his birth year. Trusting. Or arrogant.
Rachel pulled up his email first. Scrolled through recent messages. “Mostly work stuff. Wait.” She clicked on something. “He has a separate email account linked here. Look at the address.”
Anna leaned over. The email was MJ.Parker2024@gmail.com. “That’s not his regular email.”
“Exactly.” Rachel clicked on it. The inbox loaded.
The messages were all from one sender: LilyMartinez.writer@gmail.com.
The subject lines made Anna’s stomach turn.
“Can’t stop thinking about last night.”
“When can I see you again?”
“Your wife has no idea “
“Hotel confirmation for Friday.”
Rachel clicked on the most recent email. Sent yesterday morning—the morning of the wedding—at 9:47 AM.
“Today’s the day you become legally hers. But tonight, you’re still mine. Storage room at midnight? Same plan as usual? -L”
Marcus had responded at 10:15 AM: “You’re bad. Yes. Same plan. She’ll be distracted with goodbye hugs. Nobody will notice. -M”
Anna read the words three times. Same plan as usual. This wasn’t the first time. This was routine. Practiced.
“There are more,” Rachel said quietly, scrolling. “Anna, there are dozens of emails. Going back months.”
Anna pulled out her phone and started taking pictures of the screen. Every email. Every message. Every piece of evidence that this wasn’t a moment of weakness or a terrible mistake. This was deliberate, sustained, calculated betrayal.
The earliest email was dated five months ago, just two weeks after Marcus had proposed. The subject line was simply: “I said yes to him but I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Anna photographed that one twice.
They found the hotel confirmations. Five different hotels over four months. Always Friday nights when Anna worked late at her job as a graphic designer. Marcus had told her he had poker games with college friends those Fridays. She’d believed him. She’d never questioned it.
Rachel found the text message thread next, accessed through a backup app Marcus apparently didn’t know synced to his laptop. Thousands of messages. Rachel scrolled to the most recent.
Yesterday, 11:58 PM—right after the storage room encounter.
Lily: “That was even better than I imagined. Your wife looked beautiful today, by the way.”
Marcus: “Don’t. I can’t think about her right now.”
Lily: “You’re going to think about her when you’re in bed with her tonight?”
Marcus: “I’ll think about you. I always think about you.”
Lily: “Good. Because I’m not done with you yet. Not by a long shot. Marriage doesn’t change anything. You’re still mine.”
Marcus: “Always have been.”
Anna felt something crack inside her chest. Not her heart—that had broken in the restaurant manager’s office. This was something else. This was the sound of her entire understanding of her life fracturing into pieces.
“Anna,” Rachel said carefully. “There’s a folder here labeled ‘Travel.’ Should I open it?”
Anna nodded.
Rachel clicked. The folder contained itineraries, booking confirmations, flight receipts. Marcus and Lily had taken three trips together over the past four months. A weekend in Charleston. Five days in Savannah. A week in Portland.
Anna remembered those weeks. Marcus had told her they were work conferences. She’d seen the conference brochures he’d left on the kitchen counter. She’d helped him pack.
The Portland trip was scheduled for next month. Two weeks from now. The booking confirmation showed a king bed at a boutique hotel downtown, champagne package included, late checkout requested.
“That’s enough,” Anna said. “I have what I need.”
“What are you going to do?” Rachel asked.
“First, I’m going to check his phone records. He pays for our cell plan through his credit card, so I have access to the account online. If he’s been talking to her beyond email and texts, it’ll show there.”
She pulled up the cellular provider’s website on her own phone, logged into the account using Marcus’s email and password—the same one he used for everything. The dashboard loaded.
She clicked on call logs. Filtered by the number she knew was Lily’s—it was programmed into her own phone under “Lily M.”
The log populated instantly. Pages and pages of calls. Twenty-minute conversations at midnight. Hour-long calls during Anna’s work hours. Short calls every morning like clockwork—texts to confirm plans, probably.
The most damning call was yesterday at 6:47 PM, during the cocktail hour of the wedding reception. Marcus had stepped outside for fifteen minutes, claiming he needed to take a work call. Anna had watched him through the window, pacing in the parking lot with his phone to his ear, looking serious.
He’d been talking to Lily for twelve minutes.
“I want copies of everything,” Anna said. “Every email. Every text. Every call log. Every hotel booking. Every piece of evidence. And then I need a lawyer.”
“On Sunday?” Rachel asked.
“I’ll find one tomorrow morning. First thing. But tonight, we’re printing all of this. I want physical copies as backup.”
They worked for another ten minutes, sending documents to Anna’s email, printing everything they could on the apartment’s wireless printer. By the time Marcus’s text came through saying he was checking out, they had a folder two inches thick with evidence.
Rachel left through the back entrance thirty seconds before Marcus came through the front door carrying grocery bags.
Anna was sitting on the couch when he walked in, the folder hidden in her work bag in the bedroom. She’d composed her face into something neutral, something that wouldn’t give anything away.
“Got everything on the list,” Marcus said cheerfully, setting the bags on the kitchen counter. “How are you feeling? Better?”
“Actually, yes,” Anna said. And it was true. She did feel better. Not happy. Not okay. But better than she’d felt in the parking lot of the restaurant. Because now she had power. She had information. She had evidence.
She had a plan.
“Good,” Marcus said. He came over and sat next to her on the couch, putting his arm around her shoulders. “What do you want to do for the rest of the day? We could watch a movie. Order dinner. Just relax.”
Anna looked at him—at this man she’d married less than forty-eight hours ago, who was holding her while probably thinking about another woman, who had looked into her eyes and promised forever while planning his next hotel stay with her bridesmaid.
“Let’s just watch a movie,” Anna said. “Something funny. I could use a laugh.”
They spent the rest of Sunday curled up on the couch, Marcus’s arm around her, both of them pretending this was what newlywed bliss looked like. Anna laughed at the right moments, let him kiss her during the romantic scenes, acted like nothing in the world was wrong.
All while the folder of evidence sat in her work bag, and the video from the restaurant manager sat in her email, and the phone number of the divorce attorney Rachel had texted her sat in her contacts.
Monday morning, Anna called in sick to work. Marcus left for his job at the investment firm at 7:30 AM with a kiss and a promise to pick up Thai food for dinner. The moment his car left the parking lot, Anna called the attorney.
The consultation was at 10 AM. The attorney’s name was Marilyn Chen, and her office was in a downtown high-rise with a view of the river. She was a woman in her early fifties with sharp eyes and a reputation for winning messy divorces.
Anna laid out the folder of evidence on Marilyn’s desk and told her everything, her voice steady and clear. She showed the video on her phone. She showed the emails, the texts, the call logs, the hotel bookings.
Marilyn reviewed everything in silence, her expression growing more severe with each page. When she finished, she looked up at Anna with something like respect.
“You’ve done my job for me,” Marilyn said. “This is one of the most well-documented cases of adultery I’ve seen in twenty years of practice. In this state, adultery is grounds for fault-based divorce, which means you have significant leverage. The fact that it occurred on your wedding day, with your bridesmaid, in a location where you were both celebrating—that’s not just betrayal. That’s cruelty.”
“What are my options?” Anna asked.
“You file for divorce on grounds of adultery. Given that the marriage is only a few days old, we can likely get it annulled instead, which is cleaner. You’ll want the annulment on grounds of fraud—he entered the marriage while actively involved with another woman. You keep all premarital assets, which I assume is most of what you have since the marriage is so new.”
“Yes. We didn’t have time to combine finances yet.”
“Good. That makes this simpler. We file tomorrow. I’ll have the papers drawn up today. He’ll be served at work.”
“I want to tell him first,” Anna said. “Tonight. I want to see his face when he realizes I know. Is that stupid?”
Marilyn studied her. “It’s not stupid. It’s human. But if you’re going to confront him, I want you to record the conversation. Use your phone. Keep it in your pocket. We want documentation of his response.”
Anna nodded. “He’s bringing home Thai food at six. I’ll do it then.”
“One more thing,” Marilyn said. “The other woman. Do you want her included in this?”
Anna thought about Lily. About the woman she’d trusted, who’d stood next to her at the altar, who’d hugged her and called her a beautiful bride while planning to sleep with her husband in a storage room later that night.
“What can I do to her?” Anna asked.
“In this state, we have something called alienation of affection. It’s rare, but given your evidence, we could file a civil suit against her for deliberately interfering with your marriage. She knew he was married. She participated in the betrayal. A jury might award damages.”
“Do it,” Anna said. “File everything against both of them.”
At 5:45 PM, Anna set up her phone in the kitchen, propped against a cookbook, angled to capture the dining area where she planned to sit with Marcus. She tested the video and audio. Both worked perfectly.
At 6:00 PM exactly, Marcus walked in carrying bags of Thai food, smiling. “Hi, beautiful. How was your day?”
“Interesting,” Anna said. “Let’s eat. We need to talk.”
They sat at the small dining table. Marcus dished out pad thai and spring rolls, talking about his day, some client meeting that went well. Anna let him talk while she arranged her thoughts.
Finally, he paused. “You’re quiet. What did you want to talk about?”
Anna reached into her work bag—she’d placed it next to her chair deliberately—and pulled out the folder. She set it on the table between them.
“I want to talk about these,” she said.
Marcus glanced at the folder with mild curiosity. “What is that?”
“Open it.”
He did. His expression didn’t change at first—he was looking at the first page, which was a printout of one of the emails. Then he saw the sender’s name, and his face went carefully blank.
“Anna, where did you get this?”
“Keep looking,” she said.
He flipped through the pages. The emails. The texts. The hotel bookings. The phone records. The restaurant security footage screenshots that David had included in his email. With each page, Marcus’s expression shifted—from confusion to realization to pale, sick understanding.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” he said finally.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Anna repeated. “Marcus, there is video of you having sex with my bridesmaid in a storage room during our wedding reception. There are emails going back months. There are hotel bookings. There are phone calls. What part of this is not what it looks like?”
“I can explain—”
“Explain what? That you’ve been sleeping with Lily since before you proposed to me? That you took her on work trips that weren’t work trips? That you planned the storage room encounter, specifically scheduling it for midnight when I’d be distracted? Explain which part, Marcus?”
He put his head in his hands. “I don’t know what to say. I messed up. I messed up so badly. But I love you, Anna. I do. This thing with Lily—it’s not real. It’s not what we have. It’s just—”
“Just what? Just sex? Just a fun distraction? Just something to do while you were building a life with me?”
“I was going to end it,” he said desperately. “After the wedding. I swear. I was going to tell her it was over. The marriage was supposed to be a clean break.”
“You told her marriage doesn’t change anything,” Anna said. “Those were your words. In a text message. ‘Marriage doesn’t change anything. You’re still mine.’ Do you remember writing that?”
Marcus looked at her with something like horror in his eyes. He was realizing how much she knew. How completely she’d documented his betrayal.
“How did you get all this?” he asked. “Did you hack my email? My phone?”
“Does it matter?” Anna asked. “Does it change anything?”
“It matters because it’s an invasion of privacy—”
“Don’t,” Anna cut him off, her voice sharp. “Don’t you dare talk to me about invasion of privacy. You invaded our marriage. You invaded the trust between us. You invaded every promise you made. Don’t talk to me about privacy.”
Marcus pushed his chair back from the table. “Look, can we just talk about this? Really talk? Without the accusations? I made a mistake, okay? A huge mistake. But we can fix this. We can go to counseling. I’ll do whatever it takes. Please, Anna. We just got married. We’re supposed to be starting our life together.”
“We can’t start a life together because I don’t know who you are,” Anna said. “The man I married—I thought I knew him. I thought he was honest and faithful and decent. But that man doesn’t exist. He’s a character you played. And I’m not interested in trying to make a relationship work with a fictional person.”
“I’m not fictional,” Marcus said, desperation creeping into his voice. “I’m right here. I’m your husband. I love you.”
“You don’t love me. You love the idea of me. The stable, trusting wife who doesn’t ask questions. The one who believed your work trips and your poker nights and your conference seminars. You love having someone who makes you look good. But that’s not love, Marcus. That’s convenience.”
She stood up and walked to the living room, pulled a manila envelope from behind the couch cushion where she’d hidden it that afternoon.
“These are divorce papers,” Anna said, setting the envelope on the table next to the Thai food. “Well, annulment papers technically. On grounds of fraud. You’re being served tomorrow at work, but I wanted you to hear this from me first. Our marriage is over. It never really started.”
Marcus stared at the envelope like it was a bomb. “Anna, please. Don’t do this. We can work through this. I’ll do anything.”
“There’s nothing to work through,” Anna said. “You can’t work through betrayal this complete. And even if I wanted to, I don’t think you understand what you did. This wasn’t a mistake, Marcus. Mistakes are one-time things. This was a choice you made every single day for months. Every time you texted her. Every time you called her. Every time you lied to me. Every time you kissed me knowing you’d kissed her the night before. Those were all choices.”
“I was weak,” Marcus said, tears starting to form in his eyes. “I was stupid and weak and I let myself get caught up in something I shouldn’t have. But I want to be with you. I chose you. I married you.”
“You married me while sleeping with someone else. That’s not choosing me. That’s keeping your options open.”
Anna picked up her phone from the counter—the one that had been recording everything—and stopped the video. She’d gotten what she needed. His admissions. His excuses. His complete failure to understand the magnitude of what he’d done.
“I’m staying at my sister’s,” Anna said. “I’ll come by tomorrow while you’re at work to pack my things. Please don’t be here. Please don’t try to stop me. This is done, Marcus. We’re done.”
She grabbed her purse and her phone and walked toward the door.
“What about Lily?” Marcus called after her. “Did you talk to her? Does she know?”
Anna paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Lily is being sued for alienation of affection. She’ll be served tomorrow too. You two can comfort each other through the legal proceedings.”
“Anna, please—”
She walked out and closed the door on whatever he was going to say next.
The legal proceedings moved quickly. Marcus didn’t contest the annulment. He signed the papers without objection, probably because he knew he had no defense and fighting would only drag out the public humiliation.
Lily, on the other hand, tried to fight the alienation of affection lawsuit. She claimed she didn’t know the extent of Anna’s and Marcus’s relationship, that she thought the marriage was a mistake Marcus had made in haste, that she bore no responsibility for his choices.
The evidence buried her. The emails where she explicitly referenced “your wife.” The texts where she gloated about the storage room encounter. The hotel bookings she’d made herself, charged to her credit card, for rooms she shared with a married man she’d known was getting married.
The case never went to trial. Lily’s attorney advised her to settle. She paid Anna $35,000 in damages, publicly apologized in a signed statement, and quietly moved to another state three months later.
Marcus tried to reach out several times in the weeks after Anna left. Texts saying he missed her. Calls she didn’t answer. A letter delivered to Rachel’s house where Anna was staying, four pages of handwritten apologies and promises to be better.
Anna read the letter once, then used it as kindling for the fire pit in Rachel’s backyard. She watched it burn while drinking wine and talking with her sister about everything and nothing.
“Do you miss him?” Rachel asked at one point.
Anna thought about it. “I miss the person I thought he was. I miss the life I thought we were building. But I don’t miss him. I’m not sure I ever really knew him.”
“That’s probably healthy,” Rachel said. “Or as healthy as it gets after your husband cheats on you at your own wedding.”
“With my bridesmaid,” Anna added. “Don’t forget that detail.”
“How could I? That’s the detail that makes it especially awful.”
They sat in silence for a moment, watching the flames.
“You know what’s weird?” Anna said. “I’m not as devastated as I thought I’d be. I’m angry, yes. I’m hurt. But I’m also… relieved? Like I found out who he really was before we bought a house together. Before we had kids. Before I wasted ten years on someone who didn’t respect me.”
“You found out fast,” Rachel agreed. “Most people don’t get that luxury.”
“Yeah.” Anna took a sip of wine. “I think I owe the restaurant manager a thank you gift.”
She did send David a gift basket, with a card that said simply: “Thank you for having security cameras. You saved me from a terrible mistake.”
David sent back a note: “I’m sorry you had to see that, but I’m glad I could help. You deserved better than him. I hope you find it.”
Three months after the annulment was finalized, Anna was back in the same bookstore where she’d met Marcus, browsing the Hemingway section. She pulled out a worn copy of “The Sun Also Rises” and smiled at the memory of arguing with him about whether it was better than “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
“That’s a good choice.”
Anna turned. A woman about her age with curly red hair and glasses was standing nearby, holding a copy of “A Moveable Feast.”
“Thanks,” Anna said. “It’s actually a reread. I’m trying to reclaim things I enjoyed before… before I let someone else’s opinions influence mine too much.”
The woman smiled. “That’s a good reason to reread. I’m Emma, by the way.”
“Anna.”
They talked for twenty minutes about Hemingway, about Paris in the 1920s, about writing and art and the ways literature can save you when life gets complicated. Emma worked as a high school English teacher. Anna told her about graphic design. They discovered they both loved independent coffee shops and hated chain restaurants and had a shared obsession with true crime podcasts.
When they finally said goodbye, Emma handed Anna a card. “This is my number. If you ever want to get coffee and argue about literature, call me. I’m always looking for fellow book nerds to talk with.”
Anna took the card and tucked it into her wallet. A week later, she texted Emma. They met for coffee. Then dinner. Then a movie.
It wasn’t romantic—Emma was engaged to a man named Thomas who taught history at the same high school. But it was friendship, real and uncomplicated and honest. Emma knew about the wedding day betrayal because Anna told her one evening over Indian food, and Emma’s response was perfect.
“What an absolute jackass. You know his dick probably doesn’t even work properly. Men who cheat are usually compensating for something.”
Anna laughed so hard she snorted curry through her nose, and it hurt and felt good at the same time.
Six months after the annulment, Anna moved into her own apartment downtown, a small one-bedroom with exposed brick and huge windows. She hung her artwork on the walls. She bought furniture she liked, not pieces chosen by committee. She adopted a cat from the shelter and named him Hemingway.
She went on a few dates, nothing serious. One was nice enough but talked too much about his ex. Another was funny but had terrible taste in movies. She wasn’t in a rush. She was learning to enjoy her own company again, to trust her own judgment, to rebuild the parts of herself that had been quietly eroded by months of being with someone who lied as easily as breathing.
One day, nearly a year after the disaster wedding, Anna was waiting in line at a coffee shop when her phone buzzed. An unknown number, and a text message.
“Hi Anna. This is Marcus. I know you don’t want to hear from me, and I respect that. But I wanted you to know that I’m in therapy and I’m working on myself. I understand now how badly I hurt you, and I’m sorry. I don’t expect forgiveness. I just wanted you to know that I see it now. I see what I did. And I’m trying to be better. I hope you’re happy. You deserve to be happy. -M”
Anna read the text twice. She thought about responding. Thought about telling him it was too late, or that sorry wasn’t enough, or that his personal growth journey wasn’t her concern.
Instead, she deleted the text and blocked the number.
She ordered her coffee, picked up her laptop bag, and walked to her favorite table by the window. She had client work to do, and later Emma was coming over for dinner and they were going to watch the new documentary about the Zodiac Killer.
She had a life to live, and Marcus wasn’t in it anymore.
And that, she realized as she opened her laptop and took a sip of perfectly made cappuccino, was exactly how it should be.
Anna thought about the girl who’d walked into Riverside Restaurant on her wedding day, holding her husband’s hand, believing in forever. That girl seemed like someone from another lifetime now—naive, trusting, willing to overlook small inconsistencies because she wanted to believe in the story she was telling herself.
Anna wasn’t that girl anymore.
She was someone harder. Someone smarter. Someone who read the fine print and kept her own passwords and knew that trust had to be earned, not freely given.
She was someone who’d learned that forever was just a word people engraved on rings before they proved they didn’t understand what it meant.
But she was also someone who’d learned she could survive betrayal. Could document it, confront it, walk away from it. Could build a life on the other side of it that was smaller perhaps, but more honest. More hers.
The wedding ring was in a box in her closet somewhere. She’d meant to sell it but never got around to it. Maybe she’d keep it. Maybe she’d melt it down and have it made into something else. Maybe she’d throw it in the river one day when she needed the symbolism.
Or maybe she’d just leave it in the box and forget about it, the way she was forgetting about Marcus. Slowly. Deliberately. One day at a time.
Because that was the thing about forever.
It only lasted as long as both people meant it.
And Anna had learned the hard way that some people never meant it at all.
She finished her coffee, closed her laptop, and walked out into the afternoon sunshine.
Tomorrow she had a date with someone Emma had set her up with. A friend of Thomas’s who worked in architecture and had a dog named Buster and apparently made excellent homemade pasta.
Anna wasn’t expecting anything.
But she was willing to try.
And that, she thought as she walked home to feed Hemingway, was probably enough.
Lila Hart is a dedicated Digital Archivist and Research Specialist with a keen eye for preserving and curating meaningful content. At TheArchivists, she specializes in organizing and managing digital archives, ensuring that valuable stories and historical moments are accessible for generations to come.
Lila earned her degree in History and Archival Studies from the University of Edinburgh, where she cultivated her passion for documenting the past and preserving cultural heritage. Her expertise lies in combining traditional archival techniques with modern digital tools, allowing her to create comprehensive and engaging collections that resonate with audiences worldwide.
At TheArchivists, Lila is known for her meticulous attention to detail and her ability to uncover hidden gems within extensive archives. Her work is praised for its depth, authenticity, and contribution to the preservation of knowledge in the digital age.
Driven by a commitment to preserving stories that matter, Lila is passionate about exploring the intersection of history and technology. Her goal is to ensure that every piece of content she handles reflects the richness of human experiences and remains a source of inspiration for years to come.