WE WERE LEAVING THE REGISTRY OFFICE AFTER REGISTERING OUR MARRIAGE WHEN MY HUSBAND SMILED AND SAID: “I SLEPT WITH SOMEONE ELSE LAST NIGHT.”
WE WERE LEAVING THE REGISTRY OFFICE AFTER REGISTERING OUR MARRIAGE WHEN MY HUSBAND SMILED AND SAID: “I SLEPT WITH SOMEONE ELSE LAST NIGHT.”
PART 2
When I closed the car door, my legs were shaking so badly that I could barely stand.
But I kept walking.
I didn’t want to give Adrian the satisfaction of seeing me fall.
I heard him lower the window.
“Elena!”
I didn’t stop.
“Don’t make a big deal out of a joke!”
A joke.
Five years of nightmares.
A baby who never got the chance to be born.
Months of therapy.
An emotional scar he knew better than anyone.
And Adrian had just called it a “joke” that he used all of that pain to make a bet with the woman who had taken part in destroying me.
I kept walking until I turned the corner.
Only then did I lean against a wall.
I couldn’t breathe.
My fingers were freezing.
The phone was still recording inside my bag.
I pulled it out.
Fifty-seven minutes.
The recording had started accidentally when, after leaving the courthouse, I had tried to send a voice message to my mother.
I had forgotten to stop it.
The file contained everything.
The confession.
The bet.
Vanessa’s voice.
And Adrian’s words:
“You’re just a woman another man already used.”
I stared at the screen for a long time.
Five years ago, I would have called Adrian.
I would have cried.
I would have asked him what I should do.
But that day, the person I needed to protect myself from was him.
I opened my contact list.
I searched for a number I hadn’t called in years.
“Elena?”
Daniel Foster’s voice sounded surprised.
Daniel had been the lawyer who handled my divorce from Victor.
“I need to see you.”
There was silence.
“Are you okay?”
I looked at the marriage certificate.
“No.”
I took a deep breath.
“I got married this morning.”
“Congratulations… I think.”
“And I want to know what my options are for making this marriage last as little time as possible.”
This time, the silence lasted much longer.
“Come to my office.”
Adrian called seventeen times while I was in the taxi.
I didn’t answer.
Then the messages started.
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Vanessa was just trying to joke with you.”
“Nothing truly serious happened.”
“We’re husband and wife. We need to talk.”
Finally, a different message arrived.
“Where are you?”
I read it several times.
There were no apologies.
No guilt.
Only frustration because he had lost control of the situation.
I blocked his number.
Daniel’s office looked almost exactly the same as it had five years earlier.
When he saw me walk in, he immediately stood up.
“My God, Elena.”
I must have looked terrible.
He offered me water.
I placed the marriage certificate on his desk.
Then I placed my phone beside it.
“Listen.”
I said nothing while the recording played.
Daniel remained serious during the first few minutes.
When Vanessa’s voice appeared, he looked up.
When Adrian talked about my first marriage and my lost pregnancy, the lawyer’s expression completely changed.
When it ended, Daniel slowly exhaled.
“He knew every detail about what happened five years ago?”
“All of it.”
“Including the miscarriage?”
I nodded.
“He was the one who took me to therapy for months afterward.”
Daniel closed his eyes for a moment.
“This doesn’t necessarily prove physical betrayal. He seems to imply the story was created as part of the bet.”
“I know.”
“But it proves other things.”
He explained that the exact legal process would depend on several factors, but there was something immediate I could do.
Protect my assets.
Before we married, Adrian had insisted that we combine some of our accounts after the wedding.
Fortunately, that process had never been completed.
My apartment was still under my name.
My savings were still mine.
And most importantly, the shares I owned in the company where I had worked for eight years remained solely my property.
“Do not sign anything he gives you,” Daniel said.
“Do not transfer money. Do not change beneficiaries. And do not delete this recording.”
“I already made three copies.”
Daniel looked at me.
“You’ve changed.”
Those two words almost made me cry.
Five years ago, I had entered that same office unable to finish a sentence without breaking down.
Now I was shattered inside.
But I was still sitting.
Still thinking.
Still making decisions.
“There’s one thing missing,” I said.
“What?”
“I want to know why.”
Daniel frowned.
“Elena…”
“I don’t want to go back to him. I don’t want to forgive him.”
I squeezed my hands together.
“But nobody spends five years pretending to be your safe place just to make a disgusting bet out of nowhere. There’s something else.”
Daniel didn’t answer.
Because he knew I was right.
I returned to my apartment around eight at night.
Adrian was sitting outside the door.
When he saw me, he stood up.
“Finally.”
He didn’t look worried.
He looked angry.
“Where were you?”
“Move.”
“Elena, we need to talk.”
“No.”
I tried to open the door.
Adrian placed his hand against it.
“Are you really going to throw away our marriage over something stupid?”
I looked at him.
“Something stupid?”
“I didn’t sleep with Vanessa.”
“I know that.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“It was a bet. You said it yourself.”
Adrian sighed.
“Then what’s the problem?”
That question destroyed the last gentle image I still had of him.
“The problem is that you knew the worst day of my life and decided to recreate it for entertainment.”
“It wasn’t for entertainment.”
“Oh, really?”
His jaw tightened.
“I wanted to know how much I mattered to you.”
I almost laughed.
“By humiliating me?”
“Because I’ve never been sure about you.”
“We got married this morning.”
“Exactly.”
Adrian raised his voice.
“You never chose me first!”
The neighbors could hear us.
I didn’t care anymore.
“Five years later and you’re still angry because, when I was twenty-two, I chose someone else?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me.”
Adrian froze.
For the first time, he seemed to realize he had said too much.
“Let me in,” he finally said.
“No.”
“This is my house too.”
“No. This apartment was mine before we got married, and you never officially lived here.”
“I’m your husband.”
“For a few hours.”
His expression changed.
“What does that mean?”
“Exactly what you heard.”
I opened the door.
Before I stepped inside, Adrian grabbed my arm.
“You went to a lawyer?”
I didn’t answer.
His fingers tightened.
“Elena.”
“Let go of me.”
Something in my voice must have made him react.
He released me.
“You’re going to regret doing this.”
I looked directly at him.
“That’s exactly what Vanessa told me five years ago when I filed for divorce.”
I closed the door in his face.
