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“You know you’re still beautiful,” Chuck whispered into my ear. He sat beside me in the booth instead of across from me, which somehow felt more intimate but also sleazier, deceitful.
“Thank you,” I replied demurely as I tossed the negative emotions aside and basked in the compliment. It feels good to be noticed, I thought as I shoved down the guilt that kept bubbling up. How long had it been? Three months? Four months? John hadn’t touched me since it all fell apart, since I spiraled out. This second spiral wasn’t as bad as when we were first married, but it was still bad enough. Even after I started getting out of bed, showering, and trying to get back to a routine. I hadn’t gone back to work, though. Things were still rocky. The days were still hard, especially with John pulling back.
I looked around the cafe we were sitting in, feeling ashamed and exhilarated at the same time. I shouldn’t be here, I thought. Chuck always had a way of lighting me up, of making me forget everything rational. Even after he broke up with me senior year of high school, he still knew how to string me along. We had quite a few hookups in college when loneliness sent me back to his bed.
So the week before, when I happened to run across him at the grocery store, I was surprised to feel my heart leap at the sight of him. He’d changed, sure. His surfer boy haircut morphed into a more kept look, and he sported a beard that denoted his age. But his arms were still strong, his jawline still rigid. And those eyes. I could swim in those eyes. Naked.
“I’m different, Chuck. You should know that. I’m not the same girl you once knew,” I murmured as his fingers grazed against mine, thinking of all that had happened since we broke up. John. The coverup. The marriage. The diagnosis. The incident. The dark places I’d crawled out of over and over again—but just barely.
Shame pounded into me at the thought of John. I shouldn’t be here, I admitted to myself. I felt dirty, filthy all of a sudden. It was just coffee with Chuck at a diner. Two old friends catching up. Harmless, I tried to convince myself. And for the first time, I felt—alive. Okay. Awake again. I deserved that, didn’t I?
Nonetheless, I knew where it could go. Where it would ultimately go. This was no innocent encounter. I was conscious of where it would lead from the moment I had said yes. The loss of her, the infertility struggles all left me vulnerable. When I’m vulnerable, depressed even, I don’t make good choices. That’s been clear my whole life. Dr. Fountain would laud me for my self-awareness. I doubt she would praise me for this regression back to Chuck, though.
It wasn’t all my fault, I knew. There was blame to be placed. John had been so distant. I knew he condemned himself for the depression, for her loss, for the whole bit. No matter how many times I reassured him, he didn’t hear me. It grew exhausting trying to comfort him when I felt like I was in a hole of grief, buried alive. I didn’t want John to feel sorry for himself. I wanted him to hold me, to fix things. I wanted him to be the knight riding in to save me, but this was one thing there was no saving me from.
I realized sitting there with Chuck how different my ex and my husband were. Chuck was the prince riding in to save me, even in high school. He was the fixer, the steady rock to lean on, the stoic man even in his worst moments. John’s always been the one who seems to need me. Who seemed to rely on my ability to fix things. From the first night we met, he always needed saving in some fashion, even when he was trying to rescue me. It was exhausting being the one who had to figure it all out all the time.
Still, I loved him. Sitting there with Chuck dropping more innuendos than a rap song, I knew what I wanted. Baby or not, John and I were there for each other. He needed me. I needed him. Even if I had to play the savior role, I needed him.
“I can’t, Chuck. I’m sorry,” I said, shoving him to get out of the booth and excuse myself. I dropped some cash on the table and fled to my car, Chuck calling out to me like a sparrow’s song from the past.
***
I dried the mascara from my cheeks and swiped it away. I took a breath, studied myself in the rearview mirror, and went inside. Nothing happened. I had walked away. Everything would be okay. I buried the remorse deep within as I got out of my car. I left it on the passenger’s seat like a heavy bag.
I ambled inside. John was there, sitting on the couch. He looked up at me, his eyes bloodshot, his hair disheveled. I offered a weak grin, but he stood up and raced across the living room, hunger in his eyes.
“Where were you?” he demanded, a wolf leaping on its suspecting but weak prey.
“Out. Coffee.” I kept my reply short as I edged toward the counter.
“I know where you were. I know what you were doing.” Hands in his pockets, he stood ramrod straight. His eyes lasered into me, and his words flew out of his mouth like missiles.
My mind raced. My stomach plummeted. Shame burned into me, hollowing me at the core. I opened my mouth to spew denials, but I knew I couldn’t. My eyes would give it away.
“How?” I asked through an exhale. I twirled a loose strand of my hair before tucking it back and looking at the stranger across from me.
He laughed, shaking his head. “How? That’s what you’re worried about. I have my ways. I’m a lawyer, not an imbecile. You know that, right? That I’m not an idiot? I know you were out with your ex.”
My mind whirled, first stumbling through embarrassment at being caught, second questioning how he could’ve known. Did he have me followed? Bugged? My stomach dropped to the floor. My knees felt wobbly at the fact our marriage had come to this. I never would have dreamed we would become this.
“Nothing happened. I swear.” Hands out in defense, I pleaded with him wordlessly to believe me. I should’ve never gone. I shouldn’t have. Things were rough enough between John and me. With a single trip to a diner, I had potentially hammered in the final nail of our relationship’s coffin. I shuddered at the image.
“Do you forget that I know? I know how good you are at lying?” he walked forward.
“You can’t use that against me. I did that for you. I did it all for you,” I pleaded through tear-filled eyes. I shook my head at the mere reference. We didn’t talk about that night anymore. Never. We left it in the past, what we did and why.
He squinted at me. “You would’ve slept with him. If you’d have stayed, you’d have slept with him.”
“No,” I responded immediately, fiercely. Still, in my head, the word was punctuated with a question mark. The what-if syndrome I’d always battled reared its demonic head.
He stepped forward. I realized my hands were shaking. He grabbed my chin in his hands. I whimpered.
“You better not. You better not cheat on me. Do you hear me? You know what happens if you cheat, don’t you?”
I perused him, an unbridled passion and fury simmering in his eyes. My stomach muscles clenched as I felt the heat from his hands burning into my skin. I imagined Chuck at John’s wrath. I pictured myself at his mercy. I did know what he could do. I knew it all too well.
“You wouldn’t,” I whimpered. That was in the past. That was out of necessity. We had buried those versions of us, of that night, of him. That wasn’t who John was. He was a strong, capable man. He was a man of the law. He wouldn’t do anything crazy. He wouldn’t hurt me.
He squeezed my chin just enough to remind me he was strong, capable. I looked at him and realized he would do what he’d done again if he had to. As if I could doubt that.
“You know what I would do for you. I did it because I love you. I’d do it again.” His voice is rasped, edgy.
“Oh I know,” I whispered, our characteristic phrase that took on a sinister feel in this light. And I did know. In the back of my head, it was always there. Behind John’s mask he showed the world, there was more. So much more.
But it was because he loved me. Always because he loved me. That made it okay, right? It made it okay. The darkness was born out of love. There was no danger in that. If I was honest with myself, there was a ferocious beauty in that kind of connection, a powerful romance that knew no bounds. It was not stopped by the law, by society, or by anything.
We made love that night, fierce, strong, wild. But it wasn’t over. It was never over. Because anytime he needed to, he resurrected the night I almost cheated, the moment I almost walked away.
He dangled it over me like a blood-soaked carrot I would never, ever reach.