I Called Myself Ten Years Later—and Exposed My Cheating Boyfriend Chapter 03

I Called Myself Ten Years Later—and Exposed My Cheating Boyfriend Chapter 03

The whole table went silent. Maya stared at him.

“No way. Julian, you’ve kissed someone who wasn’t Chloe?”

“I didn’t!” Julian’s face went red. “It was Chloe, obviously. I just didn’t want to say it in front of everyone. She gets embarrassed about stuff like that.” My heart sank.

Julian lied again. We’d never kissed. Not once.

I couldn’t focus after that. My mind kept dragging up details I’d never paid attention to before.

I never got cramps. But Julian kept ibuprofen in his backpack all year. Every single day.

Audrey and I both carried the same tumbler with us. Mine was always water. Hers was always hot cocoa.

Julian brought us both breakfast every morning. Mine was always the same thing. Audrey’s was different every day — a whole week without a repeat.

None of that had ever registered before. I used to brag about it, actually. See how sweet Julian is — he even takes care of the friends he can’t stand, just because they’re mine.

But somewhere along the way, without me noticing, he had already fallen for her.

“Chloe, you look awful. Are you okay?”

Julian reached out to feel my forehead. I pulled back before he could touch me.

“I need to use the bathroom.”

Leo was waiting for me in the hallway when I came out.

“Julian was lying in there. I saw him and Audrey kissing behind the bleachers yesterday.”

That was why he’d asked the question — the answer should’ve been obvious. He hadn’t called Julian out in front of everyone because he didn’t want to humiliate me.

He’d waited out here just to tell me the truth.

I stopped walking. “Thank you,” I said quietly.

I didn’t go back to the table. I texted Maya that I was leaving and took an Uber home.

Julian blew up my phone on the ride home. I didn’t answer a single call.

Around eleven, something tapped against my bedroom window. I opened it.

A little basket was lowering from the floor above, swaying on its rope. Julian lived in the apartment right upstairs.

We’d been sneaking things to each other this way since we were kids. When a teacher gave me extra worksheets for detention, I’d send them up for him to do.

By morning, they’d come back down, every word written out in his neat handwriting. When I was losing my baby teeth and my parents banned candy from the house, I’d sneak it upstairs in the basket and have Julian hide it for me.

It was our secret. Just ours.

There was a note inside.

[I saw you barely ate tonight. You can’t go to bed hungry, even if you’re mad at me.] He’d drawn a little smiley face at the end, the way I always did.

Inside the bag was a full rack of barbecue ribs, still warm. It was from the place I’d tagged him in on TikTok a few days ago.

We’d been planning to go there together after SAT exam

I sat there for a long time. My stomach was empty and I knew it, so I opened the bag and ate.

For the sake of what we’d been, I decided I’d sit him down and talk to him. Honestly, face to face.

But I never got the chance. A few days later, Julian showed up at my door with a suitcase.