Eight Years

My name is Jordyn G., and I think my husband is trying to kill me.

By the time I found the folder, I had ruled out the obvious reasons. Not for the insurance money. Not because there's someone else. Not because he wants a divorce and doesn't know how to ask for one. Those would almost be easier.

I could understand greed. I could understand betrayal. I could even understand falling out of love.

What I'm having trouble understanding is this: if the folder is telling the truth, then Axel has been pretending for the entire eight years we've known each other.

And somehow... I never noticed.

"He's planning something," my sister had whispered across the brunch table like she'd stumbled onto classified intel.

"You watch too many crime shows," I said, not even looking up from the menu.

"No, I'm serious. He's been different."

"Different how?"

"I don't know. More attentive, maybe? Which sounds ridiculous because that's a good thing. He even asked me random questions about you, like he's studying."

She frowned, like she'd caught herself. "Okay, now that I hear it out loud... that's a little unsettling." I laughed.

"Jordyn, I think he's planning something big."

"I figured," I replied. "I'm practicing very hard to act surprised when the time comes."

"Well, don't ruin it by snooping."

I promised her I wouldn't.

My sister was right. He was planning something. She just made the same mistake I did.

Looking back, there were signs. Not "signs" signs. Just... little things.

Axel had started taking calls in the garage instead of the kitchen. If I walked in, he'd smile, hold up a finger. "One second." Then he'd step outside to finish.

He asked questions that didn't seem to belong together.

"Is your passport still valid? Not expired?"

"Do you know exactly where you keep it, off the top of your head?"

"Could you take a Friday off if you had to?"

I answered each one without a second thought. Why wouldn't I? We'd been married five years. Known each other eight. I thought we were still collecting answers about each other.

Then there was the suit.

Not just expensive. Axel expensive. My husband owned exactly one suit, bought off the rack for his cousin's wedding, and considered ironing "good enough tailoring." This one came in a garment bag.

"Since when do you own a suit that isn't for weddings?" I asked.

He grinned without looking up. "Since I decided your birthday deserved more effort than khakis."

"My birthday?"

"You'll see." He laughed. A small, private laugh, like he was already picturing my face.

That's all he gave me. No elaborate explanation. People planning surprises are supposed to be vague.

Funny how memory works. Once you know the ending, your mind starts promoting ordinary moments into evidence. It wants to believe the truth was always there, waiting patiently for you to notice. I'm still not sure if that's wisdom, or just another way we comfort ourselves after we've been fooled.

My birthday was three days away.

I'd done my part. Feigning ignorance when he quickly put his phone down. Ignoring the phone calls. Stopping myself from guessing.

The least I could do was be prepared. If he was whisking me off somewhere, I wasn't about to be the wife tearing the house apart looking for her passport.

I dragged my old suitcase down from the closet shelf, sending a small avalanche of Christmas wrapping paper and one lonely mitten onto the floor. No passport.

I tried the filing cabinet instead. The one we'd bought when we finally became the kind of adults who owned things worth filing. Birth certificates. Tax returns. The warranty for a washing machine we no longer owned. Still no passport.

Axel was always better at putting important things somewhere safe. Which usually meant somewhere I'd never think to look.

So I tried his desk. Not snooping. Looking for my own document, in my own house.

The second drawer stuck halfway open. It always had. I gave it the same little tug I'd given it a hundred times before. Behind a stack of old instruction manuals sat a plain manila folder.

EUROPE, it said, in his handwriting, with a small heart drawn beside it like an afterthought he hadn't been able to resist.

I actually smiled. Of course. Of course he'd printed an itinerary. Axel, who still used a paper calendar. Axel, who didn't trust anything he couldn't hold.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and opened it, already composing the version of this story I'd tell my sister tomorrow.

The first page was flights. Rome. A week after my birthday. Business class. Which explained the credit card statement I'd decided not to mention.

Aww, he spent that much on me, I remember thinking. I'd think about that number again in a few minutes, and it would mean something else entirely.

Behind that was a hotel near the Trevi Fountain, a brochure for a cooking class, a restaurant he'd circled twice like he couldn't decide if once was enough. I laughed out loud, alone, at nothing.

I turned to the next page expecting maybe museum tickets.

Instead: my driver's license stared back at me.

For a second, I didn't understand what I was looking at. Then I remembered.

A few days ago, I thought I'd lost it. I had emptied my purse onto the kitchen counter. Checked the car. Checked every jacket pocket. Retraced everywhere I'd been. I had already resigned myself to going to the DMV and getting a replacement.

Axel had watched me panic over something so small.

"It'll turn up," he'd said, smiling.

At the time, I didn't think anything of the smile. I thought it was the smile of someone who knew me well enough to know I'd find it. I remember feeling relieved when he was right. I remember thinking how comforting it was to have someone who understood me well enough to calm me down.

He'd kissed my forehead. Told me not to worry. I had believed him. Because again, why wouldn't I?

He was right. It had turned up. Just not where I expected.

I looked back down at the license in my hand. Why did Axel have this?

I sat there for a moment, trying to find a reasonable explanation. Maybe he had found it. Maybe I'd handed it to him without thinking. Maybe there was some perfectly normal reason my husband had my driver's license tucked inside a folder labeled EUROPE.

I held onto that thought for exactly as long as I could.

Then I turned to the next page.

A photograph of me. Dated August 14th. 8:42 a.m.

I had to think for a second before I placed it. Root canal day. It was the morning I'd sat in the parking lot before my dentist appointment, finishing my coffee and wondering why in the world was I drinking coffee before a dentist appointment. Checking my phone. Alone. Except I hadn't been.Beneath the photo, in the same handwriting that had drawn the heart on the cover:

She still doesn't know. Good.

The photograph told me he'd been watching me. The folder told me something worse. That he'd wanted me to know it.

Because Axel wasn't careless That was one thing I knew about my husband. He could spend twenty minutes looking for his keys because he refused to believe he had put them in the same place twice, but when something mattered, he was meticulous. He paid bills before they were due. He saved receipts. He labeled everything.

Axel did not accidentally leave things behind.

EUROPE. His handwriting. The little heart. I thought it was sweet. I had thought I was looking at the beginning of a trip.

I was looking at the beginning of something else.

It was 2026. A person planning something like this didn't need to leave a record behind. Not unless the record itself was part of the plan. Unless... it was for me.

It wasn't a mistake. It wasn't carelessness. The folder was a message. I didn't find it. He gave it to me. He just did it in a way that let him pretend he hadn't.

I understood then and why it had worked so well for so long.

The same person who knew I hated being late knew I'd prepare early, just in case. The same person who knew I loved surprises knew exactly how I responded to them. I wouldn't snoop. I wouldn't ruin it. I would wait.

He hadn't outsmarted me. That would have been easier to accept.

He knew me.

Axel had planned something monstrous. That part, I already knew, sitting there with the proof in my lap.

What I hadn't understood yet was that he'd planned this too. The finding. The reading. This exact moment. He'd planned for me to be exactly the woman who'd arrive at it.

Whatever he had felt for me hadn't stopped him from planning my... My death.

Knowing me had simply taught him how to make sure I found out first.

I'm not even sure how long I've been sitting here. The room doesn't change. That's the strangest part.

The lamp is still on. The laundry I folded this morning is still stacked at the end of the bed. My phone is still charging on the nightstand, lighting up every few minutes with notifications from a world that has no idea mine just split in half.

Outside, someone is mowing their lawn. A dog barks. A car drives past. Everything keeps moving, because apparently the world doesn't stop just because your husband decided you shouldn't be part of it anymore.

I read the folder again. Not because I don't believe it. Because I do. Because some stubborn, humiliating part of me is still looking for the sentence that changes everything.

The sentence that says: this isn't what you think.

It never comes. There are dates. Notes. Pictures. My passport. My license. Details about my schedule I don't remember telling him, because I didn't have to. He's my husband. There was never a reason to wonder why he knew where I'd be.

That was the privilege of loving someone. You give them information without realizing you were handing them a map.

I close the folder. Then I open it again. I hate that I do that. I hate that even after everything, I'm still looking at Axel's handwriting and expecting it to become someone else's. A stranger's. A mistake. Anything but his.

My first instinct is to call my sister. Then I picture her answering on the second ring. See? I told you he was planning something.

She would be right. But right for the wrong damn reason.

My hand moves toward my phone. Then stops. Because Axel knows my sister. He knows I would call her. He knows exactly what I would do.

First, I was afraid of what he had planned. Now, I'm afraid there's nothing left he hasn't already accounted for.

Headlights sweep across the bedroom wall.

I don't move. I don't hide the folder. I'm not sure if I want to, or if it would even matter.

His car door closes. One solid, familiar thunk. And I realize how much of my life has been built around the sounds of him. The keys. The garage door. His shoes against the hardwood floor. The small things you learn when you love someone. The small things you never imagine learning to be afraid of.

The front door opens.

"I'm home," he calls.

His voice… sounds exactly the same.