Shattered Truths

Chapter 6: Facing the Past

The hours after his meeting with Luke dragged like years. Matt sat at his kitchen table, the pub's warmth already a distant memory, the night outside pressing against the windows like a heavy tide. The notepad he'd been scribbling on lay open in front of him. Across the page sprawled names, fragments, half-finished questions:

Aaron — café.
Older man — house.
Envelopes. Cash. Papers.

He stared at the words until they blurred. His chest tightened. Sarah's advice still echoed in his ears—don't take the blame, don't let Claire twist you into believing this was your fault—but Luke's voice pressed in too, quiet and strangely insistent: Maybe you're seeing patterns that aren't there.

Two people he trusted most, giving him two different lenses. Sarah urging him to look outward, to see Claire's deceit as a deliberate choice. Luke urging him to look inward, to question his own perception.

He leaned back, exhaling sharply. Maybe both were right. Maybe neither were.

But he couldn't shake the memories clawing at him, begging to be reexamined under the harsh light of hindsight.

The first memory came suddenly, unbidden. Six months into the relationship. A night so ordinary it had felt perfect. He'd made dinner—spaghetti, her favorite—and they'd eaten cross-legged on the living room floor, laughing at some dumb movie neither of them remembered afterward. He'd thought, This is it. This is what being in love feels like.

Then her phone had buzzed. The screen had lit up, and the name had been unmistakable: Derek.

Matt remembered the jolt in his stomach. "Isn't Derek your ex?"

Claire's smile had faltered just long enough for him to notice, before she slid the phone into her pocket. "Oh, yeah. He just had a question about something he left here. Nothing important."

She'd leaned in then, kissed him, changed the subject with such ease he'd almost believed her. He'd wanted to. Because believing her was easier than questioning her.

Now, with everything he knew, the memory curdled. That falter in her smile hadn't been surprise—it had been recognition. Derek had never left. He'd just been waiting in the wings, the hidden player in a script Matt hadn't realized he was part of.

Other nights returned, each sharper than the last.

A wedding reception, fairy lights strung over a backyard. Claire radiant, her laughter ringing like bells. But then she'd slipped away for a phone call, and when she returned, her brightness had dimmed, her smile thinner, her eyes somewhere else. "Work," she'd said. "Stressful client." He'd accepted it, not wanting to sour the night.

Or the weekend trip she'd claimed was "family time." She'd been vague about the cousin she was supposedly visiting, quick to change the subject whenever he asked. At the time, Matt had respected her privacy. He thought giving her space was proof of trust. Now it felt like proof of blindness.

Then the smaller moments: a late-night text, the glow of her phone lighting her face as she smiled at words she never shared. When he'd asked who it was, she'd laughed, said "just a college friend." Deflection disguised as charm.

Matt rubbed his temples, his stomach twisting. Each memory was another crack in the illusion he had built around her. Each one made him realize how carefully she had compartmentalized him—how he'd been allowed to see only what she wanted.

And now the envelopes. The older man's cold expression as he counted cash. Aaron's reluctant hand slipping one into his jacket. Those hadn't been isolated incidents. They were the culmination of a pattern that stretched back years.