I Saw Two Faces In My Husband’s Heart Chapter 01
I Saw Two Faces in My Husband’s Heart
I carried a secret.
For as long as I could remember, a single touch would project a vision into my mind — a clear, undeniable reflection of the person that individual loved most in the world.
From the day Ethan moved into the house next door in our Greenwich suburb when we were seven, his heart belonged entirely to me. When I closed my eyes, I only ever saw myself.
At eighteen, when he first took my hand under the campus maples, the vision was me. At twenty-two, when he dropped to one knee and opened a velvet box, it was me. Even on our wedding night, as his lips pressed against mine, my reflection reigned absolute in his soul.
Then came the morning of our third anniversary.
I was adjusting his collar, smoothing the crisp fabric. As my fingers brushed against his throat, I instinctively closed my eyes, anticipating the familiar, comforting sight of my own face.
Instead, the projection fractured.
Two faces materialized side by side. One was mine. The other belonged to a complete stranger.
That evening, Ethan’s phone illuminated on the nightstand. A notification banner popped up: [Thanks for spending the day with me, Ethan.]
Twenty-one years. Hundreds of thousands of touches. For the first time, the vision glitched.
For our anniversary dinner, I had booked a corner booth at The Maverick a month in advance. I wore the crimson silk slip dress he always admired and fastened the pearl drop earrings he had given me.
At six in the evening, as I stood before the vanity adjusting the second earring, my phone rang.
“An emergency came up at the firm,” Ethan said, his voice clipped and strained. “I have to catch a last-minute flight out of town. I won’t make it back tonight.”
Before I could reply, the line went dead. It was the first time in our entire relationship he had ever hung up on me.
I stared at my reflection. One earring was perfectly set; the other dangled loosely from my lobe, swaying in the silence.
Samantha called a moment later. Hearing the exhaustion in my voice, she immediately drove over, refusing to let me spend the night alone. “We’re going out,” she insisted, pulling me down to her car. “A proper dinner.”
She pulled up to a chic bistro downtown. But as I reached for the door handle, my hand froze.
Through the large bay window, sat Ethan.
Opposite him was a young woman, perhaps twenty-five, with deep dimples that showed whenever she laughed. As I watched, Ethan reached across the table, his thumb gently wiping a trace of vanilla cream from the corner of her lips.
It was a gesture he had reserved exclusively for me since we were teenagers.
Samantha saw it too. Her face flushed with rage, and she threw open her seatbelt, ready to storm the restaurant. I caught her wrist, holding her back.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
“Who on earth is she, Chris?”
“I don’t know.”
He returned at eleven that night, carrying a massive bouquet of red roses, exactly as he did every year. After showering, he wrapped his arms around me from behind, resting his chin on the crown of my head.
“I’m so sorry about tonight, Christina,” he murmured. “I promise I’ll make it up to you this weekend.”
I closed my eyes.
The two faces flashed in perfect alternation. Mine, then hers. A flawless fifty-fifty split.
After he fell asleep, I picked up his phone. The passcode was still my birthday.
At the very top of his messages, pinned to the top, was a text thread with Amber. The conversation stretched back six months, beginning with formal project updates, slowly dissolving into casual banter, and finally escalating to late-night exchanges.
One message from Amber read: [Having a terrible day. I need something sweet.]
His reply: [I’ll grab a slice of that New York cheesecake from the bakery downstairs and drop it off.]
Another read: [I went to that steakhouse you recommended. It’s no fun dining alone. Next time, you’re coming with me.]
The final text was the one from tonight: [Thanks for spending the day with me, Ethan.]
I set the phone back down and stared at the ceiling. Beside me, Ethan shifted, his arm instinctively pulling me into his chest as he mumbled in his sleep.
“Who were you with today?” I whispered into the dark.
He let out a faint grunt, tightening his grip around my waist. “Just a client…”
The next morning, he kissed my forehead before leaving for the office. “I really couldn’t get away yesterday, honey. I’m taking you on a weekend getaway to the Hamptons to make up for it.” His smile was identical to the one I had fallen in love with at seven years old.
I watched him go, then folded the crimson dress and placed it at the very bottom of my closet.
When Samantha called at noon to check on me, the line remained silent for several long seconds.
“Chris,” she said softly. “You’ve only ever looked at him your entire life.”
“I know.”
“What are you going to do?”
I looked out the window. The sky over the city was a piercing, cloudless blue. “I don’t know.”