The Secrets of My Wife's Moments

On my birthday, my wife posted an old, yellowed photo with the caption: "Celebrating your 5th birthday with you." I was secretly pleased and was about to call her when I noticed she hadn’t logged out of her i********: account in the car. I saw her conversation with a friend: “Aren’t you worried about posting such an obvious photo with your first love? What if your husband gets jealous?” Her reply: “He doesn’t know.” It hit me—the person in the photo wasn’t me, but her long-lost love. After that, I made the clear decision to leave. Only then did she regret it. 1 Today is my birthday, and my wife Lilith was waiting for me downstairs at my office early in the morning. I got into the passenger seat, listening to her excitedly plan our day. A week ago, Lilith had dropped several hints that she was preparing a surprise for my birthday. However, halfway through the drive, Lilith suddenly got out to take a call, and when she came back, she seemed completely distracted. No matter what I asked, she frowned at her phone as if she was waiting for something. In the end, she just said, "There's a sudden issue with the new project at the company, and I need to go handle it on-site. You can take the car; I've already set the destination. I'll come find you once I'm done." Without waiting for my response, Lilith got out of the car and left. I didn't think much of it. Lilith's company was still in its early stages, and these kinds of emergencies happened often. I'd thought about going with her, but she had turned me down every time before, saying she didn't want to rely on me her whole life or have others think she'd gotten this far just because of a man. Eventually, I stopped offering to help. I followed the navigation and arrived at the destination, waiting at the restaurant until it closed, but Lilith never showed up. The messages I sent were like stones sinking into the ocean—no response at all. A wave of disappointment washed over me. At 1 a.m., I got back into the car, only to find that Lilith had updated her i********:. It was an old, slightly yellowed photo, with the caption: "This is the fifth birthday I've spent with you." I was secretly overjoyed, and all the gloom in my heart lifted. Even though midnight had passed, the fact that she posted a picture of us together on i********: made me feel much better. I was just about to call Lilith to ask if she was done with work and if she needed me to pick her up when I noticed she hadn't logged out of her i********: on the car's display. Her conversations with friends started popping up one after another. "What's going on? Posting an old photo with Owen so openly—aren't you afraid your husband will get jealous?" one of the messages read. My heart sank instantly. Amy was Lilith's best friend, and they talked about everything. I knew most of it, except for one thing: Owen. Owen was Lilith's "white moonlight"—the one she never got over. They had only been together for a year, but he left such an impression that she couldn't forget him after all these years. Before I could think too much, Lilith's reply popped up: "He doesn't know." A wave of cold rushed through my veins, and a bold thought formed in my mind. My wife had been hiding secrets from me. I calmed down and reopened Lilith's i********:, carefully examining the photo. Though it was old and faded, making the details hard to see, I could still tell that the man in the photo wasn't me. The man had no mole under his eye, while I had a very distinct tear mole. I suddenly recalled the countless nights when Lilith would rest on my shoulder, gently caressing my eye and saying in a tender voice, "Honey, why don't you get rid of this mole? I read online that men with a tear mole under their eye will have bad luck in love." I used to joke with her, telling her not to believe everything she read online. But now I realized that she had just been using my face to reminisce about another man. … I don't know how long I sat there in silence. After collecting my thoughts, I opened Lilith's i********: account using her login. In the five years we'd been married, we had always respected each other's privacy, never checking each other's phones. This was the first time. As I had suspected, many of Lilith's i********: posts were hidden from me. On every significant occasion, she had posted photos like this, and each caption was more revealing than the last. The most recent post, made just half an hour ago, was a picture of her in bed with another man: "As expected, seeing the man you once loved still makes your heart race, no matter how much time has passed." I don't know how I managed to read through all of her posts. Once I regained my composure, I saved screenshots of everything. By the time I realized what was happening, Lilith had already set her i********: post to be hidden from me, and her WeChat had logged out of the car system. A crushing pain engulfed me. If it weren't for this accident, I might still be in the dark. At first, I didn't want to believe it. After all, everyone around us had witnessed Lilith's love for me. People always said we were the perfect couple. But her hidden i********: posts proved otherwise. The woman I had been married to for five years didn't love me at all.