What Broke Between Us Ch. 02

Chapter 10: The Move-In

The boxes came in slow, like we were both afraid that unpacking too fast would make it real. She had moved in first--mostly because the lease on her place ended, and I offered. But deep down, we both knew it was a test run. A quiet what-if.

She brought the kids. That was the real shift. It wasn't just us anymore, colliding in shadows. There were lunchboxes, missing socks, and backpacks strewn across the hallway again. The kitchen smelled like her coffee, cinnamon candles, and the weird vegan snacks she was always trying to get the boys to eat.

It almost felt like home. Almost.

We fell into routines. She folded the laundry while watching crime documentaries. I made dinner and tried not to burn the rice. We passed each other in the hallway with soft nods, sometimes brushing hands, sometimes not. There were nights when we'd sit on the couch together and barely speak, just coexisting with some invisible thread barely holding the moment together.

Our bedroom--formerly my bedroom, felt foreign. She brought new sheets, new throw pillows, even a lavender diffuser she said helped her sleep. I let her. I wanted her to feel like she belonged. Even if, most nights, we slept inches apart on a California king that felt wider than the ocean that separated us for years.

The first time we had sex again was a Tuesday. The kids were at her mom's. We had watched something funny on Netflix and laughed too hard--like the version of ourselves we used to be. One thing led to another. Clothes came off. Bodies remembered rhythms. But it didn't feel the same.

She didn't look at me much. I didn't ask for more.

Afterward, she rolled over and said, "I'm glad we're trying."

Trying. That word hung in the air like a verdict.

I stared at the ceiling and thought about how many times I'd pictured this moment. Thought about the way I would hold her. The way we would finally come back together and erase the past. But none of that happened. Because you can't make ghosts disappear just because you miss the person they used to haunt.

There was a part of me--deep, stubborn, shame-stained--that still didn't know if I deserved this second chance. And maybe she didn't know if she wanted to keep giving it.

Still, we tried.

Every day, we tried.

And for now, maybe that was enough.

Chapter 11: Ghosts in the Cloud

I wasn't snooping. At least, that's what I told myself.

We were sharing a laptop now. Her old one had finally died, and mine had more storage. So it became ours. Shared calendar. Shared playlists. Shared files.

One night, she went to bed early after putting the boys down. I stayed up, half-watching a game and trying to knock out a grocery order. That's when I saw it--an iCloud notification asking about storage.

I clicked through.

A folder popped up. Hidden in "Archived." The name didn't give anything away. It looked like receipts or old budget spreadsheets. But when I opened it, my stomach folded into itself.

There were photos.

Nothing full nude--she was smarter than that. But close.

Bra and panties. Poses that weren't for me. Angles that weren't accidental. Her in the mirror, lips slightly parted, hand on her thigh like she'd done this before. Like she was practiced.

And then the filenames. One labeled "last weekend. jpg." Another: "R smile."

Not mine. Not my smile. Not my memory.

I didn't even know what I felt first--rage? Grief? Jealousy?

I wasn't innocent, but I was wrecked.

There were pictures of her I'd never seen... being someone I didn't recognize.

I clicked through a few more before I forced myself to stop.

She had kept these. Not deleted them. Not moved on from them. Just... filed them away like receipts for a version of herself she didn't want to forget.

Later that week, I checked her Instagram--not obsessively, just curious. Her followers were mostly normal. Moms. Coworkers. A few distant cousins. But then I saw the ones she followed.

One guy I recognized--he had picked up the kids once when we were separated. Said he was "just a friend." Another had been at a BBQ I wasn't invited to. I remembered the way they looked at her. The way she avoided my eyes when I asked. Now she was liking their gym selfies, fire emojis under their posts, little inside jokes in their comments.

I kept scrolling, and my chest got tighter.

Two of them--I was almost sure--were part of her seven.

The seven I never got full names for. Just hints. Slivers.

Now they had Instagram handles and six-pack abs, and she was still giving them attention.

I didn't bring it up.

Not that night. Not yet.

What was I supposed to say?

"Hey, I found your thirst traps and breadcrumb trails to your past?"

She was still here. She had moved back in. She was doing bedtime stories and making tacos on Tuesday. But online, she was still... out there.

I started to wonder: Was this our new normal?

Was I just a safe place to land while she kept one foot in the version of herself that didn't answer to anyone?

And me? I started driving Uber more late nights again.

Maybe to escape. Maybe to feel wanted.

Maybe to remind myself that I still had choices, too.

Chapter 12: The Backseat Offers

They never started out obvious. Most didn't, anyway.

At first, it was just polite small talk in the car--late-night passengers leaving clubs or bars, sliding into the back seat with perfume, weed, and heartbreak clinging to their clothes. They'd ask if I drove full-time, what kind of music I liked, if I had kids. Some didn't care. Some asked because they wanted to know how guilty they should feel.

And then there were the others.

The ones who leaned forward, breath warm behind my ear, asking if I was single. One woman in a short red dress traced her finger along the headrest and whispered, "You ever mix business with pleasure?" She wasn't even halfway to her destination.

I laughed it off. Told her I was married. She said, "That don't stop most men."

It didn't stop me once.

And some nights, I'd think about stopping again.

I never went through with it, but I can't lie--there were moments. One woman, thick thighs, neck tattoo, a voice that purred like an old R&B record. She told me she liked my beard and asked if I wanted to come inside for a "nightcap." She was drunk, sure. But I saw it in her eyes--she meant it.

Another time, a passenger accidentally left a lace thong in my back seat. I knew it wasn't my wife's. I threw it away, but not before holding it in my hand for a second too long, wondering what it would feel like to stop being the faithful husband who was still starving in his own home.

We were back together, technically. Living under the same roof. Raising kids. Doing the church things. Posting smiling photos every few weekends. But inside?

There was distance.

Sex happened, sure--but rarely. She flinched when I touched her in the morning. I flinched when she asked how I was doing. The warmth we used to share had turned clinical. And if it wasn't silent, it was scripted.

Sometimes we'd reconnect. One night, after too many drinks at a friend's wedding, we ended up tangled in hotel sheets, sweaty and half-laughing. She let me take her in ways we hadn't touched in years. It was wild and raw, and for a second, I thought we had found it again.

But the next morning, she barely looked at me.

Like she had given me a performance, not herself.

Later, while taking the trash out, I found a condom wrapper in the side pocket of my old gym bag. One I hadn't used. One I hadn't bought.

My stomach sank.

I didn't say anything. I didn't want the answer.

Not yet.

Maybe I was just as bad. I wanted to be.

Some nights I drove, not for the money, but for the possibility.

A maybe.

A glimpse of being seen.

Because even when the ring was back on her finger, I wasn't sure she had really come home.

Chapter 13: The Ones Who Knew

There's a certain silence in people's eyes when they know too much about your marriage.

Friends. Coworkers. Even church folks--especially them.

It wasn't just the stares. It was the awkward pauses when we entered a room together. The side glances exchanged during small group. The way some women looked at her and then at me like they were still deciding who the real villain was.

Because the truth had leaked, slowly and selectively, during our separation.

She told some friends. I told others. And in between, the unspoken stories wrote themselves.

Some knew about her seven. A couple of them were her seven.

They nodded at me in public like we were strangers. Like we didn't share something intimate and distorted. One had the nerve to message me after we reconciled, saying, "No hard feelings, bro. Hope it works out." I left it on read.

My own boys weren't much better.

During the separation, they had tried to "get me back out there." One night they invited me to a house party and handed me a drink before I could say no. I left with a girl named Shay who wore bamboo earrings and gave the best oral I'd had in years--until guilt followed me into the shower the next morning and stayed in my pores for weeks.

I wanted to tell my wife about her. About the others. About the two sisters I almost had a threesome with until I found a condom from that night and couldn't remember whose it was. But what would it have solved?

We were both bruised.

Both guilty.

Both pretending the pain had healed just because the bleeding stopped.

One night, after dinner, we sat on the couch scrolling through our phones. I looked over and caught her smiling--soft, quiet, eyes locked on her screen.

I leaned closer.

It was Instagram.

The guy she swore was "just a flirt" had posted a gym pic, shirtless, flexing. She hadn't liked it yet. She just stared. I wondered if she ever stopped wanting him. Or if I was just the man she could survive with, not the one she still craved.

I thought of confronting her. But I didn't. Again.

Because there was something worse than betrayal:

Confirmation.

So we scrolled in silence, next to each other but oceans apart, living a life where the ones who knew us best were either pretending they didn't or wishing we would finally admit that we weren't okay.

Chapter 14: The Fire That Fizzled

We used to set each other on fire.

Before the affair. Before the silence. Before the years we both pretended that sleeping in the same bed meant we'd forgiven each other.

There was a time when I could look at her across a room and feel heat rise in my chest. A touch on the back of my neck would unravel me. The sound of her laugh could pull me out of a spiral.

But now?

Now the fire had turned into smoke.

The embers still glowed, sure--but mostly from memory.

Sex had become a guessing game. Would she be in the mood? Was I allowed to want her? Was tonight another maybe, another no, another polite excuse wrapped in a tired sigh?

Some nights we tried. A kiss turned into a grope, turned into guilt. She'd freeze halfway through. I'd pull back. Neither of us said what we really felt.

Until one night, she asked me--out of nowhere--if I still thought about the other women.

I paused too long.

She nodded, eyes low, and whispered, "Yeah. Me too."

That night, she cried during sex. I held her, but the distance between us was still wide enough to swallow whole anything tender.

Afterward, she said she still felt dirty. Like pieces of the past clung to her body, no matter how many showers or apologies she offered. I told her I understood, but I didn't. Not really. I just didn't want to push her further away.

I knew she had memories. Specific ones. Positions, places, things that happened with them--things I had never asked for details about. But I could feel them every time she turned her head slightly to the left during foreplay, or when her breath caught too soon, like she was chasing someone else's rhythm.

And I had my own ghosts, too.

Sometimes, during sex, I'd see Shay's lips instead of hers. Or I'd remember that night in the hotel when the sisters touched each other before asking if I wanted to join. I said no. But not immediately.

We were ghosts sleeping with each other--haunted, not whole.

Even when she gave in to the wilder things we used to love--pulling me in close, asking for more, even letting me take her from behind, something we hadn't done since before the affair--it felt more like duty than desire.

Like she was trying to prove she still had it. Or worse... prove she could give me what someone else did.

And I hated that it worked.

Because I let her.

We both pretended it was passion. But it was survival. Performance. Reclaiming something already burned down.

The fire was still there, somewhere beneath the ash. But neither of us knew how to breathe life into it anymore. And the more we tried, the more we reminded each other of what had been lost.

And that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't coming back.

Chapter 15: The Pictures I Wasn't Meant to See

It started with a search for a charger.

Her phone was dying, mine was already dead, and we were rushing to get out the door for dinner with friends. I reached into the drawer next to the bed where we usually tossed cables, receipts, and random junk--and that's when I saw it: her old phone.

She hadn't used it in over a year.

No lock. No facial recognition. Just swipe up and there it was--her last digital footprints before she "moved on."

I didn't mean to look.

But I did.

And what I saw felt like an open wound sliced through a half-healed scar.

Photos. Dozens.

Not nudes, exactly. But not innocent either.

She was in her bra and panties, sitting on the bathroom counter, taking mirror selfies like a teenager chasing approval. Lingerie I'd never seen. Angles she never used for me. Filters and faces--ones meant for someone else.

My stomach twisted as I kept scrolling.

And then I saw it.

A comment bubble from one of the guys she used to follow on Instagram.

I recognized the name. He was one of the seven.

She had liked all of his gym selfies, fire emoji under each.

He'd replied to one of her photos with, "Miss those lips."

I locked the phone and set it back like I'd never touched it. But the pictures were burned into my brain.

At dinner, I stared at her. She laughed with our friends, poured wine, touched my thigh like nothing was different. But everything felt different now.

Later that night, I asked her, "Did you ever send pictures to them?"

She didn't look at me right away.

"I don't remember," she said softly.

Which meant yes.

I tried to play it cool, to say I understood. But part of me unraveled in that moment. Because it wasn't just about what she had done--it was that she'd done it intimately. Deliberately. For someone else.

And those pieces of her, frozen in a phone I was never supposed to find, were never coming back to me.

We didn't fight that night.

We didn't have sex either.

We lay in bed, backs turned, her breathing steady, mine shallow and restless.

I imagined the way she posed. The click of the camera. The slow, careful scroll through filters before choosing the one she thought made her look most desirable. The moment she hit "send."

Not to me.

To him.

To them.

I wanted to forgive her.

But those pictures told a story I hadn't been allowed to read.

Until now.

Chapter 16: Hit On and Holding Back

Driving Uber wasn't supposed to be anything more than a side hustle. A way to stack a little extra for the kids' tuition or finally replace the busted dryer. But somewhere between midnight pickups and awkward small talk, it became something else.

Validation.

There's something about a stranger slipping into your car at 1:23 a. m., perfume thick in the air, hemline high, eyes tired but curious. They ask what kind of music you like. You tell them. They say you have "good taste." A compliment, simple and small--but it lands louder than it should.

Especially when you're married to someone who stopped complimenting you years ago.

The first time it happened, it caught me off guard. She slid into the front seat, drunk but coherent, and told me I had nice lips. I laughed it off, kept it professional. But it kept happening. Sometimes subtle, sometimes not. Like the girl in the black dress who touched my forearm when I handed her a bottle of water. Or the one in the red heels who leaned in too close and whispered, "You must break hearts for a living."

It became a test I didn't know I was taking.

Could I say no?

Would I?

One night, a woman offered me cash to come upstairs and "talk"--that was the word she used, with a wink that said she meant everything but. I declined. I told myself I was doing the right thing. But I drove away wondering how close I'd come.

Temptation stopped knocking and started sitting right in the back seat.

And every time I came home, I felt like I was dragging something invisible behind me. Not guilt. Not yet. Just tension. A quiet awareness that I could cross a line at any moment and justify it because of what she did.

But I didn't.

Not because I was better.

Because I was afraid I'd feel worse.

There was a night I'll never forget--early spring, cool air, city buzzing--and I picked up a woman from a rooftop bar. She was older, confident, beautiful in a careless sort of way. She asked if I was married. I said yes. She smiled.

"That's hot," she said. "So... would she be mad if I kissed you?"

I paused. Thought about it.

Not about kissing her.

But about the fact that my wife might not even care if I did.

And that scared me more than anything.

I told the woman no, dropped her off, and sat in a gas station parking lot for twenty minutes afterward, staring at my reflection in the dark window.

What did it say about me--that I missed being wanted more than I missed being faithful?

Chapter 17: Ghosts in the Algorithm

It wasn't just the photos on her phone.

It was the followers.

The likes.

The "why is she still connected to him?" kind of moments that quietly chipped away at whatever progress we thought we were making.

It started with a scroll.

Innocent enough.

We were on the couch, sharing a blanket, some forgettable Netflix series playing in the background. She was on her phone, and I glanced over. Just glanced. The screen glowed with Instagram--her thumb flicking through stories, reels, likes.

I didn't say anything until I saw his face.

One of the seven.

Still there.

Still followed.

And she had just double-tapped his new shirtless gym selfie.

I felt that slow, crawling heat of betrayal creep up the back of my neck. I said her name. Calm, but not really.

"Why are you still following him?"

She looked at me, eyes wide like a kid caught stealing.

"I didn't even realize I was," she lied.

Or maybe she didn't. Maybe that's what hurt more--that he had become just another name in her curated digital circle. Another body she'd been with, now reduced to pixels and nostalgia. But I remembered. I remembered everything.

And it wasn't just him.

Over the next few days, I noticed more.

Other guys.

Fire emojis.

Winky faces.

Photos she liked that had no business being on her timeline--let alone in her heart.

It became an obsession.

I'd check who she followed. Who followed her.

I'd look through her likes, her comments, search for patterns.

Trying to piece together a story I was never invited to read but couldn't stop rereading in my head.

Who had she been while we were apart?

Not just physically--but digitally, emotionally?

Who had she laughed with in DMs? Who had she stayed up texting at midnight?

She said it meant nothing.

"Just scrolling," she told me once, annoyed.

But it felt like everything.

Because she wasn't scrolling my pictures.

One night, I asked her why she didn't unfollow them.

"If it really doesn't matter, just delete them," I said.

She stared at me a long time before saying, "Because I don't want you controlling who I follow."

That was it. No apology. No reassurance. Just a wall.

I didn't say anything. I just nodded, got up, and walked out to the porch.

Out there, I stared at the stars and wondered how we'd come this far only to still feel miles apart. The silence of that night was louder than any fight we could've had. Because I realized: the algorithm didn't care about healing. It only cared about history. About engagement. About what you hovered over just a little too long.

And sometimes, so did I.

Because when you're trying to rebuild trust, every like feels like a betrayal.

Every follow a wound reopened.

Chapter 18: Distance in the Sheets

Rebuilding a marriage doesn't come with a manual.

Especially when the damage wasn't just emotional--it was sexual.

What do you do when the bed you share feels more like a border than a bridge?

In the early months after we got back together, we tried.

Tried to be close.

Tried to pretend like our bodies didn't remember other hands.

But every time we touched, something held us back--something invisible but thick in the room, like fog you couldn't breathe through.

Sex became another conversation we weren't having.

Or worse, the one we only had with our silence.

We didn't fight. Not really.

But the intimacy was shallow.

Mechanical.

Scheduled, sometimes.

Avoided, most times.

I'd reach for her and she'd flinch--not physically, but emotionally.

Like her body was there, but her trust was still miles away.

I'd tell myself she was tired, or stressed, or busy.

But deep down, I knew.

There were ghosts in the sheets.

Not just mine.

Hers too.

One night, a year after we'd reconciled, I found an old photo on her iCloud backup while trying to clean space on her laptop.

A mirror selfie--nothing nude, but enough.

Lingerie. Bra and panties. A smirk I hadn't seen in years.

But it wasn't sent to me.

I never got that picture.

My stomach dropped.

I didn't even ask her who it was for.

I just closed the laptop and sat on the bed like it had betrayed me too.

When I told her later, she just sighed.

"You weren't around," she said.

Neither of us cried.

Neither of us yelled.

Because it wasn't about the picture.

It was about the fact that a part of her had lived somewhere else for so long, she didn't know how to fully return.

And maybe, neither did I.

Chapter 19: Deleted Doesn't Mean Forgotten

She said she deleted everything.

The pictures.

The messages.

The old usernames saved under fake contacts.

And maybe she did.

But deletion isn't erasure.

Not when memories linger in places technology can't scrub.

Not when my brain plays highlight reels of moments I was never there for.

I remember the day she handed me her phone.

Unlocked.

Unbothered.

"Look for yourself," she said, arms crossed.

It was almost a dare.

She knew the files were gone.

But what I felt wasn't peace--it was suspicion.

Not because I didn't believe her, but because I'd lived the kind of life where truth was often just what hadn't been caught yet.

I scrolled through her gallery anyway.

Clean.

Too clean.

No backups.

No hidden folders.

No suspicious apps.

But it didn't make me feel better.

Because the mind doesn't need evidence to grieve.

It only needs imagination.

And I had too much of it.

I imagined the places.

The cars.

The messages that used to light up her phone at night when we weren't speaking.

The way she might've laughed at his jokes, the way she probably wore her favorite hoodie when she went to see him--mine.

I couldn't ask the questions anymore.

Not all of them.

So they just echoed inside me.

Louder at night.

Sharpest in the moments we were closest--physically, yes, but never quite emotionally.

There was a time I thought knowing everything would help.

That if I could just piece together the whole timeline, I'd find closure.

But truth without grace is just another kind of poison.

And the truth is--some things can't be fully known.

They can only be forgiven.

Chapter 20: The Offer in the Backseat

Driving had become my escape--a way to leave behind the tension in the house, the silent dinners, and the memories that haunted every room. Night shifts meant quiet roads and strangers who didn't know my story, didn't ask questions.

That's why it shocked me when temptation sat right there in the backseat, bold and unashamed.

It was a Friday night, the city buzzing with weekend energy. She slid in wearing a red dress that caught the light with every movement, her perfume thick in the confined space. She asked if I was married.

I said yes.

She smiled.

"That's hot," she said, leaning closer, voice low and inviting. "So... would she be mad if I kissed you?"

The question hung heavy between us, filling the car with possibility and danger. I glanced at the rearview mirror, catching the shimmer in her eyes--the kind that said she didn't just want a ride home.

I hesitated.

I thought of the ring on my finger. Of the years I'd spent trying to rebuild what had broken. Of the wife who still flinched when I touched her.

I told her no.

She laughed softly, eyes gleaming with a mix of disappointment and respect, then slid out of the car with a final glance over her shoulder.

That night, I sat alone in the parking lot, staring at my reflection in the window, wondering who I was becoming.

A man faithful because he wanted to be?

Or a man who feared what losing control would cost him?