The Noble Betrayer — An Illusion’s Tale
We met at an age when every crush feels like destiny. Oliver was a lanky, awkward boy with a guitar slung over his shoulder and a crumpled notebook in his hand, where his poems were scribbled in messy handwriting. He’d wait for me by the school gates, pretending it was a coincidence, always grinning with childlike sincerity.
“Emily, listen to this new song,” he’d whisper, fingers strumming the strings.
I listened. Even though his voice cracked and the lyrics were painfully saccharine, there was such tenderness in his eyes that I couldn’t brush him off.
After school, life pulled us apart—I went to university in Manchester to study teaching, while he enrolled in an engineering course in Birmingham. But Oliver kept writing. Sometimes, he’d call the dorm’s reception desk in the middle of the night; other times, he’d send crumpled postcards with lines like, “Everything’s grey without you, my ginger girl.” He’d travel for hours on trains, spending his last quid just to spend an evening together.
I remember one night when I was burning up with fever, and he appeared under my window at 3 a.m. with a thermos and paracetamol. He whispered through the glass, “Told you, you can’t manage without me.” Wrapped in a blanket, I cried from sheer happiness.
After graduation, Oliver proposed—simply, without rings or roses, on the same park bench where we’d shared our first kiss.
“Marry me, Emily,” he said, his eyes still the same as when he was seventeen.
“Only if you promise never to turn into some boring suit-and-tie bloke,” I laughed.
“Cross my heart!”
We planned to move to London, but Oliver’s mother fell seriously ill. We stayed in our small hometown instead. He took a job at an electronics shop; I taught at the local primary school. It was all temporary. Or so we thought. But temporary became permanent.
We rented a dingy one-bedroom flat, drank cheap coffee, and held “dance nights” on the old rug, blasting music from a cassette player. When Oliver got his first bonus, he treated me to dessert at a restaurant where the bill cost more than his weekly wage. “Worth it,” he murmured, kissing my fingers.
Then his mother passed. We inherited her flat, and we decided to try for a baby. Oliver dreamed of a ginger-haired girl, just like me. But we had a son. He lived only 32 days.
After that, everything unraveled.
We didn’t know how to grieve together. We were used to lightness, to jokes, to running from problems. The pain drove us into separate corners. He buried himself in work; I sank into depression. When I finally surfaced, I quit teaching—I couldn’t bear seeing other people’s children.
A few years later, Oliver got promoted, but it wasn’t enough. He resigned to start his own business. “I know the market, I’ve got connections,” he insisted. He wasn’t wrong. Within a year, we had a car, a wardrobe full of season-appropriate clothes, holidays abroad. I barely recognized my own life.
But as the money grew, the closeness faded. We barely spoke. I tried—cooking his favourites, booking theatre tickets, planning family gatherings. He’d just wave me off: “Later.” Later never came.
Mum often reminded me, “Emily, a family isn’t whole without a child. Don’t wait too long.” I was ready. I brought it up gently. Oliver would look away, shutting down with a firm “No.”
“Six years have passed,” I finally said one evening. “Maybe it’s time?”
He slammed his fork down. “Stop.”
I froze. “Why? We’re a family—”
“No, Emily. Just stop.”
He left the table. I stayed in that immaculate kitchen, surrounded by expensive china and suffocating emptiness.
Then came Daniel. Oliver introduced him as a business partner—charming, well-spoken, cultured. He invited me to galleries, knew artists by name, actually listened. Once, he handed me a catalog on Turner without looking up.
“Oliver mentioned you love Turner.”
“He’s mistaken,” I snorted. “I prefer Constable.”
Daniel smiled. “Then let’s discuss Constable. Over coffee?”
I ignored it. But Daniel persisted—theatre tickets, flowers, conversation. Confused, I confronted Oliver.
“Daniel keeps inviting me out. It’s like he’s—”
“Go,” he interrupted. “You’re bored.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
“He’s a good man, Emily. And he fancies you.”
I stared. There was no pain in his eyes. Just calm. As if he’d planned this.
“You’re seeing someone, aren’t you?”
“Yes. But I didn’t want you to suffer. I just wanted you… looked after.”
I laughed—a bitter, broken sound. “So you pushed me toward him, so you wouldn’t feel like the villain?”
Silence. His phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, and that same spark flickered in his eyes—the one that used to be only for me.
Go,” I whispered. “She’s waiting.”
We stood there, in that perfect kitchen, with everything irreparably broken between us.
“Forgive me,” he breathed.
But there was no forgiveness. He didn’t just leave. He orchestrated it—to seem noble, to avoid guilt, to leave me holding the pieces: a “new husband” handed to me like charity, and a love poisoned by duty.
I packed my things the next morning. No screams, no scene. As the taxi turned the corner, I suddenly remembered that lanky boy with the guitar whispering,
“Emily, I’ll write you real poetry one day.”
He never did. But he learned to lie so well, he even believed himself.
