MY HUSBAND'S SECRET SIDE CHICK

THE THING THAT WASN'T MINE

The first thing I noticed that morning wasn't my husband's silence.

It was the underwear.

I was reaching between the passenger seat and the center console of Ethan's car, searching for the earrings I'd dropped the night before, when my fingers brushed against something soft. I pulled it out. A tiny piece of black lace, I stared at it. Then I stared at it again, it was a woman's panty.

Not mine.

For several seconds, I couldn't breathe, I looked around the car as though there might be some perfectly reasonable explanation waiting for me. But there wasn't.

"Ethan?" I called him.

My husband glanced at me from behind the steering wheel.

"Yeah?"

I held it up directly at his face. "What is this?"

His expression changed so quickly that if I hadn't been watching him might have missed it. His eyes dropped to the underwear, then back to me.

"Laura..."

"What is this Ethan?"

He swallowed, "I was going to tell you."

My heart sank. "Tell me what?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "I bought."

I blinked. "You bought it?"

"Yes."

"For who?"

His mouth opened but nothing came out. I almost laughed, not because anything was funny but because his explanation was so obviously ridiculous that my mind didn't know whether to believe it or scream. "You bought women's underwear?"

"I was planning something."

"What exactly were you planning?"

"A surprise."

I looked down at the black lace in my hand. There was no price tag, no packaging and no label. Nothing that suggested it had ever been new. I turned it over between my fingers.

"This doesn't look new."

"Yh, I took the tag off."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want you to see it."

I looked at him. "Then why was it in your car?"

Silence.

That silence hurt more than the underwear. Ethan finally reached for my hand.

"Laura, you're over thinking this." I pulled my hand away.

"Am I?"

He sighed, "nothing happened."

That sentence. Nothing happened.

It was kind of sentence people used when something had happened. I placed the underwear back between us. "Then tell me the truth Ethan."

"I am."

"No. You're just giving me pieces of an explanation and hoping I'll build the rest myself."

His jaw tightened and for a moment none of us spoke. Then he started the engine and just like that, the conversation was over. But it wasn't over for me, it followed me everywhere. It followed me to work and it followed me back home. It followed me into our bedroom that night.

Ethan had been acting differently lately, I had noticed it before the underwear incident. I had simply refused to give my suspicion a name.

He used to reach for me without thinking. Now he seemed to find reasons not to. He came home later than usual, spent more time on his phone, stopped telling me little things about his day. And whenever I tried to close the distance between us, he somehow managed to create more of it. We haven't had s*x for weeks and each time I raised the topic he comes up with one or two excuses. So that night I finally asked.

"Are you still happy with me?"

He looked up from his phone. "Where did that come from?"

"Just answer the damn question"

He stared at me for a moment. "Of course I am."

"Then why does it feel like you're disappearing?"

His expression softened. "I'm f*****g tired Laura."

"You're always tired."

"Work's been crazy."

I nodded slowly, I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to because believing my husband was easier than believing the alternative. But something inside me had already started cracking and I didn't know how to stop it.

The next morning, Ethan went into the shower and left his phone on the dresser. I stared at it, I wasn't proud of what I did next. I picked it up and was expecting to find the usual thing. A woman's name, a romantic message, a confession or something obvious enough to confirm what I already feared.

Instead, I found something that made absolutely no sense.

There was no lover, no romantic conversation. No secret "I miss you."

There was a calendar appointment, a private meeting and attached to it was a document. The title made me shiver.

MIA.

I frowned, because I knew that name but I didn't know why it was on my husband's phone. I opened the document, the first line made my stomach drop.

Mia wasn't Ethan's girlfriend, she wasn't his employee nor some random woman from his past. She was his sister.

I stared at the screen.

His sister?

Ethan had never mentioned to me that he had a sister, not once. Not in all the years we've been together, not during our wedding. Not during the countless conversations about our families.

Nothing.

I heard the shower turn off. My fingers went cold and started to shake almost making me drop Ethan's phone. I quickly put the phone back, exactly where I had found it.

But l didn't leave. For the first time since I met my husband, I wanted an answer more than I wanted peace. Ethan walked out of the bathroom, drying his hair, he stopped when he saw me sitting at the edge of the bed.

"Laura?"

I looked at him. "You have a sister."

The towel slipped slightly from his hand.

"What?"

"Mia."

His face changed, not guilt, not anger but fear.

I stood, "you never told me you have a sister."

He said nothing.

"Ethan."

He looked away. "Laura, I can explain."

I almost laughed, "same thing you said about the underwear."

He closed his eyes. "This isn't what you think."

"Then tell me Ethan, what should I think?"

Before he could answer, there was a knock at the bedroom door, neither of us moved. Then the door opened, a woman stood there. She looked at Ethan first, then at me. And the expression on her face told me one thing instantly.

She knew exactly who I was.

"Ethan, she said quietly.

I looked at my husband.

"Mia?"

The woman nodded. "Yes."

My chest tightened. I looked between them.

"Why have you never told me about her?"

Ethan stepped toward me. "Because I didn't know how."

"How difficult is it to say, 'Laura, I have a sister'?"

His face hardened with emotion. "You don't understand."

"Then make me understand."

Mia finally stepped into the room, she looked uncomfortable. Almost heartbroken and somehow, that scared me more than anger would've."

"Laura," she said, "there's something you need to know."

Ethan immediately turned toward her.

"Mia don't."

She looked at him. "You've had years to tell her."

My stomach twisted. "Tell me what?"

Neither of them answered, I looked at Ethan, then at Mia.

Then back at Ethan. "Is this why you've been avoiding me?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Then is the underwear connected to her?"

His silence answered before he did. I felt something inside me break. Mia's eye widened.

"No."

She looked at Ethan. "You actually let her believe that?

Ethan's face fell. "Laura please."

I stepped backward. "Believe what?"

Mia took a breath. "The underwear wasn't mine."

I stared at her. "Then whose was it?"

She looked at Ethan, he looked at me and suddenly the entire room felt too small. Because whatever Ethan had been hiding from me wasn't a simple affair. It wasn't another woman stealing my husband. It was something much closer, much personal.

And when Ethan finally spoke, the words that came out of his mouth made me question whether I had ever truly known the man I married.

"Laura..." His voice broke.

"The woman you've been calling my side chick..." He stopped.

My heart pounded harder. Faster.

".... isn't my side chick."

I waited.

He looked at Mia then back at me.

"She's connected to you."

My blood ran cold. "Connected to me how?"

Ethan didn't answer.

Mia did.

And the moment she spoke, I knew my marriage was about to become something l had never imagined.

"Because, Laura..." She swallowed. "... you already know her."