It started with a notification. “Continue watching: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” I froze, phone in hand, because I hadn’t watched that movie in years. I hated it. He loved it. And the only other person who had my password was my best friend.
At first, I brushed it off. Maybe it was a glitch. Maybe Netflix was just… Netflix. But then another showed up the next day. “Continue watching: The Notebook.” I stared at the screen so long the words blurred. My husband never liked sappy romances, not with me. Yet he’d sat through that film—apparently with someone.
My chest tightened, my stomach rolling. I opened the app, scrolled through “Recently Watched.” There it was. A trail of clues. Hours of shows I never touched. Comedies I hated. Thrillers I’d never heard of. And then—my breaking point. A series I’d begged him to watch with me, the one he kept saying he was “too busy” for. All of it, finished. Every episode. Watched. Without me.
I slammed the phone down on the table, my heart pounding.
That evening, I waited. He walked in, loosened his tie, kissed me on the forehead like always. “Long day,” he sighed.
I studied him, his tired smile, the faint trace of cologne clinging to his shirt. “Really?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
He nodded, tossed his keys into the bowl by the door. “You have no idea.”
“I might,” I said softly.
His eyes flicked to me, suspicious. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I shoved my phone across the table. The list glared back at him. “This. Care to explain?”
For a moment, his face was blank. Then, too quickly, he chuckled. “It’s just Netflix, Clara.”
“Just Netflix?” My voice cracked like a whip. “These are movies I didn’t watch. Shows I begged you to watch with me. And you finished them.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes darting away. “Maybe I fell asleep with autoplay on—”
“Don’t you dare lie to me,” I snapped, my hands trembling. “Because I know whose account you used. You logged in under mine. And she’s the only other one with my password.”
He went still. Silent. The kind of silence that confirms what words can’t.
“My best friend, Daniel?” I whispered, my throat burning. “Her?”
His lips parted, but no sound came out. That silence was louder than any confession.
I thought of her laugh, the way she always called me late at night to vent, the trust I placed in her when I shared every piece of myself. She knew my favorite shows. She knew the ones I hated. She knew him. Too well, apparently.
Rage bubbled in my chest, tears stinging hot against my cheeks. “You used my password,” I choked, “to give her what you denied me.”
He reached out, desperate. “Clara, please—”
I recoiled like his touch burned. “Don’t. Don’t you touch me. Don’t you say my name like it still belongs to you.”
He sagged, shoulders crumbling, shame painted across his face. But I didn’t care. All I could see were the nights I sat waiting for him, dinner growing cold, thinking he was too tired, too busy, too overworked. And all the while, he was wrapped up in someone else’s laughter, someone else’s warmth, someone else’s stolen screen time.
I walked to the door, yanked it open, my hand steady even though my heart was in ruins. “Get out.”
“Clara—”
“Out!” I screamed.
He hesitated, then picked up his keys, his tie still dangling loose around his neck. For once, he looked small.
As the door slammed behind him, I turned back to my phone. The screen still glowed. “Continue watching,” it said. Mocking me. A reminder that my marriage had been binge-watched without me, one lie at a time.
Final Thought
Infidelity doesn’t always hide in hotel rooms or lipstick stains. Sometimes it hides in plain sight, tucked between “Continue Watching” and “Next Episode.” Love betrayed me in the quietest of ways—through a password I’d given freely, never knowing it would unlock a secret life without me.
