Fifteen Years of Lies My Partner's Secret Marriage

"We can't start throwing money around just because things are a little better now, right?"

"What if things get hard again someday? How would you adjust?"

"Honey." Luna wrapped her arms around me. "I still like you best when you keep things simple."

Every ounce of anticipation I'd had shattered into nothing.

Her words hit me like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. I just stood there, frozen, too stunned to even react, watching as Luna smashed my only bottle of cologne without a shred of hesitation.

"What's the point of something so flashy and useless?"

Right.

Flashy and useless.

What was the point?

And yet Jayden was dressed head to toe in flashy and useless things, looking like he belonged to another world entirely, polished like some trust-fund prince.

The joke was that every dollar spent on making Jayden look that way had come from my blood and sweat over the years.

How was that fair?

The tears came before I could stop them. I wiped them away hard, staring at Luna's name lighting up my phone again and again, and finally hit answer.

"Honey?"

"You finally picked up!"

"Thank God!"

Luna's voice came through frantic.

"I've been looking everywhere for you! Where did you go? Whatever's going on, can we please talk about it face to face?"

"Sebastian, we've been together fifteen years!"

"Not fifteen days! You can't just disappear like this—"

"Luna."

I swallowed past the ache in my throat. My voice came out steady.

"Let's meet."

I told her.

"At the old house uptown. Let's meet there."

Silence on the other end.

A few seconds passed.

"Okay."

"Honey, I'm heading there right now." Luna's voice turned bright, almost relieved. "I'll pick up those soup dumplings you love on the way!"

Before I could refuse, she'd already hung up.

I turned and met my friend's worried eyes.

"I'm fine."

I managed a smile.

"Don't worry."

It had been nearly five years since Luna and I moved out of that house. I hadn't been back once.

I stood in front of the door, its paint chipped and faded, and remembered how we'd moved here from that basement apartment and decorated the place together, piece by piece.

Luna had said back then:

"Honey, this is our first real home. That means something!"

"Someday, when we're old, if you want, we'll come back here and retire!"

"Every year, let's come back and stay for a few days, okay?"

Back then, my heart had been full. I'd felt like my life was worth something.

Now, just a few years later, everything had changed.

I pushed the door open.

Luna was already on her feet, rising from the couch.

"Honey!"

She held up the soup dumplings like a child showing off a gold star, offering them to me.

"Still warm."

I used to always say I loved those soup dumplings. Loved that Luna would get up before dawn and stand in line to buy them for me.

Later, whenever I brought them up, all I got from Luna was indifference.

"Sebastian."

"Time is money. You think I have the luxury of standing in some endless line to buy you dumplings?"

Now the soup dumplings were right in front of me again, and somehow, they didn't look all that appetizing anymore.

"Luna."

I ignored her eagerness, walked past her, and sat down on the couch. The old frame groaned under my weight. Nothing like Jayden's furniture.

"Do you remember this couch?"

I looked at her.

"You and I went to the flea market together. Took us two days of hunting to find it."

"And because we couldn't afford to pay for delivery," I said, as if recounting the most ordinary thing in the world, "I borrowed a hand cart. You held onto the armrest, walking beside me in hundred-degree heat, and it took us two and a half hours to get it home."