Then I used the call option on screen.
She answered on the first ring. “Kim?”
“He told me the watch was from a client.”
“Tell me you didn’t know about me. I had no clue about you.”
“I didn’t,” she whispered. “I swear I didn’t.”
“How long have you been away?”
“A little over three years. We were together two years before that. I came home for short visits, but Tyler always had everything planned. Family dinners. Wedding errands. One-night stays. Then I’d leave again.”
“I swear I didn’t.”
“Every time you came back,” I said, opening my laptop, “he told me he had a work emergency or family thing.”
Avery went quiet. “He told me you were a coworker.”
I swallowed hard. “I was his girlfriend.”
“I know that now.”
Avery sent the screenshot next.
It was a message from Tyler.
“I was his girlfriend.”
“Only three more months until I’m your husband.”
I checked the date at the top of the screen.
My stomach dropped.
“No,” I whispered.
Avery’s voice softened through the phone. “What?”
I checked my calendar.
“Only three more months…”
It had been my birthday trip. Tyler had booked a hotel, ordered pancakes, and turned his phone off for “one weekend with no distractions.”
I stared at the screenshot until the words blurred.
“Kim?” Avery asked.
“That message was from my birthday weekend.”
Avery went silent.
Then she said, “He told me he was visiting his mother.”
It had been my birthday trip.
“He told me he wanted to be fully present with me.”
