Tom’s outbursts used to feel random — until I found a hidden calendar in his office, each red dot marking a night when he’d started a fight and disappeared. There were five days until the next one. This time, I followed him.
And what I heard changed everything.
Tom was the guy everyone adored. He remembered every birthday, brought extra cupcakes to the office, and had a laugh that made you want to be part of whatever joke he was telling.
Falling in love with him was the easiest thing in the world.
He made me feel so special, like the most wonderful person he’d ever met.
He used to surprise me with gifts and bouquets of my favorite flowers “just because.”
I used to feel so lucky to have married a man like him. Like I’d won some kind of lottery.
“How did you find such a gem?” my sister would ask, and I’d beam with pride.
But here’s the thing about gemstones.
Sometimes they’re just polished glass, and the shine only lasts so long.
Everything was great when we first got married and moved in together, but ten years into our marriage, I felt like I barely knew the man who shared my bed.
It wasn’t a sudden change, either. Just a gradual transformation. Or, maybe, it’s more like he slowly stopped pretending around me.
Because that’s what Tom’s genial smiles and witty jokes were: a pretense.
It was like watching an actor switch between those drama masks. One minute he was Thalia, oozing charm and making strangers laugh, and the next he was Melpomene, and nothing I did could please him.
Behind our front door, Tom’s charm peeled away like cheap paint in the rain.
He could be lying with his head in my lap, thumb tracing lazy circles on my wrist while we watched some mindless TV show.
Then I’d ask something simple like, “What do you want for dinner?” and suddenly he’d be shouting and slamming a door hard enough to rattle the windows.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
Tap READ MORE to discover the rest 🔎👇
