Mark and Chloe hadn’t been married long. Mark was a senior project manager at a top-tier tech firm, while Chloe worked as the front-desk manager at a high-end boutique spa.
Because of her rotating shift schedule, she often had half the week off. That abundance of free time was a double-edged sword; Chloe was the type to dive headfirst into every new trend. She had a dozen hobbies, but her real obsession was documenting her life. It wasn’t just the occasional sunset or a night out with the girls. Her phone’s storage was constantly at capacity with photos of her avocado toast, the bouquets Mark bought her, the neighbor’s ginger cat, and every single new manicure. Most of all, there were the selfies. She was beautiful, no doubt, but the sheer volume was staggering.
To Mark, it sometimes felt like a clinical obsession, a need to validate every waking second through a lens. Over time, however, he’d written it off as a harmless quirk. You get used to anything eventually, and he chose to accept it as part of the package.
That summer, the spa closed for a three-week renovation. Chloe was granted an unexpected paid leave, which happened to coincide with an “Energy and Abundance” online retreat she’d signed up for. It was one of those manifestation workshops—mostly women discussing “vibrational alignment” and “manifesting destiny.” Mark didn’t look into the details; he was a natural skeptic and wouldn’t have spent a dime on what he considered “pseudo-science,” but Chloe earned her own living and enjoyed treating herself. To each their own, he figured.
As a finale to the course, the organizers arranged a live seminar in Miami. It was a chance for the “tribe” to meet a famous lifestyle coach in person. Chloe was instantly sold. Her sister lived down there, and the beach was right around the corner. It was the perfect getaway, especially since Mark was swamped and couldn’t take time off this year. So, she meal-prepped a week’s worth of dinners for him, packed her bags, and headed south. Mark didn’t mind; he knew her sister was a total homebody, so he didn’t expect any wild partying. He sent her off with a kiss and a clear conscience.
When she returned, Chloe did what she always did: she sat him down to show him the photos from her trip. It was the usual gallery—tropical flowers, every stray cat she met, sunsets over the Atlantic. But Mark noticed something odd. For the first time, she was barely in any of the photos. Usually, there would be a hundred selfies; this time, there were almost none. He wondered if she’d gotten a bad sunburn or was just having a “low-confidence” week. He noted the anomaly but didn’t press her on it.
Over the next few weeks, however, Chloe’s behavior took a turn for the strange. She became tethered to her phone, her thumbs constantly flying across the screen. Whenever he asked, she’d claim she was just “catching up with her sister” or “the girls from the spa.” Then the evening calls started—around 8:00 or 9:00 PM, long after any legitimate business or telemarketer would be calling. When Mark was in the room, she’d decline the calls with an annoyed huff.
— I am so sick of these spam bots offering “free health screenings” and insurance quotes, — she’d mutter.
Eventually, Mark’s intuition spiked. He asked to see her phone to check the caller ID. Chloe hesitated for a heartbeat, then handed it over with a shrug. He found nothing. The numbers were unsaved and meant nothing to him. Still, the knot in his stomach remained. She wasn’t as open as she used to be; her conversations with him felt forced, like she was reading from a script.
When the spa reopened and she went back to work, Mark even went as far as to swing by her office unannounced one afternoon. Nothing. She was right where she was supposed to be, chatting with clients and staff.
The truth, as it usually does, came out by pure accident. Mark was working from home one Tuesday, prepping some sensitive documents for a merger. He needed a spare flash drive to transfer some encrypted files, but his desk drawer was empty. While searching for one, his eyes landed on Chloe’s vanity. There, in a small crystal tray filled with hairpins and trinkets, sat a sleek, silver thumb drive.
She won’t mind if I borrow this for a second, he thought.
He plugged it into his laptop and opened the directory. He was about to format it when a folder titled “MIAMI_RECAP” caught his eye. He clicked it, and the air left his lungs.
There was the reason for the lack of selfies on her phone. Everything she didn’t want him to see had been offloaded here for “safekeeping.” The screen was filled with photos of a glowing, radiant Chloe wrapped in the arms of a man he’d never seen before, with the ocean shimmering behind them. In one shot, they were mid-kiss. In another, Mark saw a clear, dark hickey on her neck. Chloe’s obsession with documenting her life had been her undoing; she’d scrubbed the evidence from her phone, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually delete the memories.
That evening, Chloe went straight from work to a bistro to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Mark, now certain of the betrayal, packed her life into three large suitcases and drove to the restaurant.
The group of women looked up in shock as he marched toward their table, luggage in tow. Chloe was sitting with her back to the door, animatedly recounting a story. As he got closer, he heard her voice—full of life, describing the “electric connection” of her summer fling.
— Care to share the details with me too? — Mark said, his voice cold and loud.
Chloe spun around, her face going pale.
— Mark? What… what are you doing here? — she asked, blinking rapidly, trying to summon her usual innocence.
— Don’t play dumb. Here are your things.
He dropped the suitcases next to her chair with a heavy thud.
— Go wherever you want, just don’t bother coming home. I have no use for a liar.
He didn’t wait for a rebuttal. He walked out of the bistro, leaving her friends to whisper and decide whose couch Chloe would be sleeping on that night.
The divorce was settled quickly. Mark kept the apartment—he’d bought it well before the wedding. He felt the sting of wasted time, but he looked at it as a masterclass in human nature. At the very least, he’d found out who she really was before they’d brought children into the mess. That, he decided, was a win.
0 comments