MY BOYFRIEND SHOWED ME HIS PHONE AND NOW I CAN’T BREATHE RIGHT
I snatched his phone before he could even explain and scrolled down knowing what I would find. The screen felt cold in my hand, surprisingly cold considering everything that was about to spill out. My heart pounded against my ribs, a frantic bird trying to escape. He just stood there, silent, watching my face change as I read.
The first few were bad, just casual flirting disguised as work talk, but the further I scrolled, the colder the pit in my stomach grew. “Who *IS* this?” I choked out, the words scraping my throat raw, like swallowing glass. He didn’t answer, just shifted his weight and stared at his shoes, the silence screaming louder than any argument.
Her name flashed at the top of the conversation thread, stark white text against the black background, mocking me. Every message after that was a physical punch to the gut, each word a confirmation of weeks of whispered fears and ignored instincts. The air in the small room felt thick, suddenly impossible to properly inhale, suffocating me.
He finally spoke, voice barely a whisper, barely audible over the rushing in my ears. “I didn’t know how to tell you.” Tell me what? That you were planning a whole secret weekend getaway with her, coordinating flights and hotels, while I thought you were on a boring business trip in Chicago? The weight of the betrayal settled heavy in my stomach like a physical stone, dragging me down into the floor.
The last text wasn’t from her, it was from his best friend saying, “She’s on the way.”
👇 *Full story continued in the comments…*The stone in my stomach grew, pressing down, crushing me. My vision blurred at the edges, the room tilting. “Tell me what?” I repeated, louder this time, the raw edges of my voice still there. “That you’re a liar? That you’re a cheat? That you were planning a weekend with *her* while I thought you were working? While I was worrying about you traveling?” He finally looked up, his face a mask of pathetic misery, but no words came. Just a faint shake of his head. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, punctuated only by the ragged sound of my own breathing.
Then, a sharp rap on the door. My head whipped around. His best friend’s text echoed in my mind. *She’s on the way.*
The sound seemed to jolt him. He flinched, taking a step back as if to hide. The knocking came again, more insistent. I felt a cold calm wash over me, a terrifying clarity cutting through the panic. I straightened up, the phone still clutched in my hand, evidence burning against my palm.
He hesitated, looking from me to the door, his eyes wide with fear. “Don’t,” he whispered, reaching a hand out towards me. I ignored him. The knocking stopped, followed by the jingle of keys. The door opened.
And there she was. Younger than I’d imagined, with bright, unaware eyes. She took a step inside, a smile on her face, starting to say something – maybe “Hey, where were you?” – but her words died as she saw his face, then mine, then the phone in my hand with her name on the screen. Her smile vanished, replaced by confusion, then dawning horror.
For a long moment, we just stood there, a grotesque tableau: him frozen in guilt and fear, her caught in the headlights, and me, standing in the wreckage of everything I thought we were.
“So,” I said, the word surprisingly steady, cutting through the heavy air. “This is her. The one you couldn’t find the words to tell me about.” My gaze fixed on him, stripping away the pathetic facade to the rot underneath. “You know what? You were right. You didn’t know how to tell me.” I took a step towards the door, towards her, but didn’t stop. My eyes met hers for just a second – a flicker of something I couldn’t name – then I looked back at him. “Because there’s nothing to tell. Not anymore.”
I didn’t raise my voice, didn’t scream, didn’t cry. The energy for that was gone, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion. I just walked out the door, past her, past him, leaving the cold phone on the table where I’d snatched it from. The air outside felt blessedly, sharply cold against my face. I pulled the door shut behind me, not looking back at the two of them standing there in the ruined apartment, the silence inside suddenly deafening. The breath I took outside, though shaky, was the first real one I’d taken in what felt like an eternity. I walked away, leaving everything behind, the only normal ending I could see.