Mandy and Jack’s marriage is carefree and childless — exactly the way they want it. They spend a lot of time with Jack’s childhood friend group, going on group dates and adventures. But then Mandy realizes that Jack has been keeping her away from events. Who or what is the reason? Find out more…

In the nine years that Jack and I have been together, our marriage had been the kind of story that you’d recount with a smile, filled with love, shared dreams, and tons of adventures.

But about three months ago, things started to feel a little different.

Before that, we always attended events together — whether they were work events or other events planned by his group of friends. Jack and his friends had been together since before we were married, them having all been on the same football team since high school.

Recently, Jack had been making up a lot of excuses about leaving me at home when he went for these events.

“It’s just the guys, Mandy,” he would retort while getting dressed. “Do you really want to sit around in their company without the wives?”

To be fair — that sounded horrible. As much as the friend group had become our second family, I knew that a night with only the men would mean drinking, wings, cards, and maybe the occasional cigar.

Without the wives, it wasn’t the best way to occupy my time.

So, I thought that there was truth to Jack’s story. Most of the couples had children anyway, so I also knew that the wives would have been busy with them.

But then, I went to the grocery store and ran into Kevin’s wife — Kevin was one of Jack’s oldest friends, and we used to see him and his wife, Marcia, all the time. Until they had twins and we had to just meet at the group events.

“Mandy!” she said, hugging me tightly from behind. “Are you alright, dear?”

“I’m fine,” I said, smiling at the twin toddlers who were sitting in her shopping cart. “I haven’t seen you in ages!”

“Well, yes,” Marcia said, frowning slightly. “Jack told us that you two were trying for a baby, and that you were taking hormonal shots. I didn’t know that you were going through In Vitro Fertilization! I would have sat you down first, you know that’s how we ended up with the twins.”

My jaw dropped. I didn’t know what to tell the woman standing in front of me. Why did Jack lie?

“How are you handling the shots now?” she asked, looking concerned.

“It took a while for my body to adjust,” I said, lying through my teeth.