A smear of red.
Lipstick.
I freeze.
Setting the rest of the clothes aside, I lift the white shirt closer. The stain smudges faintly beneath my thumb. Waxy, stubborn. The air in the bathroom thickens, my chest tightening as if something unseen has wrapped itself around my ribs.
Lipstick.
Red.
I sink onto the edge of the bathtub, my heart galloping wildly, as though it’s trying to escape my chest. I force myself to look again. Calmly. I trace the smear with my finger.
There’s no doubt. It’s lipstick.
My stomach drops with the weight of it.
Perfume and lipstick.
And neither of them is mine.
I lift the shirt higher, my eyes locked on the stain. What kind of kiss leaves a mark like this? His ear. The back of his neck. His throat.
Intimate. Intentional.
No one touches those places by accident… not with their lips, not under the guise of business. This can’t be softened into something innocent.
My thoughts begin to spiral, clawing at every possible scenario. My mind runs wild, replaying images I don’t want. Lips dragging across his skin, hands lingering too long. My stomach twists, bile rising, when the vibration in my pocket snaps me back to the present.
My phone.
A text.
From him.
I swallow hard and open it with trembling hands.
Colin:I’ll have to stay late. Don’t wait up for me. I love you.
Me:Okay, be safe.
I stare at the screen. At the words I typed without thinking—automatic, empty. I’m holding his shirt, stained with another woman’s lipstick, and that’s all I could manage?
Okay, be safe.
My chest heaves. How many times have I read messages like this? How many nights? How many months? How many years has he fed me the same lines?
And why didn’t I see it?
Maybe it’s just work. Colin has always buried himself in it, that’s who he is. Who he’s always been. But my mind won’t stop circling back, replaying every night he came home late. Every night he didn’t come home at all. The texts telling me not to wait up, that he was too tired, too worn out, that it wasn’t safe to drive.
I believed him. Every time.
No. I’m overthinking this. There has to be another explanation.
But then… Prom night. He missed it. No call. Not even a text.
At the hospital, he arrived hours late. And that perfume… was it the same one?
