by Roya Carmen
No fucking way.
The man needs to pay for his sins.
I throw my phone on the floor, and I resolve to never stalk her ever again because it’s a total waste of time, and also, it makes me want to kill myself.
No, I’m not going to sulk and cry in my pillow, obsessing over how she’s younger, prettier, more successful, and more fun than me. I’m not going to ponder how they must have so much in common since they’re both writers. I’m not going to imagine what their interactions might be like. I’m not going to picture them together, or ever think about her again. I don’t need to know any more. I don’t care how many times they’ve fucked, or how exactly they first met. She doesn’t exist, as far as I’m concerned.
No, I’m taking a completely different approach, and I have a feeling that it will keep my mind quite occupied. And the last thing we’ll both be thinking about is Amanda Tucker.
I slip into something more comfortable, one of my favorite silk nightgowns, the one John really likes. I brush my teeth and my long hair as I ponder how exactly I’m going to go about it. I go over the words I’ll say… this needs to be done perfectly. I need to ace this, or our marriage might just completely fall apart.
I check the clock by my bed before I head down – it’s already one o’clock in the morning.
I pad quietly down the stairs. My pulse races, and my throat is dry. As I carefully open the French door leading to his office, John looks up from his laptop, and seems surprised to see me.
He’s a wreck. His eyes are blood-shot, and he looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I was just writing you a letter,” he tells me.
I take a seat next to him. “You don’t need to,” I say quietly.
“I want to.”
Silence fills his den as neither one of us seems to know what to say.
“You look really nice,” he says. “You know how I’ve always loved your hair… I love it when you wear it down.”
I smirk. “Well, Amanda has pretty nice hair too,” I say. “Looks a lot like mine, except for the purple tips, because she’s way cooler than me.”
He lets out a long sigh. “You didn’t… Gabbie, don’t—”
“I know,” I’m quick to say. “I got it out of my system… satisfied my curiosity. I’m not stalking her anymore.”
“Good,” he says. “I’m also working on a letter for her,” he tells me. “You can read it if you…” his words trail off. He’s ashamed. He’s ashamed of what he’s done. “I’ll also give you full access to all my social media accounts, my phone, my email… everything.”
I clear my throat. That’s some serious stuff.
“I mean it, Gabbie,” he says. “It’s over. I’m an open book from here on, and I want you to have faith in me. No more events for the next year, and if there are events in the future, you can come with me. My parents can look after the kids.”
He’s trying really hard, and I do appreciate it. But… he doesn’t get to just have his jollies, and everything goes back to normal. He doesn’t get to have his cake and eat it too.
He needs to pay.
“Yes, John,” I start slowly. “I appreciate that—”
He cuts me off. “So you think we can get past this?” he asks eagerly. “Can you forgive me?”
I wince. “Well, not so quickly,” I tell him. “I do appreciate you telling me the truth and not trying to deny the affair, so you definitely get points for that,” I tell him. “And I also appreciate you trying so hard right now, but…”
His face falls, and he looks so vulnerable, like his life hangs on my words, which it sort of does, in a way. The kids and I are the most important thing in his life. I still believe that.
“How long has this affair been going on?” I ask, “I mean, since the first time you’ve slept together.”
He stills for a few seconds. “Almost five months,” he finally says.
“Five months.”
“Yes, five months,” he says. “Since October.”
I draw a breath, determined to keep my composure. “So you’ve been cheating on me for five months, lying to me, spending time away from your family to be with her, and you think that I should just simply forgive you? That there should be no consequences?”
He’s speechless.
“There will be consequences,” I start. My words are even and business-like — it’s like I’m heading a board meeting. I’m the one with all the power. I’m in charge, and I make the decisions. “I like your plan,” I continue, and he listens quietly. “You end this with her. And no more events without me, and complete access to all your communications.”
He nods obediently, like a dog. He thinks this is where it ends, but he hasn’t seen anything yet.
“You’ll move to the guest room for the time being, and slowly, we’ll see.”
He nods again.
“As far as the kids are concerned, we’re one big happy family.”
“Yes,” he says enthusiastically. “I completely agree.”
“There’s no reason your stupid whoring-around should affect them.”
He nods and stares down at the floor again. “You’re right.”
Silence fills the room once more. He seems hopeful, like it will all be okay. It might be. It might not. I just don’t know how this will all work out.
“Now is my turn to make a confession,” I start, and instantly, he perks up. Worry and concern line his brow, and the creases below his nose seem more pronounced.
“You’re not the only one who’s been unfaithful,” I say.
His mouth drops, and his face blanches. “What?!”
“Well, it was nothing like your affair,” I’m quick to explain. “I met this guy on Instagram a few months ago, in November, and we became friends, and we… we used to chat a lot.”
“Oh…” He lets out a breath. “That’s all. You’ve never met him in real life?”
I smile. “No, he lives in Copenhagen. That would be kinda tricky.”
He cocks a brow. “Did you ever sext?”
I shake my head. “Uh… no. Nothing like that.”
“Oh, so you were just friends?” he asks. “What happened?”
“Well, sort of,” I tell him. “I ended the friendship because I thought we were getting too close, and well, unlike you, I care about our marriage.”
He reaches for my hand. “I care too, Gabbie. I was just so fucking stupid… I was just being a man.”
I tear my hand away. “Don’t give me that ‘boys will be boys’ shit. Not all men cheat on their wives.”
“I know… I’m sorry,” he says, and after a beat. “So I guess, we’re square.”
What?!
“We’re not square! You’ve had an actual affair for five months, and I just chatted with some guy I’ve never even met a few times, and also, I ended the friendship. No, we’re not square!”
“So why are you telling me this?” he asks, confused. “Why tell me about it at all?”
I reach for my phone, and scroll through my photos. This is going to hurt him, but I want to destroy him. This photo is like a knife, and I plan to stick it right into his heart. I click on my favorite photo of Eli, the one with his dog, the one where you can see how amazing his eyes are, how sweet his smile is, and the tattoo covering his arm. The one where he looks like a freakin’ model.
I show him the photo. “This is Eli.”
His face falls. I got him right in the heart. He must feel exactly the same way I felt when I saw those Instagram photos – absolutely crushed. I feel vindicated, but I also feel sorry that it’s come to this. I’m playing a wicked game, and it’s bound to hurt every single one of us. But I tell myself that he’s the one who started it.
He turns to me, and the pain in his eyes catches me off guard. “You’re not friends anymore?” he asks, wanting to confirm that Eli is no longer in my life.
“No,” I tell him. “I ended the friendship a few weeks ago.”
His face visibly ligh
ts up.
“But…” I go on. “I haven’t stopped thinking about him,” I confess. “I was never going to contact him again, but now…”
“Now what?!” John scoffs.
“Now things have changed, haven’t they?”
Chapter Eighteen
JOHN IS COMPLETELY SPEECHLESS.
“I’m going to contact him,” I tell him. “I want to visit him for a week,” I say matter-of-factly. “We’ll have to see what he says.”
John is slack jawed. He has absolutely no words. I don’t blame him. I’d have no words either if I were him.
Finally, he manages to speak, “Uh… do you mean, just visiting as friends? Is this guy married?”
“No, he’s single. And no, I don’t mean ‘just visiting as friends’, I mean fucking each other’s brains out if we feel like it.” As soon as the words are out, I instantly regret them — it’s not so much what I’ve said, but how I’ve said it.
“Fuck, Gabbie, you can’t be serious.”
“I’m dead serious,” I tell him. “Why should you have all the fun, John?”
“No fucking way,” he scoffs. “I won’t stand for it. No way you’re going to Copenhagen and sleeping with this asshole.”
I want to grab his laptop, and throw it at his face. I really do. “Well, first off, he’s not an asshole, he’s a nice guy. Second, if you get to fuck someone else, then so do I. Tit for tat and all that. And thirdly, and this is the most important one of all, if I don’t do this, I’ll never ever be able to forgive you.”
“So let me get this straight,” he says. “If you sleep with this guy, you’ll magically be able to forgive me.”
“I know it sounds stupid—”
“It is stupid, Gabbie,” he snaps. “Do you even hear yourself?”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” I argue. “Let’s give it a week, and if I still feel the same—”
“So you’re asking me for a Hall Pass?”
I think about it for a second. “Yes, essentially.”
“You think you can sleep with this guy, and then come back to me, and everything will be great again between us.”
“If I don’t do this, I’ll always be resentful of your affair. I’ll always remember her and her purple tipped hair. I’ll tell myself that it’s not fair that you got to play a little, and I didn’t.”
He doesn’t say a word.
“I’ll spend a week with Eli, and I’ll forget all about her. And then when I come back to you, I will have had my adventure. It’ll be like we’ve just both experimented with open marriage for a short while. Think about it,” I go on. “I’m trading only one week for your five months.”
“Yep, that’s a deal for me,” he deadpans.
“Don’t you understand where I’m coming from? If I do this, our marriage can survive your affair.”
He nods. “I get it,” he says. “Our marriage is the most important thing in the world to me, and I’d like to think it’s the same for you.”
“It is,” I assure him.
He shakes his head. “I can’t believe I’m considering this.”
“You have no choice,” I tell him. “If you don’t let me do it, our marriage is over.” It sounds like an ultimatum, and it kind of is, in a way, but it’s really not. If I don’t do this, I’ll never be able to accept what he’s done to me.
“One week,” he says.
“One week,” I repeat.
“Then it’s over,” he adds. “You break it off completely… just like I’m doing. No more contact.”
I nod. “Yes.”
“And you give me full access to all your online communication,” he goes on, and the business-like formal tone of his voice breaks my heart a little.
“Yes, just like you,” I remind him. “We’ll have a completely open and honest marriage. No more secrets.”
“One week,” he says again.
If I go ahead with this, I’ll feel vindicated, and I’ll probably be able to get past this. Our beautiful family will come out of all this, unscathed.
I nod again. “One week.”
It’s the longest week of my life.
I want to reach out to Eli, but I can’t. I’ve promised John that I’d wait a week before making any rash decisions. He thinks I’m going to settle down and change my mind, but I know I won’t.
I want to do this. I’m just not sure I have the guts to do it. Every day, my resolve weakens, and I doubt myself more and more. What if Eli isn’t interested? What if he’s already moved on? What if he thinks I’m crazy?
John is not helping either. He’s been on his best behavior these past few days, spending a lot of time with the kids, and helping around the house, cooking the occasional dinner, and whipping up lunch in the afternoon. But it’s all a little too late.
He asks me a lot of questions about Eli, and I answer them. After all, he’s answered all mine. When did you two meet? What does this guy do for a living? Is this guy for real?
“This guy could be a fucking psycho, for all you know,” he points out over lunch one afternoon. “He could be a complete fake,” he says. “How do you know you’re really talking to a real person?”
Another day, on the way to pick up the kids from a birthday party... “This man has probably been with loads of women, and you’ll probably end up with an STD,” he scoffs. “If you’re crazy enough to sleep with a total stranger, the least you could do is make sure you use protection.”
“Of course I would,” I tell him. “Did you with your little whore?”
He rolls his eyes. “Of course, Gabbie.”
Well, at least there’s that.
And the worst comment of all, the one that cuts the most, is in bed at night. He’s sleeping in the guest room, and he comes and perches on the edge of our bed, to give me yet another speech about how ridiculous I’m acting. “The man is obviously a player, and gets off on turning on bored housewives.”
I throw a pillow at him. “Get out!”
Maeve and Kayla are flipping through a wedding magazine. I envy the both of them. What I wouldn’t give to be the person I was when I was their age; madly in love with my husband, the mother of a new baby girl, my attention solely focused on my family and my job, busy as hell but happy and fulfilled.
And now… I feel so empty and so desperate, clinging at straws. Of course what I’m doing is crazy. I know it. And I understand it. I am so deeply hurt that I’m willing to try anything to escape my pain. My escape is Eli — he’s the only thing I’m holding on to. He’s my life raft. I’m desperately trying to hold on for the sake of the kids, but betrayal feels almost impossible to survive. Maybe if Eli helps me, I can come out of this alive.
My family has always been my first priority, and that hasn’t changed.
“What’s going on?” Kayla asks. “You seem really down, Gabs.”
Leave it to Kayla to notice. I’ve been putting on a brave face, and pretending to be normal, but I’ve never been a good actress. Kayla is the most intuitive of all my friends, and she can easily see through the façade.
She cradles a cup of tea. “I know something’s up.” She’s not letting this go.
I stare at her hands. I can’t bring myself to look her in the eye because I know I’ll break apart. She wears a collection of bohemian silver rings and her short nails are painted a pretty shade of nude pink. Her tea cup is pink and covered with polka-dots.
“What is it, Gabs?!”
I finally venture a look up. They’re both watching me intently.
“I…” I start, but I can’t speak. I’m all choked up. “I… John and I—”
“Hey, girls,” Corrie cheers, completely oblivious. “What’s up?!”
When I look up at her, her face falls. She sinks into the empty chair next to mine. “Gabbie… what’s wrong?”
I’m crying now. I was hoping to avoid this, but there was no way I could when Kayla spoke in that soft soothing voice, and contemplated me with those big doe eyes of hers.
/>
I’ve opened the flood gates. I’ve started the movie. I’ve read the prologue. I can’t just end it here, and say, ‘No, seriously, it’s fine. Everything’s good. I don’t even know why I’m crying.’ It’s too late for that.
I decide to get straight to it, and get it over with. “I just found out that John is cheating on me.”
They all stare at me without a word, mouths agape and eyes wide. The silence seems to be endless, and I wordlessly plead with them to say something.
Corrie is the first to speak. “That little asshole, I’m going to kill him.”
I smile a little. That’s so Corrie.
“What happened?” Kayla asks. “With whom?”
I swallow hard. “With another author,” I tell her. “Pretty, smart, successful,” I point out. “You know John… only the best for him.” I don’t tell them her name, and they don’t ask.
Corrie shakes her head.
“Oh, Gabbie,” Maeve chimes in. “What does this mean?”
I can’t answer because I’m not quite sure myself. Will we break-up? I hope not. But can I get past this? I don’t know.
Corrie steals a sip from Kayla’s tea. “You kicked him out, I hope.”
I shrug. “Well, no. He’s sleeping in the guest room.”
“What are you waiting for?” she snaps. “Kick the little fucker out.”
Her words almost make me smile. Yeah, he is a little fucker.
“It’s not that simple,” Maeve cuts in, the voice of reason. “They have two kids, and they made vows.”
“Vows, my ass,” Corrie argues. “He broke those vows when he cheated on her.”
Maeve is a dreamer, and Corrie a realist. And Corrie was married and separated so she sees this whole thing from a different angle, and she’s been through this before.
“Can you forgive him?” Maeve asks. Her pretty brown eyes fix me, silently hoping for a ‘yes’. Maeve is the sweetest girl you’ll ever meet. She has a child-like innocence, and has never lived a hard day in her life, save for the death of her father. She wears pretty dresses and cardigans, and always has a pretty smile on her face. Maeve doesn’t like conflict, can’t quite face reality. And I don’t want to let her down. “I don’t know, Maeve,” I tell her honestly.