I FOUND HIS OLD FLIP PHONE STUFFED BEHIND THE GARDEN SHED
My fingers trembled as I scrolled through messages, each tap echoing in the silent house as the sun dipped low. The flip phone felt gritty in my hand, covered in dirt and cobwebs from where he’d clearly tried to hide it years ago. It hadn’t been used in forever, until yesterday.
A name I didn’t recognize flooded the screen, a long string of conversations going back months. Late-night texts, plans, little hearts. My stomach twisted into a cold knot.
I waited by the back door, the humid evening air heavy with the scent of damp earth and cut grass clinging to my clothes. When he finally walked in, I just held the phone out. “Who is Alice?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
He went pale, snatched the phone, and jammed it in his pocket. “You have no right going through my things!” he practically yelled, his eyes darting away. It wasn’t just old messages; they were current. It hit me then, the late nights, the ‘business trips’.
Just as I was about to scream, his phone on the counter buzzed with an incoming call. It was Alice.
👇 *Full story continued in the comments…*My breath hitched, my eyes locked onto the counter. It wasn’t just the name ‘Alice’ flashing on his main screen; it was the speed with which his face drained of colour, the way he froze mid-sentence. This wasn’t just a secret; this was a current, active betrayal staring us both in the face.
“Answer it,” I said, my voice dangerously low, the whisper gone, replaced by a tremor of cold fury. “Put it on speaker.”
He fumbled for the phone as if it were a live coal, his eyes pleading, a silent ‘don’t do this’ passing between us. But there was nowhere left to hide. The phone stopped ringing. A text message popped up instead: *Are you okay? You sound terrible.*
That’s when the dam broke. “Who IS she?” I screamed, the years of unspoken anxieties, the loneliness during those ‘business trips’, the cold distance I’d felt lately – it all came crashing out. “What the hell is going on?”
He dropped his main phone on the counter with a clatter, running a hand through his hair, looking utterly defeated. “I… I messed up,” he choked out, not meeting my eyes. He pulled the flip phone from his pocket, dropping it next to his other one. “Alice… she’s real. The texts… they’re real.”
He finally looked at me, his face a roadmap of guilt and regret. “It started a few months ago. Just texts at first. Stupid, I know. I don’t even know *how* it happened. It didn’t mean anything,” he rushed to add, the age-old cliché hanging heavy in the air. “The flip phone… I used it for her so you wouldn’t see the messages on my regular phone. I was going to end it, I swear. I tried to end it yesterday, that’s why I shoved the phone behind the shed. I thought I’d just… pretend it never happened.”
His confession hung in the air, thick and suffocating. It didn’t mean anything? The little hearts? The late-night calls? The ‘business trips’? My world tilted on its axis. My hands were shaking again, but this time not from anticipation, but from the violent force of heartbreak.
“Get out,” I whispered, pointing towards the door, the scent of damp earth suddenly feeling like a shroud. “Get out of my house.”
His eyes widened in panic. “Wait, please. Can we talk? We can fix this—”
“There’s nothing to fix right now,” I said, my voice rising again, raw with pain. “Just get out. Take your phones. Go talk to Alice. See if she ‘didn’t mean anything’ either.”
He stood there for a moment, hesitation warring with disbelief, then slowly bent to scoop up his two phones. He didn’t look back as he walked out the door, the silence that followed his departure deafening. The humid evening air felt colder now, the scent of cut grass no longer fresh, but like something dying. I was left standing by the back door, the phantom weight of a gritty flip phone still in my hand, a future I hadn’t anticipated stretching out before me in the fading light.