Chapter Two

I’d never imagined my husband cheating could happen to me.

Just like I’d never imagined that the man who loved me more than his own life would one day betray me.

We were each other’s first love.

I met Luke in high school when I was seventeen.

I was always at the top of the class. He was the kind of guy teachers said could disrupt a classroom just by sleeping in it.

For a peer tutoring program, a teacher paired me up with him and put me in charge of making him study.

At first I genuinely couldn’t stand him.

It was bad enough that he didn’t study. He made a point of messing with me while I was trying to.

During lunch break, he’d draw circles on my back with his finger.

When we ran laps in gym and I fell behind, he’d always double back from the front and jog beside me, teasing me the whole way.

A few delinquents from the next class over started cornering me after school because they thought I was pretty.

He was the one who charged in and took on four or five of them at once. Protecting me, he ended up with a dislocated arm.

From that day on, I saw him differently.

After that, his grades really did improve, though he was still miles behind me.

So we could go to college in the same city, he applied to a state school in the town where I was going.

Christmas of our freshman year, he told me he loved me, and we got together like it was the most natural thing in the world.

That winter break, his dad cheated and divorced his mom. She fell into a deep depression, and after the semester started, she took her own life.

He locked himself in his room for three days and three nights.

When I finally saw him again, he held on to me and sobbed.

He said there was nothing in the world he hated more than people who cheat.

He said, “Joy, you’re the only family I have left. I, Luke Harper, swear on my life that I will love only you as long as I live. My heart, my body, everything I feel, belongs to you alone. If I ever break this promise, may I die a terrible death!”

Later, after we graduated, he met my parents.

They loved him.

Then we had a big, beautiful wedding.

In our second year of marriage, I nearly died giving birth to the proof of our love.

Luke named our daughter Mia, with the middle name Promise.

He said it stood for his promise to Joy, one that would never change.

We became a happy family of three.

Once we had a child, Luke worked even harder.

In just two years, he made it into management.

Then I got promoted too.

Life kept getting better. Luke just kept coming home later and later.

He’d get in after midnight, every time.

And every time, he’d wrap himself around me. “Babe, I love you so, so much. We’re going to be together forever!”

And every time, I thought it was the sweetest thing.

My friends and coworkers all envied me for having such a great husband.

But once I ripped off that loving disguise, the truth underneath was this ugly.

I didn’t scroll through the rest of Shannon’s stories. A woman’s instinct told me everything she’d posted had been posted for me to see.

That one post was enough to know Luke was cheating.

There was no reason to torture myself.

That same night, I drafted the divorce papers on my laptop, printed them, and signed my name.