My husband had been visiting our beautiful new neighbor quite often, helping with heavy boxes or fixing a lightbulb. One day, I couldn’t take it anymore and went over with some cookies, pretending to be a friendly neighbor. That’s when I saw a little boy… He was the spitting image of my husband!
I began noticing how often David helped our new neighbor, Lauren. At first, it seemed harmless—carrying boxes, fixing a broken door, simple things neighbors usually do. But as the days went by, his visits to her house became more frequent.
“Why do you keep going over there?” I asked him one night, my voice betrayed a hint of annoyance.
He shrugged, barely looking up from his phone.
“She just needs help with a few things. It’s no big deal, Sarah.”
“No big deal? You’ve been over there almost every day this week.”
David sighed, brushing me off with a wave of his hand.
“You’re overthinking this. She’s a single mom; she just needs some support. It’s nothing.”
He wouldn’t cheat on me, right? Not David. He’s just being kind, that’s all.
For a moment, I let it go, convincing myself that my husband couldn’t be doing anything wrong. But then came that afternoon, the one that changed everything.
I came home earlier than usual. As I walked up the driveway, I saw them.
David and Lauren were standing on her porch. They were close, too close. And then it happened. His arms wrapped around her like it was the most natural thing in the world.
What is he doing? Why is he holding her like that?
Suddenly, all those little doubts I had shoved aside came crashing down, louder than ever.
David, my David, was cheating.
The next morning, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to do something. Sitting there, watching David act like nothing was wrong, was driving me crazy.
I had to see Lauren myself. Maybe I was wrong, and there was some innocent explanation for all of this. But if there wasn’t, I needed to know.
I grabbed a box of cookies, hoping it would make me look friendly instead of nosy.
“Just a neighborly visit,” I told myself, walking across the street to Lauren’s house.
Lauren opened the door, looking surprised to see me.
“Oh, hi, Sarah!”
“Hi, Lauren,” I replied, holding up the cookies like a peace offering.
“I thought I’d bring these over. You know, just to say ‘welcome to the neighborhood.’”
“That’s so sweet of you. Come in.”
Lauren was still a bit shocked.
The house smelled faintly of fresh paint, and toys were scattered around the living room. As we made small talk, my eyes darted around, searching for any sign of David’s presence, anything that might confirm my worst fears. I could hardly focus on what Lauren was saying.
Suddenly, a small boy came running into the room, giggling. He couldn’t have been older than five. He had dark hair, the same shade as David’s, and those familiar brown eyes. My heart skipped a beat.
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“Max, say hi,” Lauren said, smiling at the boy.
Max waved shyly before running off to play. I stood there, frozen. That boy… he looked so much like David.
Could it be? Could Max be David’s son?
The resemblance was uncanny, and the thought that David might have a child with Lauren twisted my gut in ways I didn’t think were possible.
“Sarah, it’s Max’s birthday, and we’re having a little party. Nothing too big, just a few friends, cake, you know. Come with David. It will be fun!”
10 Curiosities You Probably Didn’t Learn in Biology Class
The world is a big, wonderful place full of facts we never thought possible. For instance, if a pregnant mouse has a sudden medical issue, the fetus will send stem cells to heal the mother, increasing its chances of survival as well. Fetal stem cells have been found in human mothers as well, dubbed by science as microchimerism.
Bright Side dug up some more marvelous facts about nature and its creations, upholding our yearly resolutions to spread knowledge and joy.
1. The heart slows when your face touches water.
As mammals, we can’t breathe underwater, so as part of the mammalian dive reflex, our heart rate goes down in the water — more so if we go underwater. Even splashing the face with water makes the heart slow down, making it a great way to calm down.
2. Fungus can break down plastic in weeks.
It is said that in the future, there may be more plastic in the ocean than fish. This is why the plastic-eating fungus is great news, and there are around 50 new species of such fungi discovered already. One of the fungi discovered can digest plastic within 2 months, so there’s hope for us yet.
3. Newborn babies can support their own weight.
Newborn babies are strong — strong enough to be able to grasp things in their tiny fists and even support their weight as shown by an experiment done in the nineteenth century. Louis Robinson witnessed babies able to hang from a walking stick, from 10 seconds to 2 minutes and 35 seconds.
4. Koala fingerprints have been mistaken for human ones.
We’ve been told that our fingerprints are unique, and they are. But the fact remains that even though we share a common ancestor with the koala that was alive 100 million years ago, koala fingerprints look very similar to human fingerprints, as do chimpanzee fingerprints for that matter.
5. Snails can sleep for 3 years.
If you thought bears had it good with hibernation, meet the snail. Snails can sleep rather than hibernate for 3 years at a time without needing food. Of course, this is with some snail species, not all of them. Meanwhile, bears usually hibernate for just 4-8 months.
6. Sloths need 2 weeks to digest food.
Sloths don’t only move in slow motion — even their insides move slowly, ostensibly to preserve energy, which is why a sloth’s digestive system takes 2 weeks to process the food it ate. Plus, most of what it eats is indigestible, giving it very little energy from each slowly chewed mouthful.
On the other end of the spectrum lies the shrew, whose digestion takes mere minutes and is done so fast, not much of it is fully digested. This is the reason why shrews eat their own feces. They can die of starvation in a matter of hours if they don’t eat.
7. Your brain ignores seeing your nose.
We can see our nose all the time, it’s just that the brain tends to ignore it because it’s a constant visual stimulus. It’s the same with people who wear glasses. After a while, they simply stop noticing them.
8. Your forearm is the same length as your foot.
If you don’t have the time to try on a shoe, measure it from your elbow crease to your wrist. If it fits or is just a little smaller, it would fit your foot because the length of your forearm is the same as your foot. And this is just one of many human body ratios that are a marvel in themselves, including the fact that your femur bone is one-quarter your height.
9. You can “see” your white blood cells.
If you look up at a cloudless, bright blue sky and see some wiggly things at the periphery of your vision, you’ve just experienced the blue field entoptic phenomenon. The wiggly things are white blood cells moving in the fine blood vessels moving in front of the retina, at the back of the eye.
10. Human beings have striped skin, but only cats can see it.
Human beings have stripes and patterns on the skin too, and they are called Lines of Blaschko, name eponymously by the scientist who discovered them, Dr. Alfred Blaschko. These are closer to tiger stripes, forming more of a V-pattern fanning out from the center to the extremities. These lines are visible under UV light, a spectrum that cats can see too, which is why cats can see you as a striped being as well.
Which of these facts turned out to be a revelation for you? Share your extreme nature facts with us and blow us away.
Preview photo credit Shutterstock.com, Shutterstock.com
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