Your Partner Is Lying

This is part of a Choose Your Own Adventure story, ‘Vacation Roulette.’ Go back to the first chapter by Linden Schneider here. Or return to the previous chapter. Here is the chapter guide.

You stare at the lusty text exchange between your partner and that woman, Varia.

A tightness accumulates in your abdomen. “Do you think I’m that stupid?” you grit out. “You sent this bitch a video of her stripping naked for you. You randomly giggle throughout the day but tell me it’s nothing.

“Then you have these hour-long phone calls with her where you supposedly just appease her rants. And you’ve completely lost interest in sleeping with me.” Your eyes sting with tears as you say the latter.

Your partner gapes but looks at you with a cold intensity that you’ve never seen before. “If you don’t believe me, then there’s nothing I can do about it.”

They march back to the bedroom. You follow, feeling angry yet helpless. When you both lie down, your partner of course turns their face away from you the whole night.

It’s hard for you to fall asleep, and you wonder whether you should sleep on the couch instead. But you remember that the couch is lumpy and uncomfortable, so you stay in bed out of spite.

You reach for your sleeping pills, down them, and soon, they take you to oblivion town.

The next morning, you awake, feeling unusually groggy and depressed. It takes you a second to recall the source of your misery.

Your significant other isn’t there. In fact, they left a note on the night table:

After much consideration, honey, I decided to leave. It sucks that you distrust and disrespect me so much. You’re just bitter that you didn’t get to have sex with me in weeks, aren’t you? Guilt-tripping your partner isn’t a good look for you. I expected better.

Goodbye. Looks like I’m going on vacation, after all, but with Varia, not you.

You check your phone and see a message from an unknown number, undoubtedly from Varia. She sends you a provocative, admittedly sexy photo of herself in a bikini. The caption reads:

You lose, sucker.

It takes some moments for everything to sink in. This must be a nightmare you’re about to wake up from.

But you don’t awake from anything. This is the cold reality.

You don’t move for a long time, and when you do, you fall back into bed, your eyes staring up at nothing.

The grief and despair is too painful for words. But out of pride, you soon find yourself a new partner — a hunk of a man named Valli.

You smile because he makes you feel desirable and beautiful again.

However, as charming as he is, he isn’t into serious relationships. And to his credit, he was transparent about his intentions from the start.

That’s fine, since you don’t know whether you can trust anyone anymore. It would be fun to enjoy a physical relationship without worrying about anything else.

Still, during the long hours where he makes love to you, you wonder how it would be like to have a deeper, more emotionally intimate relationship.

After all this time, it still hurts to think about your ex. The last time you stalked them on social media, they were getting married.

Your former partner and Varia looked like a gorgeous, fairytale couple. They seemed deeply in love as they gazed at each other. The memory makes you sick.

Perhaps Valli will also leave when he’s tired of screwing you. After all, he never promised to stay with you in the long run. You don’t even know if he’s seeing other people, and you’re too scared to ask.

But you close your eyes. One day at a time. You’ll enjoy what you have with Valli. It’s better than being completely alone.

You could do worse than to lie around with a paramour all day, even if it’s just a distraction from your pain.

The End

If you hated this ending, go back to the first chapter or the previous chapter and try again!