10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgJZetGv10N
It started with a phone call.
Late at night, long after the dishes had been done and Colleen had curled into Andrei’s chest to sleep. The sudden vibration on the nightstand jarred her half-awake. Andrei stirred beside her, immediately alert.
He snatched the phone before she could even read the screen. “Work,” he muttered, slipping out of bed.
But she knew better.
It wasn’t the work ringtone. That one was a brisk, businesslike alert — he’d said it helped him distinguish real emergencies. This one was soft, nearly intimate. A song they used to play during long drives, back when things still felt honest.
She didn’t ask, not then.
The next morning, she found the first receipt.
Tucked inside the pocket of his jeans while she was doing the laundry. A hotel minibar. Not a chain they usually stayed at — too expensive, too far from his usual meetings. It was dated three days ago. He said he had an all-day client pitch in Makati. She remembered because she’d even packed him lunch.
Her stomach coiled into a tight knot.
“Need anything ironed?” he asked from the bathroom door, towel around his waist.
She hid the receipt behind her back, smiled too fast. “Nope. All done.”
That night, she couldn’t sleep.
She kept thinking of the message. He’s not who you think he is. It echoed every time she looked at him now. Like a splinter in her thoughts she couldn’t pull out.
Colleen decided to call Isa.
Her best friend since high school, Isa never sugar-coated things. She came over with fast food and a bottle of cheap red wine — the way they always did when the world got too loud.
“You think he’s cheating?” Isa asked bluntly, halfway through her fries.
Colleen hesitated. “I don’t want to think that.”
“But?”
“But… someone messaged me. Anonymously. And now everything he does feels off. The calls, the weird receipts. He’s even started putting passwords on stuff he used to leave unlocked.”
Isa stared at her, chewing slowly. “You want the real advice?”
Colleen nodded.
“Don’t dig unless you’re ready for what you’ll find.”
Colleen looked down at her untouched burger. “So I should just… ignore it?”
“No. I’m saying don’t half-dig. You’re either all in, or you walk away while you can still pretend to be happy.”
That night, lying beside Andrei, Colleen watched the steady rise and fall of his chest.
She thought of the man who used to show up at her college dorm with lugaw when she was sick. The man who read her poetry, even if he hated reading. The one who asked her to marry him on a rainy Tuesday, soaked and shaking, but certain.
She also thought of the man whose phone now buzzed in the middle of the night.
And whose truth might be something she wasn’t ready to face.
Still… she reached for her phone, opened a blank note, and started writing down everything.
Every time he came home late. Every lie. Every flicker of something that didn’t sit right.
Because Colleen wasn’t ready to leave.
But she wasn’t going to stay blind either.
ns216.73.216.247da2
