I had married my childhood best friend… but just days before our fifth wedding anniversary, I heard him say:
“She fell straight into my trap. My plan is finally about to work…”
Matis and I had always felt as though we were destined to be together.
Our families lived right next door to each other. We had started kindergarten together, grown up in the same neighborhood, and later attended the same schools.
We were inseparable.
Whenever someone made fun of me, Matis stood up for me. When exams approached, we studied side by side. And on the night of our school prom, he was the one who asked me to go with him.
Everyone used to joke that one day, we would inevitably end up getting married.
We laughed every time someone said it.
But by high school, our friendship had already turned into a love story.
After we finished our studies, Matis got down on one knee and asked me:
“Will you marry me?”
I answered before he had even finished the question.
“Yes.”
At that moment, I believed I was the luckiest woman in the world.
Our life seemed perfect.
We got married, bought a house in the neighborhood where we had grown up, and built together the peaceful life we had always dreamed of.
As our fifth wedding anniversary approached, I decided to give Matis a gift he would never forget.
A few months earlier, he had admired a very expensive watch in a store on the other side of town. In secret, I had saved enough money to buy it for him and placed the order.
The day the watch arrived, I told Matis I was going to work.
In reality, I had taken the day off.
After picking up the watch, I drove home with the gift sitting beside me, unable to stop imagining his reaction.
I thought Matis would still be at work.
But when I arrived in front of the house, his car was already parked in the driveway.
Curious, I unlocked the front door as quietly as possible.
That was when I heard his voice coming from the living room.
He was talking to someone on the phone.
The moment I heard my name, I froze.
At first, I thought he was planning a surprise for our anniversary.
I stayed hidden behind the doorframe, trying not to make a sound.
Then Matis burst out laughing before saying:
“Don’t worry. She fell straight into MY TRAP back in high school.”
My entire body went numb.
My heart started pounding so hard that I could barely breathe.
What trap?
And why had it started back when we were still teenagers?
Before I could even understand what I was hearing, Matis continued:
“My plan is about to work. I’ve been preparing all of this since we were teenagers.”
The bag containing the watch nearly slipped from my hands.
Suddenly, every memory we had shared seemed to take on a completely different meaning.
Our childhood.
All the times he had defended me.
The school prom.
His marriage proposal.
Our wedding.
Had any of it been real?
Then Matis said one final sentence.
A sentence so devastating that I rushed out of the house before he realized I had heard him.
Tears blurred my vision as I ran toward my car.
Just minutes earlier, I had walked into that house thinking I was about to surprise the man I loved.
I was leaving wondering whether our entire love story had been nothing more than part of a secret plan.
I felt as though I had suddenly woken up in the middle of a nightmare.
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For three days, I pretended that everything was fine.
I ate meals with Matis and answered his questions normally, but secretly, I searched through the house for an explanation.
I found nothing until the day I discovered that his computer had been left open.
Inside an archived folder, I found an email titled:
“Annie’s Application.”
The attachment was my application file.
It had been sent a few days after I had decided to give up. And even more disturbing, the confirmation had been sent to my own email address, as if I had been the one who submitted it.
Matis had done it.
As I continued searching, I discovered other applications: graduate school, a leadership seminar, a writing conference… and even the submission of my manuscript, the one that would eventually become my first published novel.
Every time fear had pushed me to give up, Matis had secretly taken the final step for me.
That very evening, I confronted him.
“What trap were you planning?”
He led me to the garage and opened an old wooden chest. Inside were notebooks he had been filling out since we were teenagers.
He had written down every little victory: the day I had dared to express my opinion, make a decision on my own, or stand up for my ideas.
Matis explained that he had realized at a very young age that my fear made me give up before I even discovered what I was capable of.
He thought he was helping me.
But I replied:
“You believed in me, yes. But you didn’t believe I had the right to decide my own life.”
I asked him to let me go.
For the first time, he didn’t try to stop me.
In the months that followed, we began therapy. Matis learned to stop solving my problems before I even had the chance to face them myself.
One year later, I stood on a stage to launch my own publishing house.
This time, I didn’t need anyone to move forward.
Matis was sitting at the back of the room.
He was smiling.
He had finally understood that loving me didn’t mean choosing my path for me.
For the first time, we were truly moving forward side by side.
