I SAW MY FIANCÉ KISSING SOMEONE ELSE OUTSIDE OUR RESTAURANT
I saw him the second I stepped out of the car, laughing with her under the restaurant awning.
My breath caught in my throat, sharp and sudden, as the cold rain plastered my hair to my face. All I could hear was the relentless drumming of the water on the sidewalk, mixing with the faint, distinctive smell of wet asphalt. He had his arm around her, his head tilted just like he did when he was being charming, his smile wide and carefree. I stood there, watching them, utterly frozen under the downpour, barely able to breathe or even blink.
She saw me first, her eyes widening just before she quickly pulled away from him. He finally turned, a look of pure, naked panic flashing across his face the second he saw me. “What are you doing here?” he stammered, his voice tight, not even trying to hide the truth written all over him.
The lie was etched all over his face, obvious and cheap, like a suit he couldn’t possibly wear. I looked from him to her, this stranger suddenly placed into the middle of my life, standing awkwardly beside the large planter box. Years, plans, futures – all crumbling instantly under the crushing weight of that single, awful image.
Her face was pale, almost ashen, her eyes fixed on the wet ground between her feet. She was gripping that small, bright red clutch purse like a lifeline, her knuckles white and strained. It felt exactly like a scene from a terrible movie I was somehow trapped inside, the credits waiting to roll on my entire reality.
Her cell phone started ringing loudly, displaying a name I instantly recognized with a sickening jolt.
👇 *Full story continued in the comments…*Her cell phone started ringing loudly, displaying a name I instantly recognized with a sickening jolt. It was Mark. My fiancé’s best friend. My stomach twisted tighter. I knew Mark’s name, I knew his face, and I knew he had a girlfriend, a long-term one, who looked exactly like the woman standing pale and trembling under the awning.
My fiancé’s eyes flickered to the phone, then back to me, and his face seemed to crumble further. The woman fumbled for the phone, her hand shaking, the bright red clutch slipping slightly in her grip. She finally managed to silence it, shoving it back into the purse as if it were evidence she was trying to hide.
“It’s Mark,” I said, my voice barely a whisper against the rain, but it cut through the air like glass. “Isn’t it? Mark’s calling.”
He didn’t deny it. He just stood there, soaked and exposed, the charming facade completely shattered. His betrayal wasn’t just against me; it was against his best friend too. The weight of it settled in the air, heavy and suffocating.
The woman – Mark’s girlfriend, Sarah, I finally put the name to the face with a fresh wave of nausea – lifted her head. Her eyes, red-rimmed and full of a desperate kind of shame, met mine for a fleeting second. There was no defiance, no malice, just a shared, horrible understanding of the mess we were all standing in.
“I… I’m sorry,” she stammered, her voice thin and reedy.
Sorry? The word hung there, pathetic and meaningless. Sorry for what? Sorry for kissing my fiancé? Sorry for being Mark’s girlfriend while doing it? Sorry for ripping my world apart?
My fiancé finally found his voice, a hoarse croak. “It’s not what it looks like, I can explain—”
“Don’t,” I cut him off, my voice gaining strength, fueled by a cold, sudden fury that sliced through the shock. “Don’t you dare insult me with an explanation. I saw what I saw. And I know who she is.”
I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. The rain plastered my hair to my face, and water dripped from my chin, but inside, everything was dry and sharp. I looked at him, at the man I was supposed to marry, the man who had just destroyed our future with a single kiss and a lie. He looked small, pathetic, standing there with the rain washing over him, revealing the cheapness of his character.
I looked at Sarah again, the other woman, Mark’s Sarah. Her misery was palpable, but it didn’t erase her part in this.
There was nothing left to say. Nothing left to understand. The future I’d envisioned, the one with him, evaporated in the rain and the smell of wet asphalt.
I took a step back, then another, turning away from them, away from the wreckage of what we were. The rain felt colder now, but it was a clean coldness, washing away the last vestiges of hope. I walked back towards the car, the sound of the rain drowning out everything else. I didn’t look back. I didn’t need to. The scene was seared into my memory, a final, terrible tableau of betrayal. My engagement was over. Our life together was over. And Mark was about to have a very bad night.