The Heroic Acts of Man
Duck Creek Village, UT
It was dark and after making dinner on their camping stove, staring at the fire for an hour or so, Analise finally asleep and full and all bundled up, the dishes done, the food and totes packed back up in the car, both of them two or three beers and a whiskey in, Lee decided to finally confess what he had been meaning to confess for so long.
Becca slouched in her chair. The blood in Lee’s finger pulsing. If he didn’t unload this now, he was afraid the weight would crush him. He was never good at keeping secrets or telling lies. He liked to live his life in utter and complete honesty and authenticity. Almost as if he was overcompensating for his upbringing—all the nice, shiny, sparkling things religious folks around him said and did (or pretended to do), no one wanting to admit that sometimes life was just messy and grey and dirty and complicated and that we were all implicated.
“I need to tell you something,” he said, looking directly at Becca.
“Huh?”
Becca wasn’t really paying attention.
“I need to tell you something.”
“Okaaay . . .”
“I just, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I just haven’t been able to, because of how ashamed I’ve been, and how well, even telling you this is an act of cowardice, because it’s selfish, and . . .”
“What are you talking about, Lee?”
Becca sat up sharply, finally looking at him.
Lee took a sip of whiskey, gulped.
He looked directly into Becca’s eyes—they registered confusion. The woods around them appeared to quiet down. Lee couldn’t find the words.
“What is it?” she finally asked. Now genuine concern in her eyes. “Did you take some edibles again? Or some mushrooms? Did you do something bad? Are you going to be arrested?”
“No, I–”
“Did you cheat on me?”
The question caught Lee off guard, but he answered swiftly.
“Yes.”
The word hung in the air. A knife. A bomb. Neither of them said anything. Even the crickets were silent.
“Did you know?” asked Lee after an eternal pause.
“No,” said Becca. Quick and sharp. And then breathing heavily. “Why? When? How?”
“I’m sorry,” Lee said.
Becca began to cry and then brushed the tears from her eyes. “Well, I was not expecting this.”
“I know,” Lee continued.
“So, tell me.”
“What?”
“Tell me what the fuck happened!”
Lee took a sip of his beer.
“It was at the conference in Salt Lake I went to, right after we found out you were pregnant.”
“This was after you found out I was pregnant?”
“Yes. . . . I know. The whole thing, pregnancy I mean, it threw me off. And at the conference I met this woman, from LA. She and I hit it off. And then one night, the last night there, well, it was just the two of us at the bar, we were both pretty drunk, a little high. She invited me up to her room and I told her I’d tuck her in. Just, you know, being funny. She said okay.”
Becca’s eyes filled with hate and loathing.
“So, we went up to her room, well, actually, we went up to the roof first, smoked a couple cigarettes, some weed, you know how I’m not used to smoking weed, and we looked out over the city. Then we went to her room and she told me I could stay the night if I wanted.
“‘I share my bed with lots of platonic friends,’ she said. ‘Nothing sexual. Sometimes it’s just nice to have the company don’t you think?’
“The whole thing was too perfect. I mean, seriously, this woman seduced me.”
“That’s because you have no self-control.”
“Well . . . yes.”
“Fuck, Lee, did you sleep with her?”
Becca poured herself another splash of whiskey. A big one.
“No.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“No, I mean, not really, we kissed, we fooled around some on the bed. We were pretty close to, we were, well . . .”
“Go on …” She knew that having Lee recount this was painful, but she didn’t give a fuck.
“I, I can’t totally remember, but I think we used our hands some, I might have slept with her, I don’t know.”
“Fuck!”
“It’s just . . . ”
He got up to rub her shoulder. She slapped him. He sat back down. Lee didn’t touch his face. He let the burning sensation creep through him. Even here, at this moment, he could not tell Becca the whole truth. How he had actually cared deeply for this woman. How he’d even considered bailing on Becca and Analise and moving to LA, Echo Park, beginning a new life in LA with this new woman. Lee didn’t know how to describe it; there was such connection, such tension, such energy, chemistry, between the two of them. And Lee, like a heroin addict, was a junkie for this type of new love. The flirting, the courting, the romance. And he was drunk and high and the whole thing was too perfect a scenario. If it was a test, it was a test designed specifically for his weaknesses. And he’d failed.
“I deserved that,” he said after a minute. “But look, I want you to know. . . . I got straight out of there the next morning.”
“Wow! Look how good of a person you are!”
“I know, I know, I know, but I’m telling you, the whole thing was fuzzy and seriously, like a couple minutes.”
Becca got quieter. “A couple minutes is a really long time, Lee.”
This, more than anything, hit Lee hard. A couple minutes. Funny how fast you can burn your life down in a couple of minutes.
“Look, there’s no excuse, I know. But you know how fucked up I was when we met. Just after it ended with Mandy and then meeting you and then your dad dying and you getting pregnant. It just, I don’t know. It set off a whole thing for me. For a brief second, I had this fantasy of a new, perfect life. A do-over. It was a moment of weakness, but I want you to know that I truly love you and Analise and I promise you this will never happen again.”
A pause.
“What, you don’t think I haven’t felt the same way? Thought of the same things? Had the same fantasies? I just haven’t acted out on them.”
“You’re right, you’re a better person than I am.”
“You know, actually, I’m glad this is coming out. I have to tell you something.”
“Okay . . .”
“I want to sleep with other men.”
“Huh?”
Lee was confused, and it was his turn to feel hurt and betrayed. A cold shiver flickered down his spine. Was this it? Was this the end of the two of them? In his arrogance and self-loathing and selfishness, he honestly hadn’t considered the possibility.
“Like, is this it?” he asked her. “You want to . . . see other people, leave?”
A burst of cold air whipped through the campsite and both of them shivered.
“No, no, I mean . . . I have thought about open relationships, but I mean more as a fantasy. That’s a fantasy I’ve been having. I really have only slept with two people in my entire life. My Christian boyfriend in college, and then you. So, just, you know, I guess what I’m saying is, I could see myself doing the same thing.”
At that moment Analise let out a wail. A relief, honestly, to both of them. “I’ll get her,” said Lee and jumped up, anxious to get away from Becca’s righteous, wrathful presence.
Lee opened up the tent zipper and thought about what a relief it was to have finally told Becca about his infidelity. But he still felt shitty about it.
He also felt shitty about how the whole thing ended with his partner in the affair. He had cared for her and wanted to keep in touch, but this, too, felt like an act of cheating, so he barely discussed with her their night together. What their relationship was. What it could look like going forward. He’d sent a few texts the day after to her, promptly deleting each of them before he returned home to Logan. Then, besides a Facebook message or two (where he tried awkwardly to explain himself and keep in touch), communication had gone cold. Probably for the best.
Lee still felt like a dick. He had cheated on one woman he cared about. He’d ghosted another. He grabbed Analise’s pacifier, placed it gently in her mouth, and shushed her back to sleep.