I Made Them Pay

On our fifth wedding anniversary, my husband compared me to my best friend.

He used to nitpick everything about Hailee Baxter, but that day, he told me to learn from her. "You two grew up together. How is there such a huge gap between you? Grow your hair out, wear dresses more often, maybe spritz on some perfume. You can manage that, right? You're my wife. Don't embarrass me in public."

I clutched my faded shirt, making sure it didn't carry the smoky smell of the barbecue I'd been grilling for years.

I shot back, "What, you've got a thing for her now?"

Sean Andrews froze for a few seconds, then laughed and adjusted his frameless glasses. "What are you even thinking? It's just a suggestion. Forget it if you don't like it."

My fingers tightened on the hem of my shirt without me realizing it.

A man who never bought himself a single new outfit-when did he start noticing how other people dressed?

Especially a woman.

I didn't want to doubt him, but then Sean started picking at the food on the table. "Why didn't you make something lighter?"

His tone mirrored Hailee's exactly.

Three years of dating, five years of marriage, and we both loved spicy food.

A wave of unease crept into my chest.

The dishes I'd spent half the afternoon preparing suddenly seemed unappetizing.

When I set down my fork, Sean lost interest in eating too and got up to leave the table.

I said casually, "Can I borrow your phone to make a call? Mine's dead."

Without a second's hesitation, Sean handed me his phone and headed to the kitchen to wash some fruit.

He was as open with me as ever.

But my unease overshadowed the guilt in my heart, urging me to unlock his phone.

I scrolled through his texts with Hailee-just a few group holiday messages.

Nothing seemed off, so I called her number.

A clear, polite voice answered. "Sean? What's up?"

Was I overthinking this?

I forced a smile. "Hailee, it's me."

She paused for two seconds, then laughed brightly. "No wonder. Sean never calls me."

I couldn't find any cracks in her response, so I didn't push further. I chatted about random daily stuff, keeping it light.

By the time I hung up, most of my unease had faded.

Sean came out of the kitchen and handed me a plate of washed strawberries.

He spoke gently. "I've got something at the university tonight, so we'll skip the movie, okay?"

Watching a movie on our anniversary was our unspoken tradition.

My heart sank, and I couldn't help asking, "Does it have to be tonight?"

Sean's face filled with helpless apology. "The university scheduled a meeting. I don't have a choice."

To outsiders, Sean was the erudite professor, while I was just a small-time barbecue shop owner-a bit of a mismatch.

But whenever I asked about his work, he never dodged my questions.

Maybe I shouldn't have doubted him.

Not wanting to waste the day off I'd cleared or the movie tickets I'd bought, I headed out to find Hailee after Sean left.

I walked into her coffee shop, but the barista told me she wasn't there.

I froze.

Just an hour ago, on the phone, she said she'd be at the shop all night.

I dialed her number, telling myself not to overthink, not to be paranoid.

It took two tries before Hailee picked up.

Her breathing sounded rushed. "The shop's swamped. I'll call you later."

My hand trembled on the phone, and on a whim, I called one of Sean's colleagues.

He hesitated. "A meeting? I don't think I heard about one."

A chill slithered up my spine and into my heart.

I felt like I'd plunged into an icy abyss.

Why were my husband and my best friend both lying to me?

I remembered about a month ago, on my birthday, when Sean slipped out of our room in the middle of the night.

I woke up startled in our spa hotel room and caught him tiptoeing back inside.

A powdery scent clung to him, the same as the new car air freshener.

When I frowned, he explained, "I was grading student papers in the car. The air freshener got to me."

That day, we were with friends at the spa, so I didn't think much of it.

But now, looking back, that air freshener was a birthday gift from Hailee. How did Sean just happen to pick it for his car?

Thinking deeper, Hailee was there that day too. Was he really grading papers in the car?

My once-solid marriage felt like it was crumbling in that moment.

With trembling hands, I opened my phone and tapped into the app that showed the dashcam footage.

About half an hour ago, shortly after Sean left, he picked up Hailee.

Hailee's voice carried a playful pout. "You're so late. I thought you didn't want to see me."

Sean took her hand, smiling indulgently. "You know what today is, and you still dragged me out. Always making a fuss."

That word-"fuss"-hit me like a bolt of lightning.

The first time I introduced them, Sean used that exact word to describe Hailee.

Back then, he frowned, his tone cryptic. "Your friend seems like she makes a fuss."

I couldn't accept it and defended Hailee. "She's just a bit high-maintenance. Don't say that about her."

Now, watching them flirt on the video, I felt dazed.

Had Sean's intentions toward Hailee been impure from the start?

Before I could dwell on it, their next words shattered my last shred of hope.

Hailee leaned on his shoulder. "Have you had sex with her lately?"

Sean tugged her cheek with a grin. "No."

After a brief silence, he added, "You know... I think she smells."

Hailee giggled.

Those simple words felt like a bucket of ice water dumped over me. I froze in place.

It started about six months ago-Sean stopped letting me use his washing machine.

Back then, he said, "You spend too much time at the shop. Your clothes reek of smoke."

When I looked upset, he added, "I got you imported detergent and the latest washing machine."

That high-end machine cost nearly half his monthly salary.

I thought he was being thoughtful, but I never imagined he was actually disgusted by me.

Sean forgot that when we first got together, I was a white-collar worker in a sleek office.

Not long after, his parents fell gravely ill and passed away, draining our savings and leaving us in debt to relatives.

With red eyes, he came to me and apologized. "Kallie, I don't have the money to marry you."

I couldn't bear to see him drop out of his PhD program, so I gritted my teeth, quit my job, and took over my parents' barbecue shop.

The work wasn't glamorous-some even called it low-class-but the booming business multiplied my income.

Night after night, I endured hours of smoky grills, waking before dawn to shop at the market, flipping my days and nights upside down.

I powered through to support Sean's doctorate, to buy our house, our car.

The day Sean landed his teaching job, he turned around and proposed to me.

Everyone said I'd won my bet.

But what was the result?

The video played the sounds of Sean and Hailee kissing, their breaths heavy.

The two people I trusted most had made me lose everything.

I sat on the couch at home, staring blankly for a long time.

My muscles ached from the tension gripping my body.

Over and over, I tortured myself by watching every clip of them together.

Surging grief battered my heart, but my last thread of reason made me record each segment.

Close to midnight, Sean pushed open the front door. "Still up this late?" he asked.

I turned off my phone and walked over to him.

A clean scent clung to him, some hotel body wash I didn't recognize.

Taking a deep breath, I swallowed the lump in my throat.

Feigning worry, I said, "I went to see Hailee tonight, but she wasn't at the shop. She told me on the phone she was there. Why would she lie?"

Sean avoided my gaze, shrugging casually. "How would I know?"

"I got you some perfume." He handed me a designer gift bag. "To make up for missing our anniversary."

It made me sick.

A bottle of perfume, probably picked by someone else, and he called it compensation?

If Sean had looked at me for even a second, he'd have seen the mockery in my eyes, felt the collapse brewing inside me.

But he just yawned carelessly. "I'm beat from tonight. I'm heading to bed."

In the middle of the night, driven by anger, I unlocked Sean's phone again.

I checked his shopping apps, food delivery apps, everything, but found no evidence.

Then I opened the telecom app and pulled up his call history.

The number with the most minutes was unfamiliar.

Following that number, I found Hailee's alternate social media account.

When we were seventeen, just starting to dream of love, Hailee and I lay on the same bed watching a movie.

I cried at the ending, declaring boldly, "I'm going to marry a man like the hero."

She wiped my tears, teasing, "Fine, I'll be the first to congratulate you when you do."

Now, Hailee's alternate account had a profile picture-a screenshot of that movie's hero.

A friendship that spanned nearly thirty years, from childhood to now, amounted to this.

Their chat history was wiped clean, but staring at that profile picture, my eyes burned.

If Sean's betrayal was a slap across my face, Hailee's was a knife plunged straight through me.

A gaping hole tore open in my chest.

My fingers scrolled through their transaction history, and it went on endlessly.

The oldest transfer dated back to last June.

That month, I was so busy and distracted I didn't even realize I was pregnant.

When I miscarried, I drowned in guilt and barely spoke to Sean for a whole month.

That was when Hailee, under the pretense of looking after me, started coming to our house every day.

When people's heart truly shattered, they became eerily calm.

I scrolled through the transactions with cold detachment.

Almost every week, there were transfers-ten or twenty thousand for holidays, a few thousand for gifts, even smaller sums for pocket money.

I took screenshots of every single transaction, my face blank.

The total far exceeded what a university professor like Sean could earn.

He owed me compensation, that much was certain.