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The silence at breakfast was louder than any scream.
Colleen sat across from Andrei, untouched toast on her plate, coffee long gone cold. He looked tired — or maybe guilty — as he scrolled aimlessly through his phone.
“I saw you,” she said.
The words dropped between them like glass hitting the floor. Sharp. Inevitable.
Andrei froze. “Saw me where?”
She didn’t blink. “Last night. Outside Amora Suites. With her.”
He set his phone down slowly. “You followed me?”
“I had to.” Her voice trembled, not from weakness — but from the effort of keeping herself from breaking. “You stopped giving me a choice.”
Andrei leaned back in his chair, sighing like the villain in his story was the confrontation, not the crime. “Colleen—”
“Who is she?”
He rubbed his face, pausing like he could still find a lie that wouldn’t shatter what was left.
“She’s… someone from work,” he admitted. “It wasn’t—It’s not what you think.”
She laughed. Bitter. Hollow. “Then tell me what it is. Because from where I stood, it looked like something.”
“She’s going through something,” he mumbled. “A divorce. I’ve just been helping her—talking to her.”
“At a hotel? At midnight?”
He looked up, guilt finally swimming behind his eyes. “It’s not physical. I swear to God, Colleen. Nothing happened.”
Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. “So you gave her your time. Your attention. Your secrets. You let her have the part of you that used to be mine.”
“It’s not like that,” he insisted, standing now, agitated. “I was just—confused. Things between us haven’t been right for a while.”
“So you ran to someone else instead of fixing what’s broken here?”
“I didn’t plan it.”
“No,” she said softly. “But you allowed it.”
Her chest ached with a grief no one else would see — the kind that doesn't come with goodbyes, only the slow erosion of trust. She wanted to scream, to ask him why he didn’t choose her when it mattered most.
“I told myself it was all in my head,” she whispered. “I defended you. I blamed myself.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “No, you’re sorry you got caught. You’re sorry it’s messy. But you’re not sorry for choosing her.”
He didn’t argue.
He didn’t have to.
Because in that silence, Colleen realized something more painful than the betrayal:
He had already left her long before the truth came out.
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