Mark gave me a look—half-smile, half-confused—like he couldn’t decide if I was playing around or if he was actually in trouble.
“Uh… sure,” he said, handing me his drink and placing his free hand on my lower back as I guided us away from the crowd. Sophie tugged at my other hand, still talking under her breath about worms and the “lady with the shiny shoes.”
We slipped into a side hallway near the restrooms, just out of earshot from the party. I turned to face him fully.
“Who’s the lady with the worms?” I asked, arms crossed.
Mark laughed nervously. “What?”
“Sophie said you told her that someone at the party has worms. That she saw them. And that you told her not to tell me. Wanna try that again?”
His jaw twitched. “She’s four, babe. She probably heard something wrong. Kids make stuff up all the time.”
“She didn’t make this up. She looked scared to say it. She knows she’s hiding something.”
He rolled his eyes and rubbed his temple. “Seriously, Marla? You’re doing this now? At my promotion party?”
I didn’t say anything. Just waited.
Finally, he sighed. “Okay. A couple months ago, Sophie and I bumped into one of my coworkers, Talia, at the park. She had a bunch of gummy worms she was handing out to kids. Sophie remembered. That’s all.”
“She said you told her not to tell me.”
“That part, I have no clue. Maybe she’s mixing stuff up. Or maybe I said that jokingly because you always say not to let her eat too much sugar.”
It sounded possible. Maybe even reasonable.
But then again… something about his face. The way his eyes darted around, not quite meeting mine. The way he was holding his breath, waiting for my reaction.
I wanted to believe him. God, I did.
So I nodded slowly and said, “Okay.”
We walked back in, and I pretended everything was fine. Mark got pulled into a conversation with his manager, and I took Sophie to grab another mini cupcake. As we walked past the bar, I spotted a woman standing alone, holding a champagne flute, her heels sparkling under the lights.
Sophie froze.
“There she is,” she whispered. “That’s the worm lady.”
I followed her gaze. The woman had on red lipstick, long curls, and a name tag that read Talia P. She glanced at us, then quickly turned her back.
I crouched beside Sophie.
“Sweetie,” I said gently, “did you see Talia again after the park?”
Sophie nodded slowly. “Yes. We went to her house.”
My heart flipped.
“When?”
She scrunched her face. “When Daddy picked me up early from school. He said we had to visit his friend real quick. She had orange juice and worms. But not the candy ones.”
I blinked. “Not candy?”
Sophie looked up at me and said, “The wiggly kind. They were in the dirt in a little jar.”
I swallowed hard. Dirt? A jar?
I turned to look at Talia again. She was talking to another coworker now, laughing politely. I noticed she had soil under her fingernails.
Okay. Hold up.
Was I… overreacting?
Maybe she was just a gardener or something. Maybe she did have jars of worms. That didn’t mean anything bad. And yet… why had Mark never mentioned visiting her house? Why hide it?
That night, after we got home and Sophie went to bed, I brought it up again. Calmly.
“Why were you at Talia’s house with Sophie?”
He paused, toothbrush halfway to his mouth.
“…What are you talking about?”
“Don’t lie to me, Mark. She remembers. She said you picked her up early one day and took her there. She remembered the jar of worms.”
His expression changed. His face went pale.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he muttered. “We were just… friends at first. She’s into sustainability projects. Composting, growing her own stuff. I got curious. She invited me over. One time I had Sophie with me and… I don’t know, I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
I stared at him, stunned. “And then?”
He sat on the edge of the tub, head in his hands. “It was stupid. It got a little flirty. But it never went… all the way. I swear. It stopped.”
“Because you wanted it to stop or because you got caught?”
He didn’t answer.
The silence between us was louder than anything either of us had said.
That conversation changed everything.
We didn’t explode into a screaming match. We didn’t break anything or storm off. We just… slowly unraveled.
Over the next few weeks, we tried therapy. We talked. We cried. But something had broken. Not just trust—respect.
I couldn’t understand how he’d risk so much just to feel seen by someone else.
In the end, we separated. Amicably. Quietly. For Sophie’s sake.
And you know what?
It hurt. Deeply. But it also gave me something I hadn’t had in a long time:
Clarity.
I started a small garden with Sophie. We grew herbs and tomatoes. Every now and then, we’d find a few worms in the soil. She’d name them.
We called one “Truth.”
Sophie doesn’t remember much from that day now. But I’ll never forget it. Not because of the betrayal—but because it taught me the kind of woman I refuse to stop being.
One who listens. Who trusts her instincts. And who refuses to be the last one to know.
Lesson? Sometimes, it’s the smallest voices that speak the loudest truths.
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