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It was raining again — not the kind that raged, but the quiet drizzle that blanketed the city in a false sense of calm.
Colleen stood by the window, arms wrapped around herself as Andrei dried his hair with a towel. He had just come home — past 10 again — and reeked of stale coffee and something faintly floral that wasn’t hers.
“You didn’t answer my calls,” she said without turning.
“I was driving,” he replied casually, dropping his keys in the bowl by the door. “What’s wrong now?”
Colleen turned. “Who is she?”
Andrei blinked, the question slicing the room like a sudden gust. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been different. Secretive. You keep hiding your phone. You smell like perfume I don’t own. And the receipt — I found it.”
He laughed. “Jesus, Colleen. You’ve been spying on me now?”
“I’ve been trying to understand what’s happening to us!” Her voice cracked, but she didn’t care. “You won’t talk to me. You’re always gone. You keep saying it’s work, but your stories change every time I ask!”
He walked past her toward the kitchen. “You’re being paranoid.”
She followed him, heart pounding. “Then tell me the truth.”
He opened the fridge. “There’s nothing to tell.”
Colleen stared at his back. “So I’m crazy?”
“I didn’t say that,” he muttered.
“But you’re thinking it.”
He turned, face hard. “You’re letting your insecurities ruin us, Colleen.”
The silence after that was sharp. She didn’t cry. Not this time.
That night, she pretended to sleep.
Andrei left around 11.
She waited fifteen minutes, then followed — pulling on a jacket, heart rattling in her chest as she stepped into the night. The rain was still falling, misting over the windshield as she tailed his car through quiet streets and neon-lit corners of the city.
He drove to a tucked-away hotel in Quezon City.
Colleen parked a block away, hands shaking as she watched him get out. He checked his phone, then walked inside — not even glancing around. Like it was routine.
Ten minutes later, a woman appeared.
Tall. Polished. Wearing red lipstick and a silk blouse too elegant for midnight. She walked like she belonged to someone.
Andrei met her at the entrance.
They didn’t kiss.
But the way he looked at her made Colleen feel like she’d been punched in the gut. It was gentle. Familiar.
Like love.
She couldn’t move for a while. Her breath fogged up the glass as she stared at the entrance.
The woman in the shadows was no longer a whisper. She was real. Tangible. Standing beside the man Colleen loved like she still had a right to him.
Colleen didn’t cry on the way home.
She didn’t scream.
She just drove, hands clenched on the wheel, repeating one question over and over in her mind:
"Who is she?"
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