His "Female Buddy" Was Fake, So I Dumped Him

Right then, Sean Lawson stepped through the front door. A thick stench of booze mixed with unfamiliar perfume washed over me the second he walked in. I clutched a knit jacket tight in my palm and fixed him with a sharp stare. "Whose jacket is this?" He caught sight of the garment in my grip, his eyes flickering briefly with guilt, yet his tone stayed casually nonchalant. "I spilled drinks all over myself at the bar last night, so I borrowed Sloane's jacket to wear home." "Sloane Joss again?" I ground my teeth, fighting hard to hold back the boiling anger rising in my throat. 'I'm worn out just asking this same question over and over,' I thought to myself. We'd been together long enough, and this was easily the countless time I'd heard that name slip from his mouth. "You bailed on our pre-planned anniversary dinner last week to take her to a concert. "A week before that, you ditched everything to sit with her drinking at a bar till three in the morning after her breakup, ignoring more than a dozen of my phone calls. "Now you've gone as far as coming home wearing her clothes?" I locked eyes with him and spoke slowly, emphasizing every single word. "Sean, tell me the honest truth— "Is she just your platonic girl pal, or your secret girlfriend you've been hiding behind my back?" Sean's brows slammed together at once, irritation hardening across his features. "Elora, why do you always have to be so paranoid? "Sloane has no family around here. I'm just looking out for a girl who's all on her own. What's the big deal?" With that, he stepped forward and snatched the jacket straight out of my hands. I froze where I stood, every ounce of strength draining out of my body. It was always the same old routine. Any time Sloane's name came up, he'd instantly frame me as the unreasonable, overreacting partner. Water thundered from the running shower in the bathroom, leaving me restless and on edge. This Sloane he kept talking about loomed like an invisible shadow woven into every part of his life, yet she was so elusive I couldn't find a single shred of proof of her existence. 'Is this person even real?' I wondered, sinking deeper into doubt. Once Sean finished his shower and emerged, his mood had settled back to normal as if our vicious argument had never happened. He headed straight for the bedroom without another word about the jacket or our fight. I hurried after him. "When are you planning to return this jacket to Sloane? Want me to wash and fold it up for you to hand over?" He blinked in surprise, clearly not expecting me to keep dwelling on the coat. He brushed off the question vaguely. "No need. Her schedule's all over the place. I'll drop it off to her myself later." He quickly shifted topics afterward. "I'm beat. I'm heading to bed. You should get some rest too." I lay awake in bed for hours, unable to fall asleep. I waited well past midnight until soft snores rumbled from his side of the mattress. Holding my breath, I carefully reached for his cellphone. I'd registered my fingerprint to unlock his phone years ago at the start of our relationship, though I'd never once intended to snoop through his stuff before. I pulled up his w******p, but every chat log was wiped completely clean—not a single suspicious conversation left behind. Refusing to give up, I pulled up his full app list from the background, finding nothing out of the ordinary either. 'Did I really let my imagination run wild for no reason?' Still unwilling to accept that conclusion, I combed through his call history and text messages, yet there was zero trace linking him to Sloane anywhere. I was about to set his phone down in defeat when a nearly forgotten app icon popped into view. I tapped open Discord. Nearly all chat threads sat empty, looking deliberately cleared out ahead of time. I knew, though, deleting chat boxes never fully erases Discord's stored message history. My fingers trembled as I typed Sloane's full given name into the search bar. One second passed, then two... and the search returned nothing at all. My heart sank. 'Could it be she truly doesn't exist?' I gritted my teeth and tried searching just her first name this time. Once more, the screen stayed entirely blank.