I thought the jagged lines on his ribs were a tribute to his love for abstract art. Instead, they were a permanent recording of the double life he had been living while I was pregnant.
My husband, Greg, was never really a “tattoo guy.” So when he came home late one Friday night with fresh cling wrap taped to his ribcage, I was surprised. He winced as he showed me the design: a series of jagged, vertical black lines that stretched about six inches across his side, right over his heart.
“It’s abstract,” he told me, kissing my forehead. “It represents the chaotic beauty of our life together. It’s for us.”
I was touched. We had been through a rough patch two years ago—right around the time our daughter, Maya, was born—but things had been perfect lately. I treated the tattoo like a peace offering, a permanent symbol of his commitment.
The Suspicion
The unease didn’t start until three months later.
I noticed a habit he had developed. When he thought I was asleep, or when he was zoning out watching TV, he would absentmindedly trace the lines of the tattoo with his fingertips. It wasn’t an itch; it was a caress. The look on his face wasn’t pain from the healing ink; it was pure, unadulterated longing.
One night, while he was passed out on the sofa, his shirt rode up. The tattoo was fully visible. On a whim, I took a high-resolution photo of it. Something about the spacing of the lines looked too intentional to be random “abstract art.”
I posted the photo to a Reddit forum dedicated to tattoo enthusiasts with the caption: “Husband says this is abstract art. Does it mean anything to you guys?”
Twenty minutes later, a notification popped up. A user named InkTechi replied: “That’s not abstract art, honey. That’s a soundwave tattoo. You can scan it with an app to play the audio it’s based on. The pattern is too specific.”
The Scan
My heart began to hammer against my ribs—ribs that were unmarked and unkept. I downloaded the soundwave app the user suggested. I felt ridiculous. I told myself I was crazy. It was probably a recording of our wedding vows, or maybe Maya’s first cry. He said it was for us, right?
I went back into the living room. Greg was still snoring lightly. I hovered my phone over his exposed side. The camera struggled to focus in the dim light, so I used the photo I had taken on my iPad and pointed my phone at the screen.
The app recognized the pattern immediately. A green bar scanned across the image. Then, the audio played.
It wasn’t my voice. It wasn’t our wedding song. First came the unmistakable sound of a baby giggling—a deep, throaty belly laugh. Then, a woman’s voice, soft and intimate: “Daddy loves you so much, Leo. Say night-night.”
I played it again. And again. The woman’s voice was undeniable. It was Vanessa, his “work wife”—the administrative assistant he swore he had cut ties with years ago.
The Math That Broke Me
I sat on the floor, staring at the man I had shared a bed with for seven years. The name “Leo” echoed in my head. We didn’t know a Leo.
I went to his laptop. I didn’t need a password; I needed a timeline. I dug into his cloud photos, scrolling back two years. I found a hidden folder labeled “Project L.” Inside were photos of a baby boy with Greg’s eyes and Vanessa’s nose.
I checked the metadata on the first photo of the baby. Date of Birth: August 14th. My blood ran cold. My daughter, Maya, was born on October 2nd of the same year.
Greg hadn’t just cheated on me. He had gotten another woman pregnant while I was carrying his child. He had been living a double life, raising two infants in the same city, splitting his time between two families under the guise of “working overtime” to support us.
The Confrontation
I didn’t wake him up. I waited until morning. When he came into the kitchen, I was sitting at the table. My phone was connected to the Bluetooth speaker.
“Morning, babe,” he said, reaching for the coffee. “I like your tattoo,” I said. “It really speaks to me.”
Before he could answer, I hit play. “Daddy loves you so much, Leo…”
The mug shattered on the floor. Greg froze, his face turning a color I didn’t know existed—a mix of grey and green. He looked at the speaker, then at his ribs, then at me.
“Sarah, please,” he stammered. “I can explain. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You didn’t want to hurt me?” I laughed, a harsh, jagged sound. “You branded yourself with the evidence of your affair. You put their voices on your body, Greg. You literally carved your betrayal into your skin.”
The Permanent Reminder
The divorce was finalized last week. It was messy. The revelation of a secret child complicated the custody agreement for Maya, and the financial strain of him paying child support to two different women has left him nearly bankrupt.
I have moved on. I’m focusing on my daughter and my career. But sometimes, I think about Greg. I think about how he has to wake up every single morning, look in the mirror, and see the permanent soundwave of the family he destroyed. He tried to immortalize his secret love, but all he did was create a permanent scar of his lies.
He can’t scan it anymore, though. I took the phone with the original audio file. Without the app and the source file, his tattoo is just silence—just jagged, ugly lines that mean absolutely nothing.
