After My Husband Cheated, I Fell for My Younger Trainer Chapter 08
Ethan started coming home on time.
That felt even stranger than his not coming home at all.
It used to be unusual to see him before ten in the evening.
Now, at six thirty, he stood in the kitchen holding grocery bags, like a stranger who had suddenly decided to play the devoted husband.
At seven, he brought out a plate of pasta.
“Erin, dinner’s ready.”
I stood in the doorway and looked at the two plates on the table.
The sauce had congealed, and the fried eggs beside the pasta were burnt black around the edges.
He shifted awkwardly.
“I learned to make it today. Didn’t you always say you wanted me to cook for you?”
I slipped off my shoes.
“I already ate.”
His hands froze, leaving the plate suspended in midair.
“Where?”
“Out.”
“Who with?”
I glanced at him.
“Are you interrogating me now?”
He fell silent.
I walked into the bedroom, closed the door, and locked it.
Through the door, I heard him set the plate down with barely a sound. For a long time afterward, the living
room remained silent.
The next day, Ethan’s mother called me.
Her voice was gentle, as if she knew nothing.
“Erin, Ethan said things haven’t been going well between you two lately.”
I stood on the balcony with my phone in my hand.
“You could say that.”
“Every marriage hits a rough patch. Ethan has always been proud, and admitting he’s wrong has never come
easily to him. Could you give him a little more time?”
I watched the wind stir the leaves on the trees below.
“I’ve already given him years.”
There was a pause on the other end.
“His job requires a lot of socializing, and sometimes people make mistakes. At least he’s coming home and
trying to fix things. That means he still doesn’t want to lose you.”
I let out a quiet laugh.
“If I had been the one who made the mistake, would he give me the same chance?”
She said nothing.
After a long silence, she sighed.
“Erin, you weren’t like this before.”
What had I been like before? Easy to placate. Easy to walk all over. The slightest kindness had been enough
to make me swallow every hurt in silence.
My tone remained polite.
“People change.”
After I ended the call, Ethan came out of the study.
So he had been listening all along.
“Do you have to make it sound like there’s no way back?”
I looked at him.
“Wasn’t this what you wanted when you sent your mother to talk to me?”
His face tightened, but he held his temper.
That evening, he transferred money into my account.
Soon afterward, several luxury-brand boxes arrived.
A handbag, a necklace, and a gold bracelet.
They were all things I had once mentioned wanting, only for him to call me materialistic.
He pushed the boxes toward me.
“See if you like them.”
I opened the bracelet box, slipped it onto my wrist, and held it beneath the light.
“It’s nice.”
Hope flared in Ethan’s eyes.
The next second, I opened the necklace box too.
“This one’s nice as well. Are there matching earrings?”
He froze.
He finally understood that gifts could no longer win me back.
What drove him even closer to breaking point was that I still went to the aquatic center three times a week.
Every time I came home, my hair was damp, my cheeks were flushed, and I was in a good mood.
It was a lightness he had not seen in me for years.
On Thursday night, I came out after taking a shower and found Ethan standing in the living room.
Broken glass lay scattered across the floor.
His palm was cut, blood slipping between his fingers.
My phone lay on the coffee table, its screen still glowing with Kyle’s message.
[You did well today. I’ll teach you butterfly next time, but first, you’ll have to let me hold you while we practice floating.]
Ethan looked up at me, his eyes almost wild.
“How far have things gone between the two of you?”
I picked up my phone and locked the screen.
“What does that have to do with you?”
“You’re my wife!”
His voice shot up.
I looked at the blood dripping from his hand.
“So you still remember that I’m your wife.”
His breathing quickened.
“Erin, I won’t allow you to see him again.”
The living room went still.
His words reminded me of something that had happened a year earlier.
Back then, I had clutched his sleeve and begged him not to go see Lily.
He had said, “Erin, what gives you the right to control me?”
I put on my coat and picked up my bag.
Ethan blocked the door.
“Where are you going?”
I looked directly into his eyes.
“To see the man you just forbade me from seeing.”
He went deathly pale.
I stepped around him and placed my hand on the door handle.
“Ethan, whenever you went to see Lily, you never once asked whether I agreed.”
I shut the door in his face.
As the hallway lights came on, I finally understood.
What hurt him more than any screaming match was the fact that I no longer waited for him.
