I pulled up my birthday from the previous year.
There it was.
The weekend Tyler had surprised me with a romantic hotel getaway.
The same weekend Avery sent me a screenshot.
A message from Tyler.
Only three more months until I get to marry you. I can’t wait to call you my wife.
The timestamp matched my birthday weekend exactly.
I felt sick.
“He sent this while he was with me,” I whispered.
“What?”
“He told me he wanted to spend the entire weekend disconnected from the world.”
Silence.
Then Avery answered softly.
“He told me he was visiting his mother.”
Neither of us cried.
Not yet.
Because we were still trying to understand how one man had managed to build two completely different lives without either woman realizing the truth.
And deep down, I knew the worst part hadn’t even begun.
The next morning, I woke up after less than two hours of sleep.
For a few blissful seconds, I forgot everything.
Then I reached for my phone.
The screenshots.
The engagement photos.
The wedding invitation.
The messages from Avery.
Reality hit all over again.
I wasn’t recovering from a breakup.
I was recovering from the discovery that my entire relationship had been built on carefully arranged lies.
My phone buzzed.
Avery.
“I’ve been going through old emails and messages all night. I think we need to compare timelines.”
I replied immediately.
“I was thinking the same thing.”
Within minutes, we were on a video call.
She looked exhausted.
Her eyes were swollen from crying, and she kept twisting the engagement ring around her finger without realizing she was doing it.
“I almost didn’t call,” she admitted.
“I almost didn’t answer.”
For a moment, neither of us knew what to say.
We should have hated each other.
Instead, we looked like two strangers who had survived the same disaster.
“I’ve spent six years planning my future with him,” Avery whispered.
“I spent four.”
She forced a sad smile.
“I guess neither of us got the version of him we thought we had.”
For the next three hours, we compared every major date we could remember.
Vacations.
Birthdays.
Family gatherings.
Business trips.
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