For the man in front of me.
That same night, Diego took a suitcase out of the bedroom.
I hadn't packed much.
Enough for me to understand that I already had somewhere else to go.
“I’m going to live with Paula,” he said without the slightest shame.
Paula.
Your co-worker.
The woman who used to text me asking for prescriptions.
The woman who once smiled sweetly at me and said, “Lauri, you have an admirable marriage.”
It turned out that I had only been waiting for the opportunity to get into my bed without even having to prepare it herself.
The next day, my mother-in-law appeared at the door with two black garbage bags.
Not to comfort me.
But to pick up your son's stuff.
“What a shame, Laura,” she said, looking down at my belly as if she were already stained. “Diego didn’t deserve this.”
“I didn’t betray him.”
He smiled at me with pity.
“Women always say that when they catch them.”
In less than a week, the whole neighborhood knew.
The unfaithful wife.
The shameless woman.
The one who got pregnant right after her husband had a vasectomy.
Diego even posted a photo with Paula at a fancy city restaurant. She was holding on to her arm, smiling radiant as if she had just won a victory.
His caption froze my blood:
“Sometimes life takes a lie from you to give you peace.”
I read those words sitting on the floor of the bathroom, with a hand clinging to the toilet, vomiting and crying until it is completely exhausted.
He had no peace.
I was just scared.
Fear of losing my home.
Fear of raising a child alone.
Fear that the baby in my womb would be born with the surname of a man who already hated him without ever seeing his face.
