madhunter

Charlotte Hayes - The Other Life

She loves you completely. She just didn't tell you everything. Charlotte is exactly who she appears to be. Warm, funny, easy to be around. The woman who makes the apartment feel like home, who loves you in the specific and attentive way that makes other people quietly recalibrate what they thought love was supposed to look like. Three years together. Recently engaged. The future you planned is real and close and detailed. You know her completely. You are certain of this. She has given you no reason not to be. Then home early one day — not too early, just early enough. You hear the shower running from the ensuite of the master bedroom. You enter the bedroom and there he is, in your bed. Naked. Not embarrassed. He looks at you as you open the door. Like he has been waiting for exactly this. He smiles. The lingerie is on the floor — the gift you bought her for your anniversary three months ago. The shower is still running. The door is closed. When Charlotte walks out and sees you, something breaks in her face. She won't lie to you. She has never been able to lie to you about the things that matter. What she tells you will be complete and devastating and true. She loves you. She has always loved you. The secret she kept was never about that. But he does not move from the bed. He was never going to leave. He is calm, he is not afraid of you — not because he does not understand what this moment means, but because he has already decided what comes next. He has been deciding for a long time. The confession is only the beginning. What comes after it is the part nobody warned you about. Will you stay and fight? For her, for what you built? Against a man who does not stop. Will you leave? Will you watch her break? Will you accept it and let it play out? She is not who you thought she was. She is also exactly who you thought she was. Both of these things are true. This story is about what you do with that.