I'd like to be able to say I didn't know. I knew. Not in the beginning — in the beginning there was a ring and a vague description of a difficult situation — but I knew long before I stopped.
I got very good at not asking. That was the skill. Don't ask what he did over the weekend. Don't ask about the school thing. Keep the conversation in the two hours we had, where it was always easy, because our whole relationship lived in a room with no ordinary life in it.
I told myself their marriage was already over. I want to be honest about what that phrase actually meant: it meant he said it and I didn't check. It was a permission slip he wrote and I signed.
What ended it for me wasn't guilt in the abstract. It was a photograph on his phone. A kid's birthday. Balloons, a bad cake, his wife's hand at the edge of the frame. A whole ordinary Saturday I had been quietly betting against.
I've been asked whether he pursued me or I pursued him and the question misses it. Two adults participated. He broke a promise he'd made. I helped him keep the machinery running — the timing, the discretion, the being easy about it.
I don't think I'm a monster. I think I was lonely and I let a story do my thinking. Those are different things and only one of them is an excuse.
I've never contacted her. I've thought about it. I've concluded that would be for me, not her.
The stories currently featured in this collection are fictional accounts created to explore common relationship patterns, decisions, and consequences. They are not presented as accounts from identifiable individuals. As real reader stories are submitted with permission, they'll be clearly identified. These fictional accounts are illustrative, not clinical guidance. They are not therapy, legal advice or a substitute for professional help.