PART 2 – The Secret Envelope
The waitress walked past our table with a tray full of glasses, but she didn't even notice that my wife had already left. The clinking of glasses sounded in my ears like distant alarm bells. I stared at the white, yellowed envelope resting on the dark wood of the table. The paper felt thick and strange, as if it hailed from another era. My heart pounded in my throat, and every breath seemed to grow heavier.
With trembling fingers, I pushed the envelope toward myself. My own name was written on it, in that typical, somewhat hasty handwriting of my past self. I knew that if I opened this, there would be no turning back. What on earth could I have written in 2015 that my wife had carried with her for fifteen years without uttering a single word?
I shifted my gaze to the envelope's closure. There was no postage stamp on it, which meant it had never been sent through the mail. It had been left somewhere. Possibly in that same hotel, on that fatal sixth floor where she was staying in some mysterious way. How on earth was it possible that she was there? Did she know back then, or did she only find out afterward?
Cautiously, I slipped my finger under the flap and tore the paper open. A light scent of old paper and a faint, almost forgotten cologne wafted toward me. I pulled out the sheet of white paper and unfolded it. My eyes flew over the lines. They were my own words, written in black and white at a moment when I thought no one in the world was watching.
"If you are reading this, it is too late to turn back. She knows more than you think, and the shadow we cast is larger than our own house."
I read the sentence three times in a row, but the meaning refused to sink into my confused head. Who was "she"? Back then, was I not only cheating on my wife, but was there another layer to this web of deception that I had been completely blind to? My hands began to shake so violently that the paper rustled like dry leaves in the wind.
At that moment, I noticed that the ambient sounds in the restaurant had dropped away. The murmuring voices of other guests seemed to fade, as if someone had turned down the volume knob. I looked up and saw to my great horror that the waitress was standing rigidly behind the bar, looking. Not at me, but toward the entrance of the restaurant. At someone walking inside.
Someone I absolutely did not expect to see there. A young woman with dark hair and a characteristic birthmark on her neck walked with determination toward our corner table, holding a cell phone to her ear. The call was ringing; the ringtone echoed straight through the silence. My own phone in my inner pocket vibrated.
