My Husband Was Her Pet Dog

On a community forum I frequented, a girl posted a listing:

One mature, steady Golden Retriever.

Unable to keep him due to personal reasons.

Any ladies interested, DM me. First come, first served!

Knowing how much my husband loved Golden Retrievers, I immediately sent her a private message.

The next day, I showed up at the address she gave me.

I had barely knocked when the door clicked and swung open a crack.

A man wearing a plush Golden Retriever mask was on his hands and knees. He nudged his head affectionately against the girls hand, rubbing his face into her palm.

"Stacey, Im your dog. Only yours. You can't give me away."

"I'm not married. That marriage certificate is a fake."

The girl whimpered softly, looking incredibly wronged.

"What does it matter if the certificate is fake?"

"You'll still live with her. You'll have children together."

The mans face tightened with panic. He hurriedly reached up to wipe away her tears.

"I slipped her something. She can't have kids."

"As soon as my company goes public, Ill leave her."

The girl's tears vanished, replaced by a radiant smile. She mentioned hearing my knock and urged him to open the door fully.

When the door swung wide, I froze.

My husband was playing dog for another woman.

The air went deathly quiet. A flash of shock and sheer panic seized Carters face.

He lunged to slam the door, but I grabbed the handle, my knuckles turning white.

"Carter, you..." I stared at him, my vision tunneling.

Before I could finish, the girl stepped into the entryway.

"You must be the lady who messaged yesterday about picking up the dog."

"I am so sorry about this."

"My boyfriend and I had a fight. The Golden Retriever I posted about... is actually him."

She looked at me, her expression practically dripping with apologetic sweetness.

"We made up today. I completely forgot to tell you not to come."

My gaze darted back and forth between Carter and the girl.

My mind was a screaming blank. I couldn't process a single word she was saying.

I opened my mouth, desperate to form a sound, but Carter shot me a warning glare that cut me to the bone.

Seeing me speechless, the girl playfully punched Carter in the chest.

"This is all your fault. You made this poor woman come all the way out here for nothing."

Carter soaked up her touch like a sponge.

He immediately wrapped his arms around her waist, his voice dripping with indulgent affection.

"Stacey, you're right. It's all my fault."

"Punish me however you want, but please, don't give me away."

"I'm your dog. I only answer to you."

I snapped back to reality, a plastic, strained smile stretching across my face.

Stacey unclipped a slender silk scarf from her handbag and held it out to me.

"Here, to make up for the trouble, take this."

Before I could react, she took a step forward and deftly looped the fabric around my neck.

"It's a Hermes Twilly."

"We went out on December 3rd and my boyfriend was late, so he bought this for me to hit the quota for a bag."

I stopped breathing.

The silk was cool against my skin, but my neck burned as if scorched by an iron.

December 3rd was my birthday.

Carter had been out of state, supposedly drowning in meetings for the IPO.

He had offered to fly back just to celebrate with me, but, worried about him taking a red-eye flight, I had told him:

"You're working too hard, honey. We can celebrate when you get back."

Right after we hung up, a small silk scarf had been delivered to our apartment.

The exact same scarf now tied around my neck.

I had held that little piece of silk like it was a holy relic. I stared at it until my eyes blurred, terrified of ruining it. I had silently vowed, right then and there, to do whatever it took to help him get his company off the ground.

Only now did I realize that the gift I cherished like a treasure was nothing more than a leftover consolation prize he had bought for his mistress.

Before I could find my voice, Stacey chimed in with breathless enthusiasm.

"You must be a massive dog lover to drive all the way out here."

"My boyfriend loves dogs too. Golden Retrievers are his favorite."

"If you ever find a real one, you have to send me a picture!"

My face felt entirely drained of blood.

Carter cleared his throat softly.

"She came a long way. It wasn't an easy drive."

"It's getting late. We should let her head home."

Stacey gave a theatrical, exaggerated pout.

"Fine, fine. Whatever you say."

"You men are so clueless. You don't understand girls at all. You're so annoying!"

As she pushed the door shut, Stacey leaned up and planted a quick, echoing kiss on Carter's cheek.

Listening to their muffled laughter from behind the closed door, my gaze dropped to my stomach. Tears finally breached the dam, blurring my vision.

No wonder we hadnt been able to conceive all these years.

I pulled the IPO application files out of my tote bag. I stared at the thick stack of paper.

For months, I had been quietly working behind the scenes, untangling the legal red tape for his company. This final application was all that was left.

It was supposed to be my grand surprise for him.

But now, there was no point.

I tore the documents down the middle, again and again, until my hands ached, and shoved the pieces into a nearby trash can.

As I walked out of her apartment complex, my phone buzzed. A text from Carter.

[Wait for me. Let's go home together. I'll explain everything.]

I didn't reply. He fired off three more texts in rapid succession. I powered off my phone.

When I finally got back to our apartment, I turned it back on. A notification popped up immediately.

[Golden Retriever Breeder has followed you back.]

It was Stacey. She had followed my social media account.

We had been together for eight years. Married for six.

Driven by a morbid, masochistic curiosity, I tapped into her profile.

[May 20, 2021: Met my absolute crush today. Should I make the first move?]

[May 20, 2022: Finally dating my crush! I went for it, and I got him.]

[May 20, 2023: One-year anniversary! He got me a Hermes bag. Beyond happy!]

May 20th. Our wedding anniversary.

It was also the day Carter started his relationship with another woman.

The dates burned my eyes. I realized, with a sickening jolt, that we hadn't actually celebrated our anniversary in years.

On May 20, 2021, Carter was in the early, desperate stages of his startup. I had attended a grueling dinner with potential investors on his behalf, drinking until I vomited blood and ended up in the ER with a gastric hemorrhage.

On May 20, 2022, I worked a double shift to cover our rent. Walking home in the dark, I was harassed by two men and narrowly escaped being assaulted. When I called Carter, trembling and terrified, he told me he was busy and hastily hung up.

On May 20, 2023, he finally promised we'd have time to celebrate. I waited up until past midnight. I got a phone call instead of a husband. I ordered a plain bowl of noodles and ate it alone at the kitchen counter to ring in our third anniversary.

And the years after that... 2024, 2025... I barely even remembered them.

Six years of marriage. Five years of infidelity.

A wave of sheer, suffocating despair crashed over me, pulling me under.

Late that night, Carter finally came home.

Seeing me sitting barefoot on the hardwood floor, his brow furrowed in that familiar, protective way. He scooped me into his arms.

"You're going to catch a cold sitting on the floor like this."

"Chloe, you're doing this just to make me worry, aren't you?"

Tears spilling down my cheeks, I shoved him away with all my strength.

"Stop acting. Do you really give a damn about me?"

"Drugging me. Cheating on me for five out of our six years of marriage."

"That was all you, wasn't it?"

"Oh, wait. We aren't even married, are we?"

Huge, heavy tears dropped from my face, splashing onto the wood.

It felt like someone was physically tearing my heart in two.

Carter lunged forward and grabbed me in a tight embrace.

"Chloe, calm down. It's not what you think."

"My future was so uncertain back then. I didn't want you gambling your life on me. I didn't want to trap you in a marriage."

"As for Stacey... once the company goes public, I promise I'll give you a proper explanation."

My control shattered. Ignoring the sharp, twisting pain flaring in my stomach, I screamed at him.

"Do you think I'm that pathetic?"

Carter's face darkened with anger. He opened his mouth to snap back, but his phone started ringing frantically.

He answered it. Stacey's shrill, furious voice echoed from the speaker.

"Carter, are you with that old woman right now?"

"I knew you were lying to me earlier."

Carter looked momentarily annoyed, but his voice instantly dropped into a soft, coaxing purr.

"I'm not with her."

"I'm out taking care of some business. I'll be right back."

Listening to him lie so effortlessly, a bitter, breathless laugh escaped my lips.

Five years. Countless days and nights.

This was exactly how he had been lying to me.

Stacey's voice spiked in volume.

"That old hag is right there next to you!"

"Carter, you're still lying to me!"

Carter froze, realizing what she meant. His voice turned ice-cold.

"How do you know that?"

Stacey broke into dramatic, heaving sobs.

"You installed spyware on my phone to make me feel 'secure,' remember?!"

"And now you're mad at me!"

She sounded like she was on the verge of a total breakdown.

"Carter, I trusted you! How could you lie to me?"

"You come back here right now, or I swear to God, I'll jump off the balcony!"

Right at that moment, a cold sweat broke out across my body. The pain in my stomach exploded into agony. My legs gave out, and I crumpled to the floor.

Carter caught me just in time. His face was a mask of sheer panic and conflict.

"Stacey, Chloe just collapsed."

"I think she's really sick..."

Before he could finish, a photo came through. Stacey, sitting precariously on the ledge of a high-rise window.

"Carter, if you aren't here in five minutes, I'm jumping."

Carter bolted for the door.

Just before I lost consciousness, I heard him say:

"Chloe, call an ambulance."

"I know Stacey. If she doesn't see me, she'll actually do it."

When I opened my eyes again, the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room blinded me.

I forced myself to sit up, my mouth dry as dust.

"Where's my laptop bag?"

The doctor standing near the bed sighed in exasperation.

"You young people treat your bodies like garbage."

"You nearly went into hypovolemic shock from a severe gastric bleed, and the first thing you ask about is work?"

His words dragged me fully back to reality.

I used to work myself to the bone just to ease Carter's burdens.

Now... now it all felt like a sick, twisted joke I had played on myself.

The doctor gave me a few stern instructions and left the room.

As the door swung shut, I caught the hushed gossip of two nurses passing by in the hallway.

"It's crazy how different patients get treated."

"The girl in Room 3 with the stomach bleed? She almost died."

"When we called her husband, he actually told us gastric bleeding only happens from binge drinking and told her to stop faking it."

"But that young girl in the VIP suite? She just scraped her knee."

"Her boyfriend completely lost his mind. Demanded a consultation from every department head in the building."

"I heard he's the CEO of the Carter Group."

"God, she's so lucky. That's the kind of man you want to marry."

I rolled over, curling into a tight ball, clutching my aching chest.

The man who had brought me stomach medicine yesterday, gently scolding me to eat on time.

Today, he was the hospital's shining example of a perfect, devoted partner to someone else.

Carter. You made my entire existence feel like a punchline.

Before I could dwell on it, my phone buzzed on the nightstand.

"Did you start those rumors online about Stacey being a homewrecker?"

"Her DMs are flooded with death threats."

"She's just a young girl, Chloe. She can't handle this kind of abuse."

"You've gone too far this time."

The interrogation hit me like a physical blow. Carter's rage was palpable through the speaker.

Cheated on for years. Robbed of my ability to have children. And now, branded a cyberbully.

I couldn't stop myself from defending what little dignity I had left.

"Carter, I wouldn't waste my time doing something like that."

"If you don't believe me, hire someone to trace the IP address."

He let out a harsh, dismissive scoff.

"The truth doesn't matter anymore."

"Stacey is hysterical. You need to apologize to her, publicly."

My voice shook.

"Why the hell should I?"

Tears slipped silently onto my pillow. A memory flashed in my mindCarter at twenty years old.

We were so broke back then. Working back-to-back shifts just to survive.

Once, my boss at the convenience store grabbed me inappropriately. When I told Carter, he didn't say a word. He just marched down to the store and laid the guy out with two punches.

He ended up in a holding cell that night. But when I visited him, he wasn't scared. He just cupped my face through the bars and said so softly:

"Chloe, don't cry. It'll be okay."

"I swear, I will always protect you. I'll never let anyone hurt you."

Eight years. In just eight short years, the boy who swore to protect me had become the man destroying me.

Carter laughed, a cold, empty sound.

"Fine. Don't apologize."

"But it's going to be a real shame when all of your sister's academic research mysteriously goes up in smoke."

A wave of pure, paralyzing terror washed over me. Every breath felt like inhaling glass.

"Mia and I only have each other. You know she has Asperger's."

"Her biology research is her entire world. If you ruin that, you ruin her life."

Carters voice was utterly devoid of emotion.

"Whether Mia is hailed as a brilliant young scholar or exposed as an 'academic fraud' who slept her way to the top... that's entirely up to you."

"Make your choice, Chloe."

I choked back a sob, my nails digging into my palms until they bled.

"I'll apologize."

Following Carter's orders, I walked into Stacey's VIP suite.

It was massivea full bedroom and a sprawling lounge area.

The lounge was packed wall-to-wall with reporters, their camera lenses trained like weapons.

Carter pulled me aside, his grip bruising my arm. His eyes were dark with warning.

"Apologize properly. Once Stacey forgives you, this all goes away."

I looked up at him, my vision swimming with tears.

"How exactly do you want me to apologize so that 'Miss Stacey' is satisfied?"

"Do I say I made it all up? Or do I admit that I am the actual mistress?"

A flicker of hesitationmaybe even guiltcrossed Carter's face.

"You don't have to call yourself a mistress. That's a bit..."

Stacey strolled into the lounge, cutting him off effortlessly.

"Of course she has to admit she's the mistress. I want her to know exactly how it feels."

She didn't look remotely surprised to see me. She practically melted into Carter's side.

"Carter, I need her to admit she's the other woman. It's the only way I'll feel better."

"Otherwise..."

She didn't finish the threat, but Carter's posture instantly went rigid.

His face hardened into stone. "Do what Stacey says."

The reporters readied their mics. The live streams were up.

Thousands of people were pouring into the feeds.

Standing in the center of that room, under the glare of the ring lights, I felt myself free-falling into an abyss.

I opened my mouth.

"Hello, everyone. I am the person who spread the malicious rumors about Miss Stacey being a homewrecker."

"I am here to apologize to Miss Stacey."

"I apologize for being with a man for six years, only to be cheated on for five. I apologize for being handed a fake marriage certificate. And I apologize for letting a monster secretly drug me until I was permanently infertile."

Chaos erupted. The live stream chats exploded with hashtags: #[StaceyHomewrecker], #[StaceyApologize].

Stacey's phone began pinging incessantly, a relentless barrage of incoming hate.

Carter Group's stock price immediately began to tank in real-time.

Carter scrambled, screaming at the media to cut the feeds.

He turned to me, his teeth bared like a cornered animal.

"Chloe, are you really forcing my hand?"

A second later, my phone rang. It was Mia. She was sobbing hysterically.

"Chloe, everyone at school is looking at me weird."

"They're calling me a fraud. They're saying I slept with the professors to get my papers published."

"Why are they saying that, Chloe?"

"Did I do something wrong? Did I make them mad?"

"It's my fault. It's all my fault."

I could hear the sickening thud, thud, thud of Mia hitting herself in the head.

Every strike felt like a sledgehammer to my own skull.

Mia's world consisted of two things: her biology research, and me. If they took her research, she wouldn't survive it.

I hadn't expected Carter to pull the trigger so fast.

"Mia, sweetie, listen to me. They're just jealous of how smart you are. I'm going to fix this right now, okay?"

I fought to keep my voice steady, bolting toward the hospital doors as I spoke.

But before I even made it to the lobby, Carter's security team intercepted me. They dragged me backward, locking my arms behind my back.

As the minutes ticked by, I felt the true, chilling extent of Carter's cruelty.

"Carter, I'm sorry. Please, let my sister go."

"I'll go back out there right now. I'll say I'm the mistress."

He let out a harsh, breathless laugh.

"Five minutes. You cost my company millions in five minutes."

"If you want to apologize now, you have to tell them you suffer from severe schizophrenia."

"I think you know exactly what story to tell to make the internet believe you."

I knew exactly what he meant.

It was my deepest, most agonizing scar.

I had only ever told one person in my entire life. Carter.

And now, he was taking that secret, sharpening it into a blade, and plunging it into my chest.

My entire body shook violently. My fingernails bit into my palms, slick with my own blood.

"I know."

In the center of the lounge, the cameras were back on.

"Hello everyone. I am Chloe. I am an employee of the Carter Group, and I am the one who fabricated the rumors about Miss Stacey."

"I confess that everything I said about her was a lie."

"When I was a child, I was sexually assaulted by my cousin. It caused me to develop severe schizophrenia. Mr. Carter saved my life once."

"I fell in love with him. Because my feelings were unrequited, I grew insanely jealous of Miss Stacey and tried to ruin her reputation."

"I sincerely apologize to Mr. Carter and Miss Stacey."

I forced every word out of my throat.

Within a minute, the narrative flipped.

The internet rallied, branding me a delusional, ungrateful psychopath. And worsesomeone leaked Mia's condition. The mob demanded a full investigation into the "mentally ill" sister's academic credentials.

I used every ounce of strength I had left to dial Carter's number, but it rang out.

I needed him to retract the fake evidence against Mia, but his and Stacey's suite was heavily guarded. No one was allowed in.

His voice drifted through the heavy wooden door. "You can leave when Stacey decides she's ready to forgive you."

The guards forced me to my knees in the hallway.

Finally, someone picked up my phone.

"Are you the next of kin for the deceased? Please come down to the precinct to identify the body."

The phone slipped from my numb fingers, clattering onto the floor. The voice on the other end kept talking, but I couldn't hear the words anymore.

I threw my entire body weight forward, violently breaking free from the guard's grip.

I sprinted toward the window at the end of the corridor.

And I jumped.

Carter.

In this life or the next, I hope to God I never see your face again.