The Cheater and His Mistress

Stuck at a long red light, I opened my phone. A question on my feed asked: [Life, freedom, love, and money. How would you rank them?] The comments were a mess. Most ranked money first. Only one stood out: “Love will always be my number one. Without love, nothing else has any meaning.” Someone mocked them, calling them a hopeless romantic. But I silently agreed. Love should come first. After all, the love Mark gave me was always perfect. Amidst the ridicule, the original poster calmly replied: “If you were me, you would choose the same. Last year, I had acute kidney failure. He gave me one of his kidneys. And at the time, he wasn’t even my boyfriend. He was just my doctor.” My heart stopped. Last year, Mark had also donated a kidney—to a stranger. I'd been strongly against it, but he’d soothed me, saying, “Saving lives is a doctor’s duty.” My fingers went cold, trembling as I scrolled. The comment continued: “He only has one kidney now, but in that department… he’s still more than I can handle. Broad shoulders, narrow waist… he leaves me sore every single night.” A photo was attached: a man’s muscular back in a dimly lit bathroom, a faint bite mark on his left hip. I had left that mark on him at eighteen, as punishment for punching my high school crush. 1 It wasn’t until a chorus of horns honked behind me that I snapped back to reality. I was still twenty minutes from Mark’s hospital. I pulled over to the side of the road and killed the engine. I went back to the post. The tide in the comment section had already turned. “What? A love story this pure still exists in the 21st century? You’ve made me believe in love again.” The original poster continued her calm narration: “His parents divorced when he was a kid, and neither of them wanted him. Even though he’s successful now, deep down, he’s still a little boy who craves love.” A sharp pain lanced through my heart. “I grew up in an orphanage, so I guess we’re kindred spirits. I can’t give him anything but love, but that’s the one thing he needs most.” “It’s enough that we can heal each other. Even if he’s already married… I don’t care. I just want to be with him, one day at a time.” A storm of question marks erupted in the comments. But she seemed oblivious, continuing on. “I’m dying. I don’t have much time left. I was afraid of hurting him, I rejected him so many times. But every time I saw how broken and sad he looked, I couldn’t bear it.” “Life is too short, and our meeting was too beautiful. I’ll take whatever time we have.” The final post. “Here’s a picture of us.” I stared at the words, the screen’s brightness searing my eyes. The loading icon spun and spun, making my eyes ache. My finger hovered over the screen, unable to tap. The truth was a hand, squeezing the air from my lungs. A soft thump. I jerked back to the present. In my rearview mirror, a girl’s electric scooter was lying on its side behind my car. She was scrambling to pick it up. She was slender and frail, dressed in a faded white sweatshirt. As she hurried over to my car, my heart gave a strange, painful lurch. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!” she said, bowing, her palms pressed against my window in a panic. “It’s my first time riding one, I couldn’t brake in time… I’m really so sorry…” The window was fogged up. Her face was a blur through the condensation. But her silhouette, her eyes… a sudden, terrifying premonition washed over me. I took a deep breath, and my thumb finally pressed down. The moment the picture loaded, I heard my own breathing stop. On the screen, Mark’s head was slightly bowed, his gaze so tender it could drown a person. In his arms was a girl in a white sweatshirt, her face tilted up to his, smiling. She was identical to the girl outside my car window. The world went silent. The only sound was my own heartbeat, thudding so hard it hurt. I slowly lifted my head. Her hand was still pressed against the glass. She was still talking. And my eyes began to burn. 2 The air was unnervingly quiet when Mark arrived. Ten minutes earlier, the girl had made a phone call. We had remained on opposite sides of the car window, one of us standing, the other squatting by her fallen scooter. Neither of us had spoken another word. Until a familiar car turned the corner. Until a familiar figure strode towards us. Until Mark, without even a glance at my car, went straight to her and knelt by her side. “Not listening again. Didn’t I tell you to stay home and rest?” He took iodine and cotton swabs from his pocket and began to expertly clean her scraped knee. The girl giggled, wrapping her arms around his neck. “It’s nothing! I just wanted to go grocery shopping. It’s your birthday, I wanted to do something special.” “You can’t get hurt again,” Mark said, his head bowed as he carefully tended to the small scrape. “I don’t need any special occasions. I just need you to be safe.” “I know, I know~” I got out of the car. “Two thousand for the repairs. I’ll accept a private settlement.” In the moonlight, Mark looked up, his face instantly draining of all color. “Amber…” he stammered. I didn’t let him continue. “You got here fast,” I said, pointing first at him, then at the girl cowering behind him. “From the moment you answered her call to now, fifteen minutes. That’s all it took for me to see exactly where she stands in your heart.” The wind whipped into the collar of my shirt, and I suddenly felt very cold. “Mark.” I said his name. Three syllables I had been saying since I was ten years old. For fifteen years. I had called him to wake him up, to come to dinner, to say “I love you,” to say “I’ll wait for you.” I had never felt so tired. “Do you have any right to do this to me?” He didn’t answer. The girl shrank further behind him. I stared at her for a long time. Long enough for Mark to take a half step forward, shielding her even more completely. That single gesture hurt more than any photograph. I didn't say another word. I turned, pulled open my car door, and sped away, just seconds before the tears could fall. In the rearview mirror, he was still standing there, his arm protectively around her, his eyes following my car. The streetlights cast a dim, yellow glow. The face that had made my heart race a thousand times suddenly looked like a stranger’s. The car went faster and faster, memories replaying in my mind like a movie. Ten years old. The day his parents left, he moved in next door. He was so thin, like a piece of paper. I would sneak food from my house and pass it to him over the balcony. He would eat ravenously, tears streaming down his face, saying, “I owe you. Thank you.” Eighteen. He repeated a year of high school just so we could go to the same university. A senior gave me a love letter, and he beat the guy to a pulp. I screamed at him, bit him. He wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth, his eyes red. “Amber, I like you too. Be my girlfriend, okay?” On the rooftop, he kissed me for the first time. Then he picked me up and spun me around, laughing like a fool. “Amber, this is the happiest day of my life… Thank you, for healing me, again and again.” Twenty-two. On his first day as a resident, he proposed in front of everyone, swearing he would only love me for the rest of his life. I chose to move to another city for a career opportunity. He helped convince my parents, then told me with unwavering certainty, “Amber, you be you. I’ve got your back.” Every weekend, without fail, he would drive three hours to see me. Rain or shine. For over a thousand days, he never let me spend a weekend alone. Every night, we would talk on the phone for hours, never running out of things to say. Every anniversary I forgot, he would surprise me with something full of love. I don’t think I ever once doubted his love for me. But I don’t understand. I really don’t. How can one heart hold two loves at the same time? My eyes were burning. The wind rushing in through the half-open window stung them. But what hurt more was the heart that had loved for so many years. 3 I turned the car around and drove back to my own city. A hundred and twenty kilometers. I cried so hard I could barely see the road. It took me three hours. My best friend was waiting at my door, holding a cake, her face full of anticipation. “You’re back so soon? How did it go? Was Mark thrilled when you told him you were pregnant?” Today was Mark’s birthday. It was also the day I had planned to tell him I was pregnant. My job transfer had finally been approved. I could move back to his city. So the moment I got off work, I had rushed to see him. I wanted to tell him in person that we were going to have a baby, that we could finally end the long-distance, that we would never have to spend another weekend apart. But instead, I had walked into a nightmare. One I couldn’t seem to wake up from. I looked at my best friend, and my eyes welled up first. The composure I had been desperately clinging to finally shattered. “He’s cheating on me. With the girl he donated his kidney to.” My friend stared at me for three long seconds, and then her own eyes turned red with a fury that surpassed my own. The next second, she was sobbing and cursing Mark’s entire family tree. I completely broke down, collapsing into her arms. She had been there for all fifteen years of our story. When Mark couldn't afford tuition and was about to give up on college, I stole my family’s savings for him. My dad beat me until my back was covered in welts. I had worked myself to the bone for twenty straight days on a project, just so I could get a promotion and apply for a transfer back to his city. The six months Mark was studying abroad, I broke my leg and lay in a hospital bed, never telling him a word about it. Every time, she would call me a fool, asking me if he was worth it. And I would always tell her, yes. Mark had had it so rough. He only had me. I had to be good to him, better and better. She knew. I loved Mark more than I loved myself. So now, she was a mess of tears and snot, crying and cursing. Cursing him for being blind, for being a heartless bastard, for being a dog who deserved to die. I knelt by the toilet, crying and throwing up. “I want a divorce.” “I’m not having that scumbag’s baby.” “I want Mark to suffer.” Three in the morning. I was curled up in the corner of the sofa, watching the city lights blink on and off. My friend, exhausted, was asleep on my shoulder, tear tracks still wet on her cheeks. I used to think that a good relationship was built on fireworks, on the moon, on roses brought from across mountains, on a million moments of hardship and a thousand tearful embraces. Now I know. Love is built on conscience. The front door suddenly opened. It was Mark. “Amber, it’s not what you think between me and Sarah.”