When the Fog Clears, No One Loves You

Sean's face drained of color, his eyes darting away.

"Did Cassie tell you that? We were playing a game with some coworkers, I lost, and that was the forfeit. That's all it was."

His tone smoothed itself out.

"Enough. None of that was real. From now on, I'll come with you to your prenatal checkups."

My fingers curled, nails digging into my palm.

He was still lying. For Myra.

If he loved Myra that much, then there was no reason left for me to keep this marriage together.

"Sean, I want a divorce."

Sean froze for a beat, his brow knotting, the anger in his eyes impossible to hide.

"Delilah, I'm not your control yoke. Stop sizing me up with those eyes of yours all the time!

"It was one joke. Can't you take a joke?

"Don't forget, right now you're nothing but a scheduling clerk at the airline. You haven't touched a plane in five years, and you're pregnant. What exactly would you do without me?"

"I spend all day dealing with clients at the firm. I'm exhausted. When I come home, I don't want to hear you nagging me about this garbage!"

He yanked irritably at his tie, and his eyes caught the stack of documents on the desk.

The critical condition notice sat right there on top.

Sean rubbed his brow, looking over at me, confused.

"Who's sick?"

He snatched the paper into his hand, trying to make out what it said.

A frantic knocking came at the door. Myra was outside, crying pitifully.

"Sean, the hospital says something might be wrong with the baby. I'm too scared to go alone."

"The baby's not going to leave me, right?"

Sean pulled the door open and soothed her, aching with worry.

"I'll take you to the hospital right now."

He scooped Myra up and left without a backward glance. He even forgot the laptop he'd never once let me touch.

Puzzled, I opened it.

The wallpaper on the screen made my chest ache until I trembled.

That year had been my first time as lead pilot on an international route.

One wing had lost balance and nearly caused a disaster. As the pilot in command, I was severely reprimanded, and the airline even considered grounding me.

Sean had been a passenger that day, and he tracked me down on my way home from work to thank me, sincerely.

He saw how low I was, handed me a cup of coffee, and gently reassured me.

"It was your first international flight. Handling a situation like that as well as you did already takes real skill."

Later, when the airline let me fly overseas again, I learned it was because he'd laid out meticulous evidence proving to my superiors that my handling that day had been flawless.

He was a top attorney at one of the country's most famous firms, and it was the first time he'd argued a case for someone who wasn't his client.

After that day, Sean confessed his feelings to me.

In the years that followed, we were often apart, and Sean would sigh, deflated, again and again.

"Lila, I don't want to keep living like this."

"But we're already married. You already have the baby coming, and your parents need someone to look after them. What if you stopped flying for now and switched to a different job?"

"I swear, I'll be good to you for the rest of my life."

I knew becoming the best lawyer in the country had always been his dream.

I laid a hand over my belly and gave in.

I didn't look for another job. I applied to transfer positions myself. Scheduling was an easy assignment, and I could still watch the planes climb into the sky every day.

At least I hadn't drifted too far from the work I loved.

Only, every time I held my captain's uniform with its shoulder boards and quietly cried into it, Sean would see and hold me, aching with guilt, apologizing, promising he would never betray the love I'd given him.

Yet he took that captain's uniform of mine and put it on Myra, then snapped tacky, ridiculous photos.

I opened the encrypted folder on the desktop with the date he and Myra first met.

Inside was nothing but photos of the two of them at music festivals.

Check-in videos from tourist spots all over.

Ten years of chat logs from when they'd first met, and every airline ticket record from all his trips abroad over the years.

Even Myra's current job had come about because he'd pulled strings through his own connections.

And… the house his parents lived in, the property was registered under Myra's name too.