The Woman in Green

Some people beg for the truth, but I just circled it like a vulture. I waited until the denial died of its own accord. Only then did I close in to pick at the remains.

I had suspected it for weeks. The subtle shift in his routine. The sudden lack of warmth when he greeted me. The way he avoided eye contact on the mornings our paths crossed. Those mornings became less frequent until excuses slipped into half-assed explanations and eventually into nothing at all.

I didn’t confront him. I didn’t beg for answers. I let it be. Who was I to question him? At first, I tried to convince myself I was imagining it. But the evidence began to mount - subtle at first, then impossible to ignore.

It was the faint, artificial sweetness lingering on his clothes whenever he did show up - a cloying, chemical scent of cheap caramel and burnt sugar.

I used to tease him for so carelessly leaving his jacket draped over chairs whenever he left the room. I almost found it endearing that he trusted the world enough to leave his phone, keys, and wallet for anyone to slide out of those abandoned pockets. Now it infuriated me.

To leave answers within my grasp. As though he was mocking me. I could so easily reach in and pull out a receipt, his phone… anything that would give form to the phantom stealing him from me.

I felt like I was trapped in some popcorn thriller. Predictable. Cheating man. Vengeful woman. It was a story as old as time, and it made me roll my eyes.

If I were to follow the basic rules of those stories, I wouldn’t think twice about reaching into his pockets. But god, I despised those books.

I wasn’t going to become the next Debbie, Naomi, or Cassie.

Instead, I chose to look away. I chose the slow, agonising death of our quiet routine over the sharp blow of confirmation. If he wanted to wander, I would let him wander until he got it out of his system.

But he didn’t stop.

By the third week, the distance between us had widened into a canyon. He stopped lingering altogether. Our mornings became transactional - cold, stripped of the small, silent understandings we used to share.

He rushed through our time together, his eyes constantly darting toward the door as if he had somewhere else he’d rather be.

I don’t want people to think I was a victim. Another statistic in the rising tide of inevitable infidelity. I was no more innocent than he was.

There were other men. Other women.

There was Chloe, who I saw every Tuesday and who I consoled through her divorce. There was Sam, who popped in after closing his bar, his eyes tired but his smile alive. There was Sophia, who squeezed my hand when we said our goodbyes, telling me that I was her reason to get up every morning. Marcus wasn’t the only person I had given pieces of myself to.

What hurt most was the pretending. The way he stood in front of me and acted as though nothing had shifted. As though I wouldn’t notice the missing pieces of what we had built together. We were a tower of Jenga blocks, each piece carefully balanced, each absence making the certain collapse a little closer.

I would have understood if he had simply told me the truth. Or if he had just left entirely. It would have been a gut punch, of course it would have. But at least pain has an ending. Uncertainty drives you insane. Perhaps I’m no different from a McFadden character after all.

The next morning, I waited by the window. The streetlights did little to soften the darkness gathering outside. The sun took so long to rise these days that his headlights, and the familiar hello that followed, had become the beginning of my mornings. In the absence of the sun, I had begun to rely on his lights to end the night.

His car appeared later than usual. His typical spots were already occupied. Was that why he parked so far down the road? Or was he avoiding walking past me altogether? Had it really come to this? I watched him sit in his car for a moment, nothing more than a silhouette - neither man nor ghost.

What was the delay? Was he having second thoughts? About me? I almost hoped he was.

I watched him get out of his car, hoping, despite myself, that he would turn towards me. I knew what he wanted. I knew how he liked it. We were long past the point of asking. That was what haunted me. What did I lack that he had to go looking somewhere else?

I watched him cross the road, and this time, I didn’t stay behind. I pulled my coat tight, stepped out into the damp chill of the morning, and followed him. The vulture inside me finally stopped circling. It was time to see what remained.

I didn’t want to call what I was doing following. Following implied suspicion. Obsession. I was merely looking for closure. The morning air bore into my skin, the jacket I had hastily thrown on doing little to fight it off. Thankfully, it wasn’t a long walk. He stopped in front of a door.

A soft light spilled onto the pavement, warming the street around him. My stomach twisted as I watched him reach forward. The bell above the door chimed as he pushed it open. There was no hesitation. No unease. Just the quiet confidence of someone who had been here before.

I watched them through the window. Her smile was broad and welcoming. I don’t know what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t a carbon copy of myself.

We dressed the same. Even our hair was tied into the same impossibly high ponytails, the ends brushing the nape of our necks as we moved.

Even her mouth formed the very words I had said to him for years. The words that once belonged to me. What the hell was it that made him turn right instead of left? To choose her and not me? As far as I could tell, we were the same. And that… that pissed me off even more.

Had she been different, had he been different with her, perhaps I would have understood. But standing here, staring through the looking glass, I just couldn’t.

I pulled my jacket tighter, suddenly realising how ridiculous and out of place I looked standing there.

I was the only thing that didn’t belong. The only shade of grey outside a room full of familiar green, moving with a rhythm and language I somehow knew but no longer recognised.

I turned to leave.

The door opened behind me. The chime was followed by the familiar scent that had haunted me for weeks, the pungent sweetness of caramel and the bitter warmth of coffee.

“Gemma?” His voice stopped me dead in my tracks. I cleared my throat and squared my shoulders. I turned slowly.

“Oh.” I let the surprise settle on my face before forcing a smile. “Hi,” I said, my voice nearly as saccharine as the monstrosities waiting behind that door.

My eyes dropped to the cup in his hand - stark white, impractical, almost offensive in its simplicity - before rising again with my eyebrows to meet his.

“Starbucks?”

He looked uncomfortable, and I took pleasure in that. “What are you doing here?”

“I was going to ask you the same question.” I scowled at the sign behind him. “Really?”

“No, it’s not what you think…” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “It’s just cheaper.”

I stared at him. “Cheaper?”

“I-”

“I gave you discounts, Marcus.” He swallowed. I watched his Adam’s apple bob with the movement. “Staff discounts.”

I shook my head slowly. “I could have lost my job. I could have -”

“Your coffee is nicer!” he interrupted quickly. “I’ll give you that. They somehow always manage to burn… something.”

“You’ll give me that?” I laughed, but there was no humour behind it. “Thanks.”

My watch started vibrating against my wrist with the reminder that my ten-minute break was over. One last thing.

“I hope it was worth it.”

“What was?”

“The fifty cents.” I looked back at him. “To think what it cost…” My voice cracked.

He stared at me for a moment. Then frowned.

“It’s seventy-five cents cheaper, actually.”

I stomped back across the street with my jaw clenched.

Seventy-five cents. That was what it came down to.

The door swung open as I stepped back inside. The familiar warmth wrapped around me. The smell of decent coffee. The sound of the grinder. The steady rhythm of a morning I had convinced myself was falling apart.

“Everything okay?”

I shrugged off my jacket and threw it behind the counter.

“Marcus is a cheating piece of shit.”

My coworker didn’t even look up from the milk pitcher she was steaming.

“Who’s Marcus?”

I rolled my eyes. “The old dude who gets the extra hot flat white.”

Recognition flickered across her face.

“Oh.” She nodded. “Yeah. The guy who sits in the back?”

I looked towards his usual table, where a reserved sign sat pointlessly.

“I saw him at Starbucks.”

“Starbucks?” She grimaced. “It is cheaper though, to be fair.”

I sighed. “I know.”

I really did understand… and that was the worst part.