Revenge13 min read
Burgundy Lipstick and the House I Built
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I remember the smell of the anniversary candle: sweet and a little smoky, like the end of something I thought would last forever.
"You smell like a bar," I said when he came in.
"Long day," Wyatt Daniel answered. "They dragged me into an inspection meeting. I'm sorry I missed dinner. I'll make it up to you."
"Tomorrow," I said flatly. "We agreed."
He kissed my forehead like he always did, soft and automatic. His hands were warm. His voice was steady. It was the kind of sorry that soothed most nights.
"I promised you flowers and a movie," I said.
"I know," he said. "I'll take you tomorrow. Please, don't be mad."
He wanted me to hold him like before. I turned away and said, "Go shower. You reek of whiskey."
He smiled in that way that used to make me melt—gentle, attentive, the look he'd reserved for me for five years. I watched him walk to the bathroom and felt the first crack.
He left his phone on the nightstand. I told myself I wouldn't look. I told myself I trusted him. That trust is something you keep in a small box until one day you decide to open it, because the box is rattling.
My thumb found the messages out of habit.
"Burgundy lipstick," the first note read. "I left it in your car. Remember to hide it from her."
I stared at the screen until the characters blurred.
"What is it?" he asked from the bathroom.
"Nothing," I lied.
I opened his browser. I opened an obscure forum I didn't know he read. There it was—an anonymous post that looked like a confession, written with his cadence and with details only he could know.
"I thought I loved her," the post said. "Then I met an ex again. She came back into my life. We almost—"
"I should have told you," I whispered, more to myself than to him.
The post said what my phone said: a lipstick, burgundy, left in his car; a near-night in a motel that stopped before it happened; a man calling the woman by the name that sounded like my nickname. Everything folded into itself: our plans, our rented house, the way he learned to make porridge because I got sick, the way he waited for me in new cities when a new project sent him away.
I felt like I was reading my life in the wrong tense.
"You looked," he said when he came back, towel around his waist.
"I did."
"Why?"
"Because you left messages."
"I wrote that post," he confessed. "I was stupid. I was trying to sort things out. It was—"
"It?" I asked. "You write a public post about almost leaving me? For months?"
"It was anonymous," he said. "It was just me trying to be honest with myself."
"Honest with yourself," I repeated. "Do you know how that sounds?"
He looked guilty, and also scared. That scared part I hadn't seen before.
"I love you," he said, and the words were the same ones he'd used the first time he gave me a model of a house he'd spent months building. "I don't want to lose you."
"You thought I was a replacement," I said. "You told strangers that I was like someone else."
"I..." He tried to reach for my hand. I wouldn't let him.
"I packed," I told him. "I'm leaving tonight."
"Leave? Lydia—"
"Don't call me that," I snapped. "That's her name."
His face changed. For a moment it was panic, and then something else, like a man forced to look at himself in the mirror. "Please, give me a chance," he begged. "I'll cut everything off. I'll—"
"You'll say anything," I said. "You're asking for permission to stay."
He backed away like I had burned him. "I love you," he said again, hoarse.
"I don't want words tonight," I said. "I want the truth. Did you sleep with her?"
"No," he said quickly. "We didn't."
"Then why the lipstick? Why the motel?"
"I almost—"
"Almost," I echoed. "How many 'almosts' until you finally decide to step over? I was five years of 'not her.'"
He folded into himself. "I was confused," he admitted. "She reminded me of who I used to be. I thought—"
"You thought of her the way I thought of our every plan," I said. "You thought of her when you promised me our life."
He tried to touch my face. I flinched. "Please," he said. "Let me explain."
"You already explained to an internet crowd," I said. "You don't get to pick when to be honest."
He pleaded. He promised. He begged. His voice shook. I listened until the sound of his apology became the wallpaper of the room.
"Get out," I said finally.
He left without resistance. I sat on the bed and stared at the small model house on the shelf—the one he had built and joked I should one day display in our future home. I had a key to the future in my hand, and it felt like a key to a locked room he had no right to enter anymore.
That night I went to a hotel across the street with nothing but a suitcase and the sound of his excuses ringing in my ears.
"He looks like he wants you back," my friend Aurora Foster said when I told her.
"I don't know if I want him," I told her. "I don't know if I ever did."
A week later my mother fainted. I rushed to the hospital and stayed by her bed. He came every day. He brought congee. He said the right things.
"Why are you being so kind?" I asked him once in the hospital corridor.
"Because I owe you everything," he said. "I was an idiot."
"But you would have chosen her," I said.
"I won't choose her," he said.
I watched him hold my hand while I slept, watched his thumb trace circles on the back of my hand, watched the way he lied to himself with his gentleness. A week later my mother was discharged. He said he would go back to his project. He promised to talk to his parents. He promised to fix everything.
I didn't believe him. I left the city two days later.
"I just want to breathe," I told my brother. "I want to go home for now."
I did the only thing I could imagine: I left the house he rented in my name, kept the little savings I had, and bought materials to renovate the apartment we had bought together a year ago. I told myself I would make it my home, not the home he had promised and then used.
"I'll do it my way," I told myself.
When the initial shock waned, everything else came in phases: anger, bargaining, small hours of crying, long hours of work. I learned to drive. My friends—Tova Martin and Chiara Alves—pushed me to work on the renovation. Leonardo Berg emailed me once and then again and again.
"You're okay?" he asked the first time.
"I'm getting there," I wrote back.
Leonardo. He used to be my neighbor and my classmate. We had not been close for years. He returned from abroad and was suddenly a steady presence: practical, calm, quietly attentive.
"Are you sure you don't want me to help with the renovation?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I want to do it myself, but thank you."
"Okay," he said. "But if you ever need an extra hand—"
"I'll call."
He smiled and kept his distance until he didn't. He brought me coffee and then stayed to help move boxes. He listened when my hands shook. He didn't demand my affection. He showed up.
"It sounds small," he told me once over tea, "but you can bake your own bread in that kitchen after the renovation. You can paint the walls the exact color you like. You can choose the tiles."
"I don't know how to be so selfish," I said.
"That's the point," he said gently. "Be selfish for a little while."
Work became a ritual. I learned to make decisions. I cried over crooked tiles and celebrated a perfectly hung curtain. I filmed small clips of the progress and hesitantly posted them on a new video channel. People started to watch. The channel grew. My hands learned to steady the camera; my heart learned to steady itself.
Life moved forward like slow plumbing; you couldn't see the current but you could feel the warmth when the hot water finally came.
Months passed. The apartment looked like me: practical, light, with a big window in the living room and a shelf for books. I arranged a small housewarming and invited people who had helped me: friends, neighbors, the carpenter, the tiler, my childhood friends. Leonardo came with a model house he'd built from a kit, the kind Wyatt used to make.
"You kept it," I said, surprise and something wet and warm rising in my throat.
"I kept it because I thought you'd like the craftsmanship," he said. "And because I've always wanted to give you something you like without strings."
That night there was laughter, wine, a table with too much food. I felt a fragile bravery. I started telling the story of how the balcony used to leak and how many times we had to call the plumber. They laughed. They clapped. I felt human.
At the end of the night, as people were leaving, I noticed Wyatt standing under the porch light, looking small and raw. He wore the same coat he always did. Daisy Martinez stood at his side. A trio of acquaintances had brought them. My throat tightened.
"He's coming over?" Aurora asked, and her eyes flicked to me.
"Let him come," I said.
Wyatt and Daisy walked in like two actors in the wrong script. Daisy had the confident smile of someone who believed she was owed the world. Her lipstick was the burgundy color I had read in his text months ago. The sight of it—rich, shiny, impossible to ignore—gave me, for an instant, a terrible clarity.
She crossed the room.
"Lydia," Wyatt said low.
"Daisy," I replied, cold. "You look like you picked the shade yourself."
Daisy's smile faltered. "I... I didn't mean to—"
"You left me a message," I said. "You told him to hide your lipstick."
"I didn't," she said. "I—"
"She didn't," Wyatt said quickly, looking from Daisy to me. "She didn't mean to call."
People turned. A hush fell like a glass dropped on tile.
"You wrote online that you were torn between us," I said, my voice steady. "You almost slept with her, Wyatt. You called her by my nickname. You told strangers that I was a replacement."
Wyatt's eyes flicked down to the small pile of printed posts I had set on the coffee table. I had printed the forum confession and the messages. I had prepared this room like a very small courtroom.
"No," he started. "Lydia, listen—"
Daisy's face shifted. She was not a villainous cartoon; she was just a woman with her lipstick and a story. "I didn't know," she said. "I thought he—"
"Stop," I said. "Don't make me the bad person in your story. Don't make your need into his excuse."
Someone near the door sniffed. "Is she serious?" Aurora whispered.
"Do you want to deny it?" I asked Wyatt.
He couldn't. His jaw worked. "I wrote that post," he said finally. "I was confused. I wanted to confess. I didn't mean for it to... this."
"You put your confusion on the table like a disease," I said. "You left me to pick up the pieces. You told the world we were on the same page and you weren't."
"Please," he said. "I love you. I never—"
"You were never mine," I said. "You were renting me love while you compared me to someone else."
"You're being cruel," Daisy murmured.
"Am I?" I asked loudly enough for the room to listen. "You called me on the phone and begged me to give him back. You tried to take him in the open. You wanted him to choose."
Daisy's mouth opened and closed like a flounder. "That's not—"
"You told me: 'Give him back to me.'"
"He's mine," she said, and for the first time I saw her panic. The confident mask dropped. "He's mine."
"He was yours," I said. "But he used that as a weapon to tell me he loved me."
The room was quiet. Someone took a photo. Someone else gasped. My friends clustered like a gentle wall behind me.
"Tell them what you told me on the forum," I said. "Tell them you thought I was a replacement."
Wyatt's face drained. "I—"
"Say it," I ordered.
"I wrote that I thought I had been replacing feelings," he said. "I was trying to be honest about how messy I was."
"You're 'messy,'" I repeated. "What about me?"
People in the room murmured. Leonardo stood a little bit forward, his hands folded, expression tight.
"You used 'almost' to justify your nearly cheating," I said. "You left a lipstick. You left a motel room door unstopped. You told an anonymous crowd our plan could be wiped away."
He tried to speak; his throat closed. Daisy reached out to him, pleading.
"Don't touch me," I said sharply. "You don't get to seek comfort from the person who helped break me."
Someone near the window said, "This is brutal."
"It's honest," I said.
"Why are you doing this here?" Wyatt demanded, finally.
"Because this is my house," I said. "Because I invited friends. Because if you think you can walk in and make me the object of pity while you seek forgiveness, then yes—I'm going to show you exactly what you did."
A man who had been helping with the renovation—one of the carpenters—set his hand on my shoulder. "You deserve better," he said softly.
I turned to the room. "Do you remember," I asked, "how he told me someone else was the one? Do you remember how I cried on this couch and he promised to change?"
He did not deny it. His face was a map of guilt.
Someone took out their phone and started to livestream. There were comments appearing—sympathetic, angry, some cruel. Daisy's panic turned into anger.
"You don't get to shame me!" she snapped. "You and your pity!"
"Shame?" I laughed, thin and brittle. "No. This is not shame. This is accountability."
Wyatt had moved closer, hands out, the posture of a man asking for absolution. "Please," he said. "I'll do anything."
"Say out loud," I said, "that you never loved me. Say it to these people."
"Say it," Daisy echoed, voice shaking. "Say what you wrote."
He looked at the crowd, at the phones, at the faces. For a moment he looked like a man who wanted to vanish.
"I didn't know how to love properly," he said at last. "I didn't realize I was using you as a stand-in."
The room reacted: a soft chorus of shock and a few curses.
"You were my partner," I said. "You promised. You told me our life would be together. You used me."
Wyatt's face went pale. He started to cry, small sobs that seemed swallowed by the night. "I'm sorry," he said.
"Sorry doesn't fix the years," I said, and I reached into my coat and pulled out the small printed thread, and then the string of messages he had sent to Daisy, the ones where he called her "babe" and where he asked her to come over and leave her lipstick. I read them aloud.
"This is your handwriting," I said. "This is what you wrote."
Around me, people murmured. Someone whispered, "He deserves worse," and then, quietly, "No."
Daisy's expression collapsed into disbelief, then fury. "You used me!" she cried to Wyatt. "You used me to feel alive!"
"I used you both," he said, voice breaking. "I am sorry."
"Then be sorry in front of everyone," I said. "Be sorry to the people you lied to."
"You're making a scene," Daisy said, more angry than afraid. "This is humiliating."
"You're right," I said. "It is humiliating. I would rather my humiliation be honest than your quiet deception."
People in the room shifted. Someone muttered, "She should have kicked him out sooner." Another said, "She looks like she's been through hell."
Wyatt fell to his knees suddenly, as if gravity finally had him. His hands went to his face. "Please," he sobbed. "Don't do this to me."
A few guests took out their phones and filmed, while others looked away, embarrassed by the rawness. Daisy stood frozen, one hand pressed to her mouth, mascara smudged under her eyes.
"You can't make me feel sorry for you," I said. "You chose to keep secrets. You chose to write your doubts in public. You chose to let me be the person who carried your life while you measured it against someone else."
He begged and begged. He moved through the stages—denial, then shame, then pleading. His voice was small in the big room.
"Please," he said, "I won't hurt you again."
"Then prove it," I said. "Prove it to them. Take your phone. Call the forum. Delete the posts. Tell them the truth."
He dug his phone out as though it might escape him. He typed and spoke and called. People watched. Live comments blinked: "Tell the truth!" "He owes her a public apology!" "Trash!"
"I... I..." he stammered. He finally read a short statement: "I was wrong. I hurt someone I loved. I apologize."
"That's not enough," someone shouted.
"Then what would be enough?" Wyatt asked, voice raw.
I stepped forward. "Don't ask me," I said. "The people you've hurt will decide."
Daisy sank to a chair, head in hands. She cried, then tried to compose herself. "You made me look like a home-wrecker," she said. "I didn't want that."
"You went to her and told her to give him back," I said. "That's not romantic."
"I thought he loved me!" Daisy yelled. "I thought—"
"Do you hear how it sounds?" I asked. "You didn't hear how it sounded because you were inside the story you wanted to star in."
Her face twisted. "I won't be shamed for wanting love."
"No one is shaming you," I said. "You were used. He was selfish. He is ashamed."
"Everyone should be ashamed," someone near the door muttered.
Wyatt had stopped struggling. The sound of his apology had become a thin thread in the air. For a long time no one spoke.
Then, slowly, one by one, people turned their backs on him. The carpenter who had fixed the balcony shook his head and walked out. Aurora hugged my shoulder. Leonardo stayed by my side, a quiet anchor.
Daisy left without a word, phone clutched to her face. Wyatt watched her go and then looked at me, hollow and broken.
"I deserve this," he said, and for the first time he seemed to understand the shape of his own guilt.
"You do," I said. "But not because I enjoy it. Because it's necessary."
He crumpled again, this time not theatrically but small and human. People walked past him, some with pity, some with contempt. A neighbor filmed until a friend took the phone away.
When the last guest left, it was just Leonard and me and the man who had once promised to be my home. The silence felt like a sea.
"I'm sorry," he said, almost inaudible.
"Say it to yourself," I told him. "Stay where you are and learn."
He nodded once, and then he got up and walked out into the night. The porch light clicked off behind him.
Later, when the livestream had ended and the feeds quieted, the small room smelled of wine and dish soap. I sat on the new sofa and felt like I had been alive for a long, terrible time and then survived.
Leonardo handed me a mug of tea. "You did the right thing," he said.
"Did I?" I asked.
"You owned the room," he said. "You let them see the truth and in that way you took your power back."
"I thought power was a boring word," I said.
"It's practical," he said, smiling.
We spoke for a while—little words, careful words, until the heat of the evening cooled. He stayed to help me clean. He didn't make any promises. He only said, "I'm here."
Time did that small magic—healing in steady increments. I rebuilt my life literally and figuratively, nail by nail, tile by tile. My channel grew. I learned to drive properly without fear. I went on the road with my camera and finally made the trip I'd always wanted to make. When high altitude sickness knocked me down in Tibet, I woke up in a hospital to a face I recognized: Leonardo.
"I couldn't wait," he said when I opened my eyes. "You weren't answering your phone."
"I told you I could do it," I mumbled.
"And I told you I wasn't going to let you do it alone," he replied.
He laughed softly and then said, "Will you let me stay?"
I looked at him—steady, unflashy, kind—and felt something like warmth spread from my chest. "Stay," I said.
He smiled, and then he kissed the knuckle of my thumb like someone who has learned small, careful tenderness.
Years later, when I stand by the big window in the living room and see the city lit up like a map, there is sometimes a flash of memory—a burgundy streak across a message screen, a motel sign blinking, a forum post that once felt like a verdict.
I run my finger along the shelf where Wyatt's old model once sat. It's gone now—returned, or perhaps never taken—and Leonardo's small model house stands there instead, built by his hands and left with no expectations.
"Do you ever think of them?" someone asked me once.
"Not much," I said. "Only when I smell a certain cologne, or when I pass a lipstick counter and see burgundy."
The color used to hurt. Now it is only a color—rich, bold, useful in small ways. I keep a single tube of burgundy lipstick in a drawer, not as a trophy but as a reminder: some things can be beautiful without being owned.
I light a candle sometimes when the nights are cold and think of the man who taught me porridge and the men who taught me about leaving, and the friend who taught me how to stay. The flame is steady. The apartment is full of my things. The balcony doesn't leak.
"Are you happy?" Leonardo asks me quietly one evening, fingers warm against mine.
"I am learning to be," I answer. "Like pouring porridge, you learn the heat and the stirring. You learn when to take it off the flame."
He squeezes my hand and smiles. "Then we'll stir together."
I laugh, and that sound echoes off the walls I built myself. The lipstick stays in its drawer.
I keep the burgundy tube because the color once marked betrayal; now it marks the night I stood and spoke and took my life back. It is the last small thing from the mess that I turned into memory and then into something else.
When I close the door at night, I sometimes imagine a certain forum thread, closed forever. The house stands. The porch light clicks off. The candles burn down. Life, messy and human, goes on.
The End
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