He Took His Female Assistant Home, I Made Him Taste His Own Medicine

The next morning, I woke up in the guest bed of my parents' empty house to the ringing of my phone. Still half-asleep, I answered, knowing exactly what awaited me.

“Samantha, where are you?” His voice had that familiar edge of impatience. “You’re not around the house and there’s no breakfast. Lucy and I are starving.”

The nerve of him left me momentarily speechless. After everything, he hadn’t even noticed I’d left the night before. All he cared about was breakfast.

I steadied myself, keeping my voice calm. “I’m not responsible for feeding either you or your assistant. I’m serious about the divorce, Jody. I’ll have the papers sent to you soon.”

Silence hung between us, thick with tension. Then his tone dropped, colder. “Enough of this nonsense, Samantha. I’m the only family you have left. You still want to divorce me?”

The words struck like a punch to the chest, reigniting a wound I’d just begun to numb.

My parents had died six months ago, their bus crashing on a rainy night on the way to a long-awaited vacation. The emptiness they left was a void Jody knew all too well and here he was, using it against me.

Then, in a swift shift, he softened his voice, as if trying to appeal to my sentiment. “Look, I got carried away. Tomorrow’s the weekend. Let’s go to the lodge and you can have a spa day. It’ll be good for us.”

Months ago, I had suggested we go to that lodge together, hoping a change of scenery might help us reconnect. Every time, he brushed it off, too busy with “work.” Now, when it was too late, he was finally offering to go.

I rejected him flatly, “Not interested.”

A pause lingered. “Is it because of last night? Samantha, I was just working. Lucy and I are colleagues. Why don’t you trust me? We’ve known each other for twenty years.”

I did trust him. But that trust had shattered long ago. It started two months back, with a call from a woman’s number saved on his phone—someone I didn’t recognize.

Thinking it was a family member, I picked up, only to be met with a video call from Lucy herself. She was lounging poolside in a swimsuit, clearly posed.

The moment she saw me, she froze and quickly ended the call.

I felt so conflicted that I confronted Jody about it, only to have him explode in anger. “Who gave you the right to go through my phone? Don’t you have any manners?”

Stunned, I’d apologized, only for him to dismissively explain, “Lucy’s just learning to swim. She only contacted me for work, that’s probably urgent when she call me and you pick up.” He said it so nonchalantly, as if that made everything fine.

I convinced myself it was nothing. But soon after, Lucy’s name became a constant presence in our lives. Either Jody was on the phone with her day and night, or he’d leave me behind to go see her, vanishing for two or three days of business trip.

At one point, he even took her on a week-long trip. Every time, he used “work” as an excuse, treating me like I was oblivious to what was really going on.

Once, I might have fought for him, hoping he’d come back to the man I thought I knew. But now, he was already so far gone that there was no point.

“It doesn’t matter anymore, Jody.”

In the silence, I heard a giggle in the background—a smug, small laugh that could only belong to Lucy. He’d put me on speaker, letting her listen to everything. I lost any remaining will to continue the conversation and hung up.

Not long after, my phone buzzed with a message from him: “You’re hanging up on me? Are you trying to ruin our marriage?”

I stared at the message, feeling a hollow ache mixed with the familiar resentment he’d left me with. But this time, I didn’t respond. I let the silence speak for me.