The Man She Cheated

Gone Before Midnight

CHAPTER 2

Kendrick left before midnight. He didn’t slam the door. He didn’t shout. He just packed a bag, told Clara he couldn’t stay in the house, and walked out.

Clara stood in the hallway, towel still on her head, watching him go. For the first week, she waited. She called. She texted. No answer. Kendrick had changed his number.

After that, she stopped pretending she was okay.

She stopped eating. She stopped going to the café. She left Daniel with her parents and moved to the next city to stay with her friend Nancy.

She said it was temporary, just until she could think straight. The truth was, she didn’t trust herself alone anymore.

Nancy’s apartment was loud, colorful, and full of people coming and going. It was the opposite of Clara’s quiet marriage.

“Stop blaming yourself,” Nancy told her every night. “You made a mistake. People make mistakes. Now you move on.”

But Clara couldn’t move on.

She missed Kendrick so much it felt physical. She sent messages she never sent. She called and hung up before he could answer.

When her calls stopped going through, she started drinking. She came home late, smelling like cheap whiskey and regret.

Nancy watched it for a month before she stepped in.

“You’re going to kill yourself like this,” Nancy said one night, taking the glass out of Clara’s hand. “The only way to forget him is to meet someone new.”

Clara didn’t argue. She didn’t have the energy.

A week later, Nancy dragged her to her friend’s birthday party.

“You’re going to dress up, you’re going to dance, and you’re going to stop sitting in my living room like a ghost,” Nancy said.

Clara didn’t want to go. But Nancy didn’t give her a choice.

At the party, a guy named Jasper approached her. He was young, good-looking, and desperate for a contract he couldn’t get on his own. Clara was kind. She listened. She helped him financially.

For three weeks, she let herself believe it could work. That maybe Jasper was different. That maybe this was her second chance.

Then his wife called.

“I’m sorry, who is this?” the woman asked when

Clara called Jasper’s number.

Clara didn’t answer. She hung up, sat on the couch, and stared at her hands until they stopped shaking.

Jasper had lied. He was married with kids. He’d used her for money and disappeared the moment the contract came through.

Clara stopped seeing men after that.

She stayed in Nancy’s apartment, quiet, numb. Nancy tried everything to pull her out of it shopping, parties, new men.

Then one night, Nancy brought a man home.

Clara was in her room, lying awake, listening to the sounds coming from the other side of the wall. She heard Nancy’s voice, low and breathless. She heard the bed creak.

She pulled the pillow over her head and tried not to listen. It didn’t work.

Josh arrived uninvited around 1 a.m. He knocked, but no one answered.

He had paid Nancy’s rent for eight months. He’d heard rumors, but he’d never caught her. Not until that night.

He heard the sounds too. He climbed the stairs, pushed the door open, and froze.

Nancy was on the bed with another man. Her hair was a mess. Her eyes met his, and the smile on her face vanished.

For three seconds, no one moved. Josh didn’t yell. He turned and walked out.

Nancy didn’t chase him. She knew she’d been caught red-handed.