“Because Julian told me he was divorced.”
She looked toward the restaurant entrance.
“But something bothered me.”
“What?”
“The caption called you his wife.”
I nodded slowly.
“So you came here?”
“I called him first.”
“When?”
“About an hour ago.”
“What did he say?”
“He said the organization probably copied old information.”
I closed my eyes briefly.
Of course he did.
Sabrina unlocked her phone again.
“Then I checked your profile.”
I rarely posted publicly.
But my profile photograph was from six months earlier.
Julian stood beside me.
His arm around my waist.
Sabrina continued.
“I asked him about that too.”
“What did he say?”
“That you were obsessed with keeping up appearances and still posted old pictures.”
I almost admired the speed of the lie.
Almost.
The coffee arrived.
I waited until the server left.
“Show me everything.”
Sabrina hesitated.
“Everything?”
“Everything he told you about me.”
Her expression changed.
Not pity.
Something closer to embarrassment.
“There’s a lot.”
“Start anywhere.”
She scrolled through their messages.
I recognized Julian’s style immediately.
Short sentences when he was busy.
Longer when he wanted something.
The same jokes.
The same expressions.
Even the same little grammatical mistakes I had teased him about for years.
But the life described in those messages belonged to a man I didn’t know.
According to Julian, our marriage had collapsed two years earlier.
He claimed I had become consumed by my career.
He said I had taken a job in Richmond and moved away.
He said we had separated peacefully.
Then he told Sabrina that I had later become difficult during the divorce.
I looked up.
“Difficult how?”
Sabrina looked uncomfortable.
“He said you kept delaying the paperwork.”
“I have never seen divorce paperwork.”
“I know that now.”
“Keep going.”
“He said you wanted more money.”
I felt something cold move through me.
“What money?”
