No Longer Your Live-Streamed Wife

Chapter 3

I didn't sign the statement.

Melissa didn't force me. She told me to think about it and left.

I stayed at the hotel for 3 days.

On the third night, Gavin knocked on my door and came to take me home.

We needed to resolve this, and I didn't want to do it in a hotel hallway, so I went back with him.

The moment we entered the apartment, however, he held his phone in front of me, showing a livestream announcement.

"The livestream at 10 p.m. tonight can't be canceled."

Melissa had posted it through The Silent Spouse Project account 3 days earlier.

Final Q&A for Episode 6. The creator and the subject will address the controversy together.

My hand trembled. "You were already planning a livestream?"

"She wanted us to talk through our communication problems as a couple."

"Who is the subject?"

"Me."

"Then what am I?"

Gavin didn't answer.

More than 2,000 comments had already accumulated beneath the announcement. Some people supported the project. Others said the methods crossed a line. Some were questioning whether the videos were covert recordings.

Someone had followed the payment link on Melissa's profile to her personal account and found a wedding photograph she had posted years ago.

I had my arm linked through Gavin's in the picture, and the embroidered letter on his tie was clearly visible.

"Wendy, if we cancel the livestream, people will dig even harder to identify the woman in the videos. If you help us finish the broadcast and make it clear there was no affair and no secret recording, only something private between us, the backlash will die down."

No wonder they were desperate for my informed consent statement. No wonder they kept saying the account was at risk.

People had already realized I might have been recorded without consent.

Gavin sat beside me, poured me a glass of warm water, and set it within easy reach of my left hand.

He still remembered that I preferred to hold a glass with my left hand.

"Wendy, what I did wrong was recording you without telling you. I didn't betray our marriage."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Say during the livestream that there was no affair and that you voluntarily participated in the recording."

"Is that true?"

"I never touched her."

"Then give me all the raw footage."

When I didn't refuse the livestream outright, relief crossed his face.

"Watching it will only hurt you more."

"How can I clarify anything for you if I haven't seen it?"

He watched me for a long time, then finally gave me access to the cloud storage.

"I set the access link to expire automatically in 24 hours."

"Why?"

"Your private information is in there."

I laughed softly.

"You remembered that now?"

His fingers stiffened. "After the livestream, I'll delete every file."

"Let me see them first."

There were 13 video calls.

Six had been screen-recorded.

Six had been edited and published.

The earliest file was named "The First Time: She'll Never Know."

In the first audio recording, Gavin's low voice came through.

"If she knows there's a camera, she'll become even stiffer. Don't tell her yet."

Melissa laughed. "Aren't you afraid she'll find out?"

"Wendy doesn't go through my phone."

"She trusts you that much?"

"That's why the reaction is real."

The audio ended.

That recording had been made on my birthday.

Gavin came home early that day and bought my favorite chestnut cake. He held me and promised that we wouldn't do anything else that night. He would simply stay with me.

The next morning, he teased me for sleeping so deeply that I didn't even know when the candles on the cake had gone out.

I finally understood that what he had wanted to capture that night wasn't a birthday memory. It was my reaction when I didn't know anyone was watching.