Her in the Same City
I opened Adrian’s company website first.
The intern list was buried at the bottom of a dull team intro page. Chloe Mercer—Content Intern. Her headshot looked young, bright smile, blonde hair falling over her shoulders. Her bio mentioned she ran a lifestyle account on the side.
I clicked through to her social profile. The first thing I saw was an airport selfie.
No location tag. Just a caption: work trip energy.
A gate number showed in the corner of the photo. I zoomed in, then checked it against the flight I’d booked for Adrian last night. The departure time—about right. The boarding area—matched too.
I kept scrolling.
In a short video, she spun the camera around with a paper cup in hand. Outside the window, Seattle sat under a heavy gray sky. The next post was a hotel room—white tulips in a clear glass vase, a handwritten card on the nightstand. She only filmed one line: for a softer arrival.
My thumb stopped.
Tulips in a narrow clear vase—Adrian knew that was exactly how I liked them. Every time I had an important exhibition, he’d arrange flowers that way and say big, overstuffed bouquets “look like you’re trying too hard.”
I replayed the video. The camera shook for half a second, and a men’s suit jacket was draped over the arm of the sofa—gray-blue. Then, the next beat, a hand flashed near the table. The cufflink was a dark silver rectangle.
I knew those cufflinks.
I bought them for Adrian with my own hands last anniversary.
I saved screenshot after screenshot. Then I pulled up the hotel budget he’d given me. On the hotel site, the room photos—bedside lamp, the carpet pattern, the brass floor lamp by the window—were identical to what was in Chloe’s video.
I checked the flight status. The landing time lined up. I opened the hotel location, pulled the street views within a five-minute walk, and compared them with the city clip she’d just posted. Even the red-brick church at the intersection was on the same street.
Not a coincidence.
He was traveling with her.
I scrolled further down to an older post. She’d filmed dessert at a restaurant—two wine glasses—and a breezy little caption: some men still know how to notice the little things.
At the corner of the table sat a mint wrapper. That brand was what Adrian always had after meals because he said he couldn’t show up in front of clients with coffee breath.
I stared at the screen too long. My eyes started to burn. But the tears didn’t come. Instead something sank, slowly, solidly—turning hard and cold.
I’d been trying to leave him a crack. Space for a misunderstanding. Space for coincidence. Space for some cleaner explanation that didn’t make him look so ugly.
There wasn’t any left now.
I dragged every screenshot into a folder in chronological order and named them by date, location, flight number. Then I opened the online banking for our shared account.
The last few months, I’d been too tired to look closely. I’d just assumed the scattered charges were household stuff or last-minute reimbursements for his company. But when I clicked into a few higher amounts, the payee info that popped up made my fingers go tight around my phone.
One was a luxury perfume store.
One was a jewelry pre-authorization.
And three transfers—blank memo lines, but the recipient name was clear as day: C. Mercer.
I was about to dig further when my phone buzzed.
Not Adrian.
A text from an unknown number. Just one photo.
Two champagne flutes in front of a floor-to-ceiling hotel window. A man’s hand rested at the edge of the frame. On his cuff—dark silver, rectangular cufflink, sharp and unmistakable.
