Kylie stared at the glowing screen unable to move or think. The tiny text that shattered her world scrawled itself within the notification box. Her husband’s phone vibrated again in her hands. Another message flashed, further condemned their five year relationship.
Can’t wait to have you between my legs again tonight.
What excuse are you telling her this time?
Kylie snapped back to reality when the hiss of the shower shut off with a squeak. She set the phone back on his nightstand before bolting out of the bedroom, her footsteps light. This can’t be happening. I read that wrong, right? It’s impossible. A crash behind her made her heart jump into her throat and freeze her escape. In her haste, the phone slid off the edge and slapped onto the hardwood floor. From down the hall, she stared at the large black cell phone on the floor. She turned away from the sight and forced her feet to move. Through the kitchen and out the back door, she escaped to her favorite chair in the shade of the covered porch.
The midsummer wind picked up the branches of the old tree in the backyard. Kylie lost herself in the swish of the leaves and the scent of flowers from her garden. Ice cold from the shock, the heat of the afternoon sun did little to warm her skin. The sun began dipping behind the tops of the surrounding trees before she heard the slide of the back door.
“There you are,” her husband James said, his voice a bit annoyed.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. A rehearsed phrase for when he wasn’t happy with her, a common scenario of late.
“I’m heading into the city now,” he said, looking at his watch as he jostled an overnight bag and his briefcase in one arm. “I’ll be staying at a hotel tonight for a client meetup in the morning.”
Forcing a smile, she looked up at him, but he continued to check his watch and look towards the front door. He fiddled with his tie and brushed his short brown hair out of his cold brown eyes.
“Couldn’t you drive up in the morning? I made plans to film a new dish tonight. Steak with a new garlic confit recipe that I found.”
“That’s not possible,” he snipped at her. “The client wants to meet for drinks before tomorrow. The company is paying for a hotel anyway.”
“I see…” she said, unable to come up with a counter. Is he even meeting a client?
“Look, I know my company springs these meetings on me at the last minute all the time,” he said. but I’m still trying to make a name for myself in the finance world,” he said, his tone strained as if he explaining himself to a child. “A little support would be appreciated.”
“You’re right,” she choked out. “You’re doing this for our future, I know. But we haven’t spent very much time together lately.”
He sighed as his lips spread into his award winning smile. He set down his bag and briefcase, and crouched down to her. “We haven’t. I’m sorry my job has been crazy recently and I promise you that I will make time this weekend for the two of us. Maybe we can drive to the beach and sit in sand like we used to?”
“That sounds nice,” she said, her mind drifting to their honeymoon in Hawaii. Maybe I read it wrong. Maybe I took it out of context? A crude male colleague joking around?
“Anyways, you have no need to always make so much rich food as it is. You should concentrate more on your… health.” His eyes shot down to her stomach and then back at her with a look much harsher than the words he spoke.
It’s true that she wasn’t at the same fitness level as she was when they married three years ago. It still stung when he brought up her weight gain despite her now being within a normal range. In college, she worked out to exhaustion everyday and restricted her diet. So much so, that her health deteriorated to the point that her monthly flows stopped. Her interest in cooking became her therapy alongside working with a therapist. Despite her coming back to a healthy weight, Kylie struggled to accept her larger body. Her husband even less so.
“I’ll text you when I arrive,” he said, as he shifted her long black hair from her face before pecking her on the cheek. He stood to leave with his bags in hand.
“James,” she said, sitting up. “Can you call me instead? Or video call me?”
“If you wish,” he said, an annoyed tone cutting into his voice. He checked his watch again. “But I might not have time.”
“Try?” she pleaded, begging for everything to be a big misunderstanding. Begging that he still loved her as she loved him.
“We’ll see, Okay?” He walked inside and marched to the front door as if to run from the conversation.
With that, he left. No I’ll call you, no I love you, no I’ll make time for you after the meeting. Cold silence as he shut the front door. But what hit Kylie as surprising was the fact that it didn’t sting. Her heart didn’t drop, but stayed steady as she stared after him as if his dismissive farewell was normal. She turned and watched the trees sway in the wind as she tried to remember the last time James told her that he loved her. Tried to remember the last time he made plans for them without her asking or making the plans herself. Tried to remember the last time he smiled at her. Nothing came to mind.
Their sex life became routine with the spontaneity from their dating years completely disappearing. Kylie assumed that’s what happens to couples after tying the knot. A transition of their relationship from passion to comfortable. As time went on though, he pulled away more and more. His job in finance didn’t help matters with his time occupied with client meetings and late nights at the office. Soon after starting at his current company, they promoted him to lead a whole team. He now concentrated on financial restructuring for different business ventures of various companies. I’m doing it for our future he said and Kylie trusted him.
Kylie dismissed his sudden need for the right car, the right clothes and the right parties. Then the day came when he convinced her to stay home for last year’s company party. He stated that she still needed to work on herself after a year of therapy and the emergence of her new rounder body. Kylie convinced herself that it was her fault for not being able to maintain his ideal woman in a healthy way. His words dug into her soul with every side comment he made. Kylie forced a smile, thinking that he loved her regardless. Every marriage had rough patches.
She stood up from her porch chair and headed back inside to the kitchen. Kylie grabbed a small tripod and set it up in the usual place on the counter beside her cutting board. She kept her video recorder tucked in her desk in the shared office. When she went to retrieve it, it was missing from the drawer. Kylie then remembered James scolding her for leaving it in the bedroom. She was in a rush to leave for a conference trip that she forgot to put it away. Searching, she found it sitting on top of the dresser. After replacing the battery, she went to set it up to film.
As part of her therapy, Kylie discovered a love of cooking and experimenting with different dishes. Her best friend, Jessy, suggested making videos of her creations and posting them on-line. So, she created the handle ‘MooreEats’, basing it after her maiden name, Moore, because she couldn’t figure out a good way to use Keuler, her married name. Uncomfortable with showing her face, she decided to film the process and post the recipes in short, easy to follow videos. At most, viewers would see her hands. Surprisingly, she gained a bit of a following on a few platforms with the help of her social media marketing degree
James said social media marketing was a stupid career path when they started dating back in college. But the draw of creating content and promoting different types of businesses was what she wanted to do. The small company she works for sub-contracts to larger companies due to the costs of keeping a social media marketing team on payroll. It was less expensive to only use a large team for big promotions while maintaining a small group for daily social page maintenance. But that gave Kylie the chance to work on many different projects and gain a wide knowledge of multiple platforms. James still belittled her job. He went on about no possibility for advancement, despite those things not mattering much to Kylie.
After setting up the video camera, Kylie rubbed at the scar across her fingers, mentally telling herself that no one notices. Accidents happen when you’re learning. She started filming the prep-work in a way that would be easy to edit later. Before she finished with the garlic, a light on the camera flashed, indicating that the memory card was full. Kylie sighed in frustration and went to connect her camera to her laptop in the office to clear up some space. Upon booting up the program she used to download and edit the videos, she discovered that there was a huge file.
“Well, that’s strange,” she said, squinting her eyebrows. “Oh, did I forget to turn it off?”
The same thing happened a year ago when she forgot to stop recording and the camera died. Since then, she made sure to finish her recordings and used cloud storage to keep her videos safe by uploading them after filming. She ran her fingers through her ebony hair and rubbed her deep, brown eyes to prepare herself for a night editing down the large file.
“Wow, it’s longer than I thought,” Kylie said to herself. “I’m going to have to find where I ended it.”
Kylie pulled up the video program she used for splitting up the video and let it cut up everything by scene. Without much thought, she played the video to see what recipe it was. However, instead of a video of kitchen prep work, she saw her bedroom and then her husband enter with another person, a woman. Kylie’s heart sank to her stomach as the woman sat next to her husband on the bed. She stopped the video.
Heart pounding in her chest, Kylie gasped for air as she stared at the screen. It’s some kind of mistake, right? Maybe it’s a work colleague who came by for a visit…? In my bedroom…? Needing the truth, but unable to move, Kylie sat frozen, fighting with herself to press play. After and eternity lost in her thoughts, Kylie gained the strength to reach over and hit the button.
“So, what did you tell her?” the woman said as she ran her fingers through her husband’s hair. “You never answered my text.”
“I didn’t have to say anything,” he moaned as he leaned back, his hands moving up and down her sleek body. “She left for a conference. Won’t be back till Wednesday.”
“So we have time?” she said as she straddled him.
He pulled off her thin dress, showcasing the lacy, black underwear. “As much time as you want. I’ll call in sick tomorrow.”
“Oh, how fun.” She leaned down and kissed him.
He picked her up and walked over to the dresser to set her down, grinding between her legs.
Kylie paused the video. Her stomach rolled in nauseated shock. She raced to the guest bathroom and relieved everything from her stomach. Through her sobs, she became sick again and again, until her throat was raw. Collapsing on the floor of the bathroom, she gripped her knees to her chest to make everything disappear. But the crushing, death grip of grief around her heart made it impossible. She stared at the linoleum pattern on the floor as tears drained out of her. Not knowing what to do, she pulled her phone from her back pocket and texted one word to Jessy.
Help
You at home?
Y
I’ll be there in an hour.
It was all Kylie could type. The flash of replies came before the screen timed out. Jessy would know what to do. Jessy will make it right. That thought was comforting. That thought was the only thing keeping her breathing since all the air in the world disappeared when the figure of that woman entered the shot. The only thing she allowed herself to think about was the coldness of the floor and the dirt in the corner she never noticed before. In what seemed like minutes, the front door burst open and healed foot steps echoed through the cold house.
“Ky!” her friend’s voice yelled through the house.
“Here,” Kylie managed to say as she sat up. Footsteps grew louder and Jessy flew into the bathroom. Her messy appearance, with her long blond hair in a high bun and her wrinkled clothes, showed how much Jessy rushed to get here.
“Sorry, traffic out of the city was a nightmare. What happened?” Jessy said as she examined the destruction, her blue eyes wide.
“I…” Kylie tried to say but burst into tears again. She fought the hics and sobs enough to articulate that there was a video on her computer.
Racing over, Jessy woke up the laptop and continued the video that still sat on the screen like cancer.
“That bastard,” she spat.
“Jessy…” Kylie said.
“When I get my hands on him I’m gonna…!” The pause was so sudden that Kylie stood up and shuffled to the door frame. Peeking out to see into the office, she saw a look of utter shock on her best friend’s frozen face.
“Jessy?”
Her eyes shot up. “Ky…” she said carefully. “Did you see who the woman was?”
Holding back another sob, Kylie shook her head. “I can’t see anymore.”
“So you know who she is?”
“What? No!” Kylie said, her voice rising and her tears increasing. “I don’t care who it is!”
“Ky, you need to see this cuz you won’t believe it if I tell you,” Jessy said, reaching out her hand.
“It’s bad enough to see him actually…. doing that…” She gripped her stomach. “You want me to watch more?”
“It’s worse actually,” Jessy said, walking around the desk to stand by her friend.
“What could be worse?”
“I’m sorry.” Jessy gripped her around the shoulders and led her to the screen.
Averting her eyes at first, Kylie looked over as Jessy rubbed her arms in comfort. There, kneeling with James’s manhood in her hand, was the face of Samantha. Kylie’s younger sister
