Long-Distance Fool: My Girlfriend's Double Life

Six years into our long-distance relationship, I tell my girlfriend, Claire Whitmore, that I'm too busy with work to spend her birthday with her. Behind her back, I secretly take the property deed with me and board a ten-hour flight to her city. I want to propose to her in front of all our friends and surprise her. While waiting for my ride, I use my work phone to reply to a few messages, then casually scroll through my social media feed. The first post I see is from my childhood friend, Ryan Cole. "I'm going to be a godfather! My goddaughter is 8.5 pounds. I'm so happy!" I open the photo and see Claire and Damian Pierce posing together, a baby between them. My mind goes completely blank. I scroll through Ryan's other posts and discover that they're all about Claire and Damian's life together. Every moment from the past six years has been documented, from when they first met and fell in love to their marriage and the birth of their child. In their wedding group photo, I even spot several of my closest friends. My heart sinks. They all know about this. I'm the only one who's been kept in the dark for six years. Chapter 1 As soon as I learned which hospital my childhood friend Ryan Cole was in, I rushed to the hospital room. When I pushed open the door, I saw Damian Pierce kissing my girlfriend, Claire Whitmore, gently on the cheek. Gifts of all sizes were piled around the newborn. The happy scene shattered the instant I walked in. Aside from Ryan, several of our mutual friends were also in the room, including some of my closest friends. All of them drew in a sharp breath when they saw me. Damian looked at me in confusion. "Who are you?" Before I could say a word, Claire shot me a warning look and cut in. "He's just an old classmate I haven't seen in years." I let out a bitter laugh. Even after ten years together, Claire still refused to call me her boyfriend. Right then, Ryan grabbed my hand and pulled me outside. "Nathan, don't disturb Claire. She needs to rest. We can talk about this another time." I stared at his familiar face and remembered all the video calls and late-night talks we'd shared over the years. He watched me survive on just four hours of sleep a night to save for a house, and listened as I excitedly planned my future with Claire. But he never once told me that the future I'd dreamed of was never going to happen. When he finally dragged me out of the room, the first thing Ryan did was warn me. "Claire and Damian are married. Don't make a scene in front of them." "Since when?" I asked. "Why didn't you tell me?" Ryan went quiet for a moment. "They'd been together for six years. All of us knew. We didn't tell you because we were afraid you'd cause a scene." My heart ached so badly I could barely breathe. Claire and I had been together for ten years, six of them long distance. Whenever I brought up marriage, Claire always had an excuse, either saying the distance was too hard or the timing wasn't right. She once told me, "Nathan, I'll marry you once you buy a house." Because of that promise, I worked myself to the bone, pulling all-nighters to hit my targets so I could buy a house and marry her. Yet for six years, Claire always found an excuse not to visit me in Westhaven, claiming she was too busy with work. Whenever I took time off and flew back to see her, she'd say she was busy, and our meetups were always short. I never suspected anything. I thought she was just tired. But it turned out she'd been giving all her patience and affection to someone else for the past six years. Ryan's eyes fell on the property deed in my hand. His expression shifted, and he finally dropped all pretense. "So what if you've been together for ten years? Claire has always loved Damian. Why else would a woman who runs her own company pretend to be broke in front of you?" He continued. "While you were working so hard, Claire was traveling with Damian, watching the Northern Lights. She even had his child. You should know who she really loves by now." He took out his phone and showed me proof of their relationship. There were photos of Claire and Damian kissing under the Northern Lights, holding hands in the desert, and cuddling together in the snowy mountains. Each photo had a date, and the oldest was dated March six years ago. That had been the hardest period of my life. I was still on probation at work, my mom was seriously ill, and everything felt too heavy to bear. Yet whenever I called Claire, she never answered. It turned out Claire and Damian were already a couple then. Just then, my phone buzzed with a text from Claire. "Go back for now. I'll explain everything later." I shoved Ryan's hand away and pushed the hospital room door open again. Chapter 2 Claire frowned. "Nathan, what do you think you're doing?" I took out some cash and gently set it next to the baby. "We've been classmates for years. You just had a baby. Shouldn't I give you something nice?" The next moment, a non-disclosure agreement appeared in my inbox. The agreement stated that if Damian ever learned about Claire and me, the medical team treating my mom would pull out. But what made my blood run cold was seeing my mom's name already on the document. My mom's liver cancer had relapsed, and the cancer cells were spreading rapidly. The doctors were at a loss. Claire was the one who introduced me to a senior she'd known in graduate school, whose team specialized in treating difficult cases. Thanks to him, my mom's condition finally stabilized. I never thought Claire would use my mom to threaten me. Damian looked at Claire, puzzled. "What's with the attitude, Claire? Your classmate's just trying to be nice." He took out a small box and opened it to reveal a diamond-encrusted Vacheron Constantin watch inside. "You're Claire's old classmate. It'd be rude of us to accept your gift without giving you something in return. Here, take this." Ryan spoke up from the side. "Just take it, Nathan. Damian has plenty of these at home." Damian laughed. "Exactly. Go ahead and take it. My wife buys me watches like this all the time. Sometimes she even gets the whole set. She really goes overboard." A wave of bitterness washed over me. Claire had always acted like she was broke when we were together. Once, she wanted to buy me a pair of shoes I'd liked on my birthday. But she'd complained that her boss had docked her commission that day, so I insisted we buy a secondhand pair online instead. I looked around at our group of friends. One by one, they avoided my gaze and made excuses to leave the room. It turned out it wasn't just Claire's marriage they'd kept from me. They'd all gone along with her pretending to be broke, too. I could almost imagine how they must have mocked me behind my back while pretending to sympathize with me to my face. I took the watch and walked out of the hospital in a daze. When I got back to the hotel, I finally broke down. When Claire and I were together, our friends joked about how broke we were. I worked part-time while studying to help pay my mom's medical bills, while Claire was just as badly off, stretching every dollar as far as she could. We used to believe that if we worked hard together, life would eventually get better. Back then, we were so broke that we could barely afford a two-dollar bowl of street noodles, yet we'd sit there talking until the place closed. After graduation, she insisted on returning to her hometown to start a business, while I accepted a job offer in Westhaven. We promised each other we'd work hard to build a better life. At the airport, she held me tightly and promised we'd get married once I bought a house. I waited six years for that promise. For those six years, I ran myself ragged. I worked during the day, took freelance jobs at night, and taught classes at a training center on weekends. When I was pushing myself the hardest, I slept only four hours a day for three straight months and nearly landed myself in the ER. Yet I was happy then. It never crossed my mind that none of it was real. Chapter 3 That night, Claire came to my hotel room. "Why did you lie to me?" I demanded. If she'd told me the truth sooner, I wouldn't have worked myself to the bone trying to buy a house, nor would I have promised my mom that I'd bring home my future wife one day. Claire handed me a bank card. "Nathan, there's 200,000 dollars in here. The PIN is your birthday. Consider it compensation. My marriage to Damian… was arranged by our families. I didn't have a say in it." I looked at the familiar face I'd loved for ten years and felt all that love shatter in an instant. A flicker of emotion crossed Claire's eyes. "If you want, you can still stay by my side. Just pretend none of this ever happened, and we can go back to how things were before. Damian just can't find out about this." I flung the bank card back at her, making my refusal clear. Claire still didn't give up. "I admit I handled this badly, but I really do care about you. Haven't I treated you well all these years? "I paid for your mom's treatment, covered your rent in Westhaven, and even pulled strings to get you the project that led to your promotion," Claire said. "If you stay with me, I'll give you 2,000 dollars a month, and you can pick any one of my luxury homes." Everything I'd thought I'd earned through my own hard work turned out to have Claire's hand in it. She kept insisting she cared about me, yet she wanted me to become a homewrecker and destroy someone else's family. I kicked Claire out of the room. That very night, I packed my bags and decided to leave Haine. Just as I was about to go through airport security, someone dumped a bottle of water over me. "You're the man who seduced Claire? Disgusting!" I stood dripping wet in the middle of the airport terminal as the crowd's stares pierced me like needles. I turned to Ryan, who stood nearby with an uneasy look on his face. "Do you think I'm a homewrecker too?" I asked. Ryan closed his eyes. "Nathan, no matter how close we are, I can't take your side on this. You... are the homewrecker here. Damian hasn't done anything wrong. You can't go around destroying someone else's marriage." The crowd began to stir, and someone quickly posted the footage online. The comment section descended into a frenzy of insults. My name, university, and workplace were dug up and plastered all over the thread. My phone wouldn't stop buzzing with abusive messages from strangers. Then came a call from HR. "Nathan, don't come in to work for now. We'll let you know when you can return." Right after that, my mom's caregiver called. "Mr. Holt, the medical team treating your mom is planning to pull out. They said you'd crossed someone you shouldn't have." My mind went blank. My hands trembled as I called Claire. "Why are you doing this to me?" On the other end of the line, I could hear an argument break out before Claire snapped at me, "Nathan, you brought this on yourself! Damian knows about you now. I warned you!" The line went dead. As I stared at the endless stream of hateful comments online, I had no choice but to put together a post detailing my ten-year relationship with Claire and the life we'd shared to prove that I wasn't a homewrecker. But the post was quickly reported and taken down. My account was suspended soon after. For the first time, I realized how futile my efforts were in the face of absolute power. Claire called me once more. "Go on a livestream and apologize to Damian. He'll forgive you, and we can still be together. My offer still stands, Nathan. You're a smart man. You know what choice to make." Chapter 4 I was the one kept in the dark for six years. I was the one who'd lost my best years to a lie. And now, I was the one the entire Internet was calling a homewrecker. So, why the hell should I apologize? "Your post has seriously hurt Damian," Claire said. "He's already preparing to sue you. If you don't apologize, even I won't be able to protect you!" I closed my eyes. "Fine. I'll apologize." The moment I went live, people started flooding in to curse me out. A wry smirk tugged at my lips. "I'm sorry. I apologize for not keeping my head down and quietly swallowing this bitter pill. I should've just accepted that the woman I'd been with for ten years had married someone else. So what if she cheated on me? It's no big deal." Claire quickly shut down the livestream before I could say anything else. But by then, "Homewrecker Damian Pierce" was already at the top of the trending searches. Claire laughed in anger. "Nathan Holt, you're going to regret this!" A chill ran down my spine. Just then, my mom's caregiver video-called me. The moment I answered, I heard the panic in his voice. "Mr. Holt, a bunch of people just came to your mom's bedside. They told her she deserved to have cancer and told her to die! She couldn't take the abuse and jumped out of the…" In the background, I could hear frantic screams and the hurried footsteps of nurses. The sounds blurred together in my ears, yet my brain couldn't process any of it. Claire's voice was cold. "Your mom survived the fall from the third floor, and my family's medical team is still nearby..." I dropped to my knees and scrambled over to Damian, repeatedly banging my forehead against the floor in front of him as everyone watched. "I'm sorry, Mr. Pierce. I was out of line. Please, spare my mom." His assistant seized the opportunity to start another livestream, capturing me on camera as I apologized, blood running down my face. Every hateful comment that followed felt like a blade slicing into my mangled heart. Claire's expression softened. She had someone check on my mom, then stepped outside to take a call. The moment she left, Ryan stepped out of the shadows. "Did the medical team leave?" Damian asked. Ryan nodded. For a moment, I couldn't make sense of what they were talking about. Then the caregiver called again. "Mr. Holt, the doctors and nurses came by earlier, but for some reason, they left again. Your mom… she's not breathing." My head started ringing. I stared at Ryan and Damian in disbelief. "You two did this..." Ryan pulled me to my feet and wiped the blood from my face. "Nathan, don't take it too hard. Your mom had end-stage cancer. She'd suffered for years without getting any better. Wouldn't it have been better to let her go sooner?" They had caused my mom's death, yet they had the nerve to claim they were doing it for my sake. How could anyone be so shameless? A wave of despair and blinding rage wiped out the last of my sanity. I grabbed the fruit knife from the table and lunged at them both. Just then, the hospital room door opened. "Nathan Holt! Have you lost your mind?" Claire screamed as she rushed in and threw herself in front of Damian. A second before the blade could pierce her, someone suddenly seized my wrist and twisted it with all their strength. The knife, which had been aimed at Claire, suddenly swung toward me and plunged into my chest. Warm blood sprayed across Claire's stunned face. Her expression immediately shifted to panic and fear. She shoved Damian aside and rushed toward me. "Nathan!"