EPISODE: 2

• My chest felt tight, like my lungs were shrinking. I couldn’t catch my breath. Not really. Every inhale felt like trying to breathe through a straw. My face felt hot, then cold, then hot again. My heart pounded so loud it drowned out the world. I wasn’t crying, not exactly, just stuck, frozen in a loop that wouldn’t stop playing.
• Her voice, the laughter, Reggie, that damn couch. I think I said his name out loud. Quiet just once. Reggie. It didn’t feel real. Nothing did. I felt like I was floating just behind myself, watching the moment unfold from a distance. Eventually, I reached for my phone, the screen glowing too bright against the dark. Scrolled through contacts with a trembling thumb and landed on Connor.
• I didn’t even think about what time it was. When he picked up, I couldn’t even form a full sentence. Hey, I managed. My voice cracked. Can I Can I come by? He didn’t ask why. Didn’t hesitate. Yeah, door’s open. You okay? I wasn’t. We both knew it. But I nodded anyway, whispered a thank you, and started the truck. The drive to his place was a blur.
• 10 minutes, maybe 15, but it felt like I was moving through molasses. The world outside didn’t feel like mine anymore. When I got to his apartment, I didn’t say much. He took one look at me and just gestured toward the couch. I didn’t sit, couldn’t. I paced back and forth, shoes off, hands buried in my hair, mumbling pieces of what I’d heard, what I’d realized.
• Connor stood there, arms crossed, trying to piece it together. I could tell he wanted to fix it somehow, but there was nothing to fix. Just facts, brutal, undeniable facts. He pulled out his laptop, said we needed to be smart. Said the first move had to be the right one. Started googling divorce lawyers. Good ones, aggressive one.
• His voice was calm. Mine wasn’t. While he typed, I started thinking back. Really thinking. Jenna’s phone always flipped screen down. The trip she took with Chloe, always last minute, always conveniently timed around my deadline. that one hotel charge from Dallas that showed up on our shared account. She said it was a mistake, a glitch.
• I believed her. Or maybe I just didn’t want to deal with what it might actually mean. It all started lining up like a puzzle I’d been refusing to see. I dropped onto the edge of the couch, hands on my knees, staring down at the carpet like it held the answers. Connor was still talking something about documenting everything, but I barely heard him.
• The truth was, I’d seen the signs for years. I just didn’t want to believe they meant anything. I wanted to believe she loved me, that we were good, that everything was still what it used to be. But that night, sitting in Connors apartment under the dull yellow glow of his kitchen light, I finally admitted it. She hadn’t just betrayed me.
• She’d been doing it right in front of me the whole time. When I walked back into the house the next morning, it felt like slipping into a movie set where I already knew the ending. Same walls, same furniture, same faint smell of her vanilla candles burning in the living room. But none of it felt real anymore. I moved like a ghost, careful with my expressions, speaking in the same tone I always did.
• She didn’t suspect a thing. Jenna was standing at the kitchen sink, loading dishes with one AirPod in and a tired expression like she hadn’t slept much. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun and she looked over her shoulder with a smile that barely reached her eyes. Hey babe, you’re back early.
• She didn’t ask why. Just leaned over, kissed my cheek, and kept rinsing out wine glasses like nothing had happened. Yeah, Rick’s kid got sick. Everything got scrapped. She made a little sound of sympathy. “That sucks,” she said, then muttered something about having to clean up after Khloe and Britney called it a messy girl’s night.
• She rolled her eyes and chuckled like they’d just gotten a little too loud, a little too tipsy, and not like she’d laughed about screwing another man in our living room hours earlier. I nodded, dropped my bag by the stairs, and asked if she wanted coffee. My hands were steady. My voice didn’t crack.
• I watched her carefully, the way someone might study a wild animal. curious, cautious, detached. Later, while she showered, I opened her phone. I’d never done that before. Never needed to. Or at least I thought I didn’t. But now, with her phone resting in my palm, her passcode suddenly obvious. Her birthday, of course. It was like unlocking a vault that had been wide open all along. It didn’t take long.
• Her messages with Reggie were pinned to the top, not even hidden, just there. I started scrolling. photos, not just of them together, but of her naked, posing in hotel mirrors, wearing things I’d never seen before. Her captions were shameless. Can’t wait to sneak away again. Miss the way you taste. He’s asleep downstairs.

EPISODE: 3

• Reggie’s replies were just as bad. Compliments, dirty promises plan. There were hotel receipts, PDF confirmations, emails with little hearts in the subject line, and more than one message joking about how clueless I was, how easy it was to lie to me. I felt sick, but I kept scrolling. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to.
• I needed the truth. I needed to see just how deep it went. I began forwarding everything to my email. Screenshots, attachments, dates, times. I created a folder and dumped it all there. Every dirty secret cataloged and copied. Then I opened our banking app. That’s when the second gut punch landed. Lingerie boutiques I’d never heard of.
• Charges from spa resorts, fancy restaurants, and luxury hotel rooms build on dates. when she’d said she was visiting her sister. I saw payments to Uber accounts that didn’t match her, even a florist in Houston. The numbers lined up too cleanly. All those weekends, she said she was decompressing. She was living another life, and I had been funding it.
• I sat at the kitchen table while she dried her hair upstairs, and for the first time, I didn’t feel broken. I felt focused. The heartbreak wasn’t gone. It was still humming in the background. But something else had taken its place, a cold, sharp clarity. I wasn’t going to yell. I wasn’t going to beg for answers.
• I was going to prepare and she’d never see it coming. After that, I met Dana Ellis. Downtown Dallas, 32nd floor, office full of glass and hard angles. Nothing soft about it, including her. Connor had sent me her contact with one line. She doesn’t play nice. That’s good. And he was right. Dana wasn’t warm. She wasn’t reassuring.
• She didn’t ask how I was doing. She looked at me like a chessboard. And then she started moving the pieces. First rule, she said, “No smile, just that dead serious tone like a judge reading a sentence. You don’t tell her what you know.” “Not yet. You don’t tip a single card until everything’s in place.
• ” I nodded, said, “Okay.” And she didn’t wait for more. You’ve got evidence? I showed her the folder, screenshots, PDFs, emails. Her eyes flicked through the images with the same expression you’d have skimming a grocery list. Good. That’s a start, but you need to protect yourself financially, legally, emotionally can come later. Then came the checklist.
• Open a new bank account. Transfer exactly half of the savings. No more, no less. She was clear. This isn’t revenge. It’s legal defense. Stick to what’s yours. Document everything. Change your password. Secure your digital footprint. Lock down anything she could use or empty while smiling to your face. Pack only the essentials.
• Passports, legal documents, keepsakes, stuff you’d be devastated to lose. Not clothes. Dana said she’ll notice clothes. Go for the irreplaceable. I left her office lighter somehow, still angry, still hollow but focused. I had a map now and that mattered. The bank was next. I sat across from a young manager in a two big suit who asked if I was starting a new chapter. I said yes without elaborating.
• Transferred exactly 50% of our joint savings into a clean new account. No online links, no paper trail Jenna would stumble across. Then I reset every password I’d ever shared, email, utilities, Amazon, anything. That evening, Jenna was in the kitchen scrolling Instagram while microwaving leftover pasta.
• I told her I was going out for a drive, maybe grabbing a beer with Connor. She smiled without looking up. I spent that night packing the pieces of me I didn’t want her hands on. My dad’s old watch, the cufflinks he wore to my graduation, photo albums, a shoe box full of letters from college, a few things she always treated like clutter.
• I loaded them carefully into the trunk. Every item a reminder that I wasn’t just some guy she could replace. The apartment came the next morning. Small, clean, beige walls, a stop gap. I paid the deposit in cash and got the keys that same afternoon. Told the landlord I’d be moving in pieces at night, and he didn’t ask why. By the end of the day, I had a place that was mine, a bank account she couldn’t touch, a lawyer who wasn’t afraid to go for the jugular.
• And for the first time since I heard her voice on that couch, I didn’t feel like a victim. I felt ready. For the next two weeks, I became exactly who Jenna thought I was. sweet, oblivious, loyal. Morning kisses, dinner check-ins, weekend plans. I even started doing that thing she always wished I’d do, offering to watch selling sunset on the couch beside her like I actually cared about which realtor was crying that she had no idea I was watching her the entire time.
• She’d sit there with her phone tucked under a blanket, fingers moving fast. I could see Reggie’s name in her notifications, sometimes saved as our contractor, sometimes just an emoji, but it was always him. They’d flirt, make plans, send photos back and forth while I was 6 in away pretending to scroll sports score.
• She even giggled at one point. Literally giggled like a teenager with a crush. And I’d smile. That was the game now. Control my face, my voice, my heartbeat. She didn’t suspect a thing. If anything, she seemed relieved I was back to normal. I kissed her on the forehead one night while she lay texting him under the cover.
• She laughed and said, “You’re being so sweet lately.” I kissed her again and said, “I love you.” The irony nearly choked me. Every day after work, I added to the folder. I called it the nuclear file. And that wasn’t a joke. Every message, every screenshot, every image, I backed it up three different ways. Connor helped me organize it by category.
• Photos, texts, financials, travel receipts, audio. Audio was a new one. Texas is a one party consent state, which meant all I had to do was press record while we talked. I’d ask innocent questions about her weekend plans or if she still talked to Khloe often and she’d lie without blinking. The recordings were clear.
• Connor brought over an external hard drive and we made copies. One for my lawyer, one for me, and one more labeled for Lauren, Reggie’s wife. I didn’t know much about her, but I knew she existed and I knew she deserved to see what was happening behind her back just as much as I had. The hardest part wasn’t the pretending.
• It was staying still. I had what I needed. the proof, the plan, the exit. But Dana had been crystal clear. Wait, let her dig the hole deeper. Let her get comfortable. Make the landing harder. So, I did. I even started laying the groundwork socially. Casual things, little seeds. I’d mentioned to mutual friends how distant Jenna had been lately, how she was always working or out with the girls. I didn’t say much.
• Just let them draw their own conclusions. In hindsight, it didn’t take much. People had eyes. People had questions. They just hadn’t had a reason to voice them until now. One night, Jenna left her laptop open on the coffee table. I walked past it, pretending not to notice, then paused. Her inbox was open.
• A new reservation confirmation from a downtown hotel. Friday, same day, she said she was seeing her mom. I stared at the screen for a long time. Then I turned off the lamp, kissed her on the head, and went upstairs. She didn’t even flinch. Didn’t even look up. Two more days I could wait. The morning it all came down. The sun was out and Jenna was glowing.