The image on the paper burned into my eyes, the pain immense, searing into my brain.
Deacon in a tux, a pretty blonde woman in the curve his arm.
She was holding a bouquet of flowers and wearing a wedding gown.
Both of them were smiling.
Smiling and happy.
Younger, much younger, the rugged had not yet settled in Deacon’s face.
But it sure as fuck was Deacon.
Deacon married.
Married.
My lungs caught fire and I forced myself to breathe.
I stared at the picture, unable to tear my eyes away, thoughts crashing into my brain.
He worked jobs.
Jobs away from me.
The phone he used when he was around me was a burner. I knew it, though never asked to confirm. A flip phone. No one had flip phones anymore. It was cheap and had no features. Only voicemail and text.
He had another phone. He had to. A smartphone.
He’d said back when we had the situation with those punks that he’d taken pictures and there was no way he went to his cabin to go get a camera.
He took them on his phone.
A phone his wife had the number to, not me. If I did, she might see me call. If I did, she might know about me.
And he didn’t take my calls. He didn’t take them unless he was in a place to take them or call me back, which was infrequently.
I stared at her in the picture and it gave me no comfort to see she was pretty. Very. But I knew with the exotic features my parents gave me, I had that on her.
He said he never smiled before me.
And there he was, smiling.
Happy.
Married.
Unable to stand anymore, I shoved the bag out of my way, tossed the picture on the bed, and sat on it, like sitting on it would make it not be real.
I knew nothing of him.
Not one fucking thing.
Nothing I could trace him by. Nothing that would lead me to the life he led when he was away from me with another woman. The woman who could legally claim him. The woman who was really his.
Not me.
God, he’d made me a cheater.