I lost my gold earrings. Two days later, I met my neighbor in the elevator, and she was wearing them.

She said, “My boyfriend gifted me those earrings.” I told her they were vintage and had belonged to my husband’s grandma.

She was quiet. When I told my husband, he suddenly became pale. Turned out…

He’d given them to her himself.

I’ll never forget the way he looked when I said her name—Danika. He didn’t even try to hide it, just stared at the floor like it would open and swallow him whole.

We’d been married eight years. Together since college. I thought we were solid. We had this rhythm—dinners together, Sunday walks, inside jokes no one else got. I thought that meant something.

But apparently, it didn’t stop him from slipping heirloom earrings out of my jewelry box and giving them to the woman who lived one floor above us.

I remember laughing. Not the good kind. The stunned, slightly hysterical kind. Like my brain didn’t know what else to do.

He said it “just happened.” That it had been a few months. That he didn’t mean for me to find out like this.