My Husband's Student Lover

While I was frying eggs in the kitchen, my son, Norton, suddenly ran over holding a crayon. He pressed the drawing paper against my leg, looking up with his little face and said, "Mom, look, this is Daddy holding us." I lowered my head to stroke his soft hair, but inexplicably, my fingertips trembled. Five years ago, at the train station, an old man wearing a gray cloth shirt stopped me and said that the man beside me was "a wrong guy," warning that one day I would suffer a heartbreak because of him. Back then, I had just made things official with Jeremy Gilman and dismissed it as the ramblings of a street charlatan, smiling as I gave him ten bucks. Now, five years into our marriage, Jeremy becomes a university professor, Norton is five years old, and our family life is like tea brewing in warm water—so calm that not a single ripple stirs. But that calm was completely shattered on Norton's birthday. That day, when I went downstairs to pick up a delivery, the courier handed me a box with no sender information. The moment I opened it, a chill ran through my limbs. Inside was a stack of photos: Jeremy embracing a young woman at a hotel entrance, kissing her on a park bench. I recognized the girl in the photos—she was the graduate student he brought home, Linda Cosby. What suffocated me even more was a beige coat lying at the bottom of the box. That coat was the birthday gift I had bought Jeremy last year. He said he lost it last month by accident, but now on the collar, there was a dark red lipstick stain—one I had never bought. I sat on the porch holding the cardboard box, waiting until I heard the lock turn. When Jeremy came back carrying a cake, he saw the box by my feet and his face instantly changed. I threw the photo in front of him and demanded, "What is going on here?" He crouched down to pick up the photo, flustered as he explained, "Celine, Linda has been pestering me nonstop. The photo is obviously doctored, and the coat was taken by someone else when I wasn't looking. Someone is deliberately planting it at the door to frame me." I looked into his eyes and saw his panic—suddenly, I felt like I Never knew him. I pulled out the divorce agreement I had drawn up that afternoon from the drawer and pushed it in front of him. His face immediately flushed. He snatched the agreement and tore it to shreds, yelling that I was crazy, that he had never wronged me, and that I couldn't destroy our family over a few fake photos. Norton was frightened to tears by his voice. I held the child and went into the bedroom, locking the door behind me. In the middle of the night, I got up to cover Norton with a blanket. Passing by the living room, I heard Jeremy whispering on the sofa. I stepped quietly and peered through the crack in the door. He held a photo in his hand, his fingertips gently stroking the face of Linda in the picture, his voice tender as if coaxing a child. He said, "Linda, just wait a little longer, I'll handle everything." At that moment, the last flicker of warmth in my heart completely froze.