For three weeks, my husband came home late, fell asleep without a word, and whispered another woman’s name in the dark. He swore he didn’t know her, but then I found her number on his phone. I called her and discovered my husband had been keeping a secret that could cost us everything.
Jake and I had been married for two years.
We cooked dinner together. We went to bed at the same time. He used to text me in the middle of the day just because.
Then the texts slowed down, and he started working late.
I didn’t worry at first, but I should’ve.
One evening, Jake walked in looking like he’d been dragged behind a bus.
“Working late again?”
“We’re wrapping up a big project. You know how it is.”
I didn’t. His job had never taken this much from him before.
But I nodded anyway, because that’s what you do when you want to be the supportive wife.
Weeks passed in a blur of late nights and short, clipped answers.
One night, I slipped into bed after Jake had already fallen asleep. I closed my eyes, then the silence broke.
I sat straight up and stared at Jake. He was deeply asleep.
“Jake?”
Nothing.
I lay back down and told myself it was nothing.
But less than a minute later, he said it again.
“Marlena. Marlena. MARLENA!”
This time, he wasn’t whispering.
It sounded urgent. It sounded… intimate.
I couldn’t just lie there.
I reached out and shook his shoulder.
He groaned, squinting at me in the dark. “What? Rose?
What’s wrong?”
“Who is Marlena?”
He stared at me like I’d started speaking in tongues. “What are you talking about, Rose?”
“You just said her name three times, Jake. Who is she?”
Jake rubbed his face with his hands.
“I didn’t say anything. You’re having a bad dream.”
“I wasn’t dreaming, Jake. I was wide awake.
You shouted it.”
He sighed and rolled back over, pulling the covers up. “You must’ve been dreaming. Go back to sleep.”
“I wasn’t,” I said to his back.
But he was already drifting off again.
It happened again the next night.
I was just drifting off when I heard Jake mutter, “Marlena.”
I didn’t sleep at all that night.
The next morning, I tried to play it cool.
Jake snorted, not even looking up from his mug. “No, I wasn’t.”
“You kept saying a woman’s name, Jake.
Marlena.”
He took a slow sip of coffee and shook his head. “I didn’t dream about anything. You’re imagining things, Rose.”
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