HE TOLD ME HE WAS WORKING LATE BUT I SAW HIS TRUCK AT THE AIRPORT PARKING LOT
I slammed the car into park and stared at the familiar dented tailgate under the harsh sodium lamps, my heart already cold. Midnight. The airport parking lot was mostly empty, the silence broken only by distant jet engines screaming on the tarmac. This wasn’t downtown at the office. This was a place you go when you’re leaving, or meeting someone who just arrived.
His text message felt like acid in my stomach now. He texted an hour ago, “Stuck late on the big project, heading home soon.” His truck wasn’t stuck anywhere near his office tonight, it was parked right here. I gripped my phone so hard my knuckles ached. “Where are you?” I texted, my fingers cold and clumsy on the screen, knowing he wouldn’t answer honestly.
I waited, engine off, watching that truck like it was a bomb about to detonate, the dashboard clock glowing an eerie green. Minutes later, I saw them walking from the terminal doors towards the exits, two figures silhouetted against the bright glass. They walked right towards his truck, talking low, leaning into each other slightly. My breath hitched as they got closer, recognizing the familiar pattern of her jacket, the way one figure moved, the swing of her arm. He unlocked the door on her side first, and she got in, settling into the passenger seat before he went around to the driver’s side.
Then she turned her head slightly and I saw her face clearly in the dim interior light.
👇 *Full story continued in the comments…*My breath hitched. It wasn’t a stranger, not a lover from some secret life. It was Sarah Jenkins, his business partner from Chicago. The one flying in for this “big project” he’d been stressing about for weeks. Relief, sharp and sudden, warred with the cold knot of dread that had formed in my gut. But why hadn’t he told me? Why the lie about working late at the office?
He started the truck, the engine rumbling to life. They weren’t kissing, weren’t even touching beyond that slight lean into each other as they talked, the way colleagues might after a long flight. But the secrecy still stung, a bitter aftertaste to the fear I’d just experienced. He checked his rearview mirror, and for a heart-stopping second, I thought he saw me. I ducked instinctively, shrinking lower in my seat, the adrenaline making my hands tremble on the steering wheel.
They pulled out of the parking space, the headlights sweeping across the empty rows. I stayed hidden, letting them get some distance, the eerie green glow of my dashboard clock counting the seconds. When I finally dared to sit up, I watched his truck turn out of the lot entrance, heading towards the freeway. Not home. He was taking her… where? To a hotel? To the office to start working *now*?
My phone vibrated. It was him. A new text. “Got held up even later, on my way finally.” My thumbs hovered over the keyboard. “Just saw you,” I typed, then deleted it. My heart was hammering, but the icy panic had melted, replaced by a simmering anger mixed with confusion. He wasn’t having an affair, not in the way I’d instantly imagined. But he *was* lying. He was right there, driving away with Sarah Jenkins, hours after he said he was heading home.
I didn’t follow them. I couldn’t. Sitting here, hidden in the dark, felt like a different kind of betrayal, one I was inflicting on myself. I put my car in reverse, backing slowly out of my spot. The silence in the truck he’d just driven away in wasn’t filled with whispers of infidelity, but with the unspoken questions that now screamed in my own head. Why couldn’t he just tell me the truth? As I drove out of the airport lot, leaving his lie and his truck behind, the “big project” didn’t feel like a professional challenge anymore. It felt like the biggest obstacle in our relationship, and it had just landed, late at night, right here. The conversation we needed to have was waiting for me at home, and I knew it wouldn’t be easy.