I FOUND A BURNER PHONE HIDDEN IN HIS CLOSET AND SAW HER NAME
My hands were shaking so bad the tiny key rattled against the floorboards as I tried to unlock the box.
I hadn’t meant to find it tucked away in the back of his closet, hidden beneath old sweaters, but the smooth, cold metal box caught my eye. Inside, wasn’t just papers or photos I expected, but a burner phone I’d never seen before, still powered on, showing recent activity. My heart started pounding hard against my ribs, a frantic drum in the sudden quiet.
He walked in just as I scrolled through the messages, his face draining of color instantly when he saw what I held in my hand. “What are you doing? You have no right!” he hissed, stepping towards me, his voice low but tight with panic, reaching for the phone. The bright screen cast an awful blue light onto his face as he tried to grab it, illuminating his guilt and shame in the harsh glow.
“Who is Anya? And why is this hidden?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper, pointing at the message thread filled with intimate texts, photos, and plans that went back months. The smell of his usual cologne suddenly felt heavy and suffocating in the small room, like a disguise failing completely. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out, only a desperate, cornered look that confirmed everything the messages already screamed.
The last message said, “Meet me at the old bridge at midnight. She won’t know.”
👇 *Full story continued in the comments…*He stumbled back, the color draining from his face entirely now, replaced by a sickly grey. “It’s… it’s nothing. Just… an old friend,” he stammered, a desperate lie hanging in the air between us, thin and easily shattered. But the phone in my hand pulsed with the truth – the loving messages, the photos showing them together, the future they were planning. An old friend didn’t talk about ‘us’ or whisper ‘I can’t wait to be with you properly.’
My voice was steady now, the shaking replaced by a cold, hard resolve. “An old friend you need a hidden phone for? An old friend who wants to meet you at midnight at the old bridge, promising I won’t know?” The words were like stones, heavy and sharp. The silence stretched, thick with betrayal. The smell of his cologne now seemed like a cheap mask, the reality beneath it ugly and raw.
He finally found his voice, a broken whisper. “I… I was going to tell you. Soon. It’s complicated.”
“Complicated?” I scoffed, a humorless sound. “It looks pretty simple from here. You’re meeting her tonight. Behind my back.” I looked down at the phone one last time, the last message searing itself into my memory. “She won’t know.” But I *did* know. The game was over.
I didn’t need to hear the rest. I didn’t need his excuses or his pathetic attempts at justification. The image of them meeting at the bridge while I was supposedly clueless was the final blow. I dropped the phone onto the plush carpet. It landed with a soft thud, the screen facing up, the damning message still visible.
“Don’t bother going,” I said, my voice flat, devoid of emotion now. “Because she’s right. I won’t be here.” I turned, walking past him, not looking back at his contorted face, the air in the room suddenly too thin to breathe. My hands weren’t shaking anymore. They were cold and steady as I reached for my coat and keys, leaving him standing there with his secret, his lie, and the ghost of a meeting he wouldn’t make at midnight.