The hospital room felt too still, too quiet, as if it were suffocating them. Austin stood by the counter, his hand tightly gripping the edge as though he could anchor himself to the cold, unfeeling surface. He stared at the sterile white walls, but his mind was far away, lost in the haze of pain and confusion. His heart was a storm of anger, betrayal, and grief. Every breath felt like a weight, each inhalation a struggle.
The doctors had told him nothing he didn't already know, but still, there were the reports, the cold, harsh facts. His wife had been cheating on him. And now, both of them—his wife and the man she'd been with—were gone.
Austin's chest tightened with every memory of their life together, their love. How had he missed it? How had he been so blind, so foolish to not see what was right in front of him? His fingers curled into fists at his sides, his nails digging into his palm as the anger surged again. It was like a fire in his veins, consuming him from the inside out.
He tried to focus, to steady himself, but it was impossible. Everything around him felt like it was collapsing, like the world he had known no longer existed. He thought of the man—Dallas, the one who had stolen everything from him—and his fury only deepened. It was his fault, his fault that Austin had lost everything. But it wasn't just Dallas—no, it was her too. His wife. She'd lied to him, betrayed him in ways he couldn't begin to understand.
And then, through the fog of his rage and sorrow, he saw her.
The woman sitting in the corner, staring at the report in her hands as if she could make it all go away. Her face was pale, her eyes bloodshot from crying, and she seemed to be lost in her own world, separated from everything around her. She looked like him—broken, empty, shattered. The same anguish twisted her features, the same desolation in her eyes. He couldn't help but notice that she, too, was struggling to breathe, trying to make sense of a world that had turned upside down.
Austin didn't know who she was, but in that moment, it didn't matter. They were connected by something unspoken—both of them victims of betrayal, victims of a love that was nothing more than a lie.
When she spoke, it was so quiet that Austin almost didn't hear her. But when the words finally reached him, they hit him like a punch to the gut.
"I don't believe it," she said, voice trembling. Her hands clutched the report as if it were the last thing holding her together. "I don't believe it. He couldn't have… he wouldn't…"
Austin's eyes narrowed, the anger flaring again, though he couldn't understand why he felt this way. She didn't know him, didn't know what he had gone through, yet her pain mirrored his in such a painful way. Her voice was so full of disbelief, and yet he couldn't stop the bitterness that crept into his words.
"He wouldn't?" Austin repeated harshly, turning to face her fully, unable to contain the fury that was bubbling up inside him. "Do you really think that? That your husband was loyal? After everything we've just been told? My wife—she was with him. She was cheating on me. And I don't even know how to process that."
Her eyes shot up to meet his, confusion and hurt etched into her face. "What are you talking about?" Her voice was shaky, as if she couldn't grasp the depth of his accusation. "No. No, you're wrong. Dallas loved me. He... he wouldn't…"
"Wouldn't?" Austin's voice was a low growl, raw with emotion. "He did. He was with her, your husband was with mine. The same way he was with me. The same way they were both lying to us. And now they're both gone. We're both here, stuck with the wreckage of what they did to us."
The silence between them stretched out, heavy and suffocating. Austin felt like the walls were closing in, like he couldn't breathe, like the weight of it all would crush him. The woman's face twisted with pain, her eyes filling with tears as she turned her gaze away.
"No," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "No, you're wrong. You don't understand. He loved me. He loved me more than anything." Her hands trembled as she looked down at the report again, but her mind seemed miles away. "He was my everything."
Austin clenched his fists, his nails digging into his skin. "Your everything? My wife was my everything too, and now... now I have nothing left. I don't know how to move forward. I don't know how to let go of the lie, because as much as I want to hate them, as much as I want to burn the world down for what they've done to me… it's just not that easy."
Her face crumpled, and a small, strangled sob escaped her lips. "I can't let go," she said through her tears. "I can't. I don't know how."
Austin felt a lump rise in his throat. He was on the verge of losing control, of breaking down right there in front of her. He had no idea who this woman was, but she understood this grief better than anyone else. She knew the pain, the disbelief, the helplessness that consumed him. She knew the weight of loss and the desperate need to make sense of it all. And yet, it seemed that no amount of understanding would ease the ache.
"I can't either," Austin muttered, his voice strained. He turned away from her, pacing across the room, unable to stay still. "I don't know how to forgive her. I don't know how to forgive myself for not seeing it. How to move on when everything is a lie." His voice broke on the last word, and he exhaled sharply, trying to regain some semblance of control.
The woman wiped her eyes, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "I can't… I can't accept this," she whispered, almost pleading. "I keep telling myself it's not real, that this is some sort of horrible dream. But it's not. It's real, and I have to face it."
Austin's voice softened then, though it still carried the weight of everything he was feeling. "It doesn't feel real. But it is. And we can't outrun it. As much as we want to, as much as we wish things had been different… they're gone, and we're left here, trying to piece together the shattered pieces of our lives."
The woman looked at him, her eyes filled with an empty kind of pain. "How do we even start? How do we move forward from this?"
Austin let out a breath, his gaze distant as he tried to put words to the overwhelming grief. "I don't know. I really don't. But maybe… maybe that's all we can do. Just start. One step at a time."
Silence fell again, heavy and thick. Neither of them had the answers, and neither of them knew where to go from here. All they had were the shattered pieces of their lives, and a deep, shared understanding of the pain that now defined them.
Neither of them knew each other's name, but in that moment, it didn't matter. Their pain, their loss, had connected them in ways words could never describe. They didn't need names. They needed time. Time to heal, time to grieve, time to figure out how to live in a world that had become unrecognizable.
And for now, that was all they could do—sit in the silence and try to make sense of the impossible.