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  She said, “I don’t know where to start. This is so hard.”

  She rubbed her palms on her thighs harder and lifted and tightened her shoulders in a tense gesture. I let her fidget for a few seconds, waiting for her to go on. I decided the best option was to pull the drain plug for her, break the seal, and let the rest come tumbling out.

  I said, “Does he treat you good?”

  The question caught her off guard. It caught me off guard too. It wasn’t how I wanted the conversation to go but it was the question at the back of my mind all these months. Who was she fucking? Was he better than me? Did he have a bigger dick? Did he fuck better than me? Did he have more money? More friends? A nice car? A house? Did he own expensive suits and have a job with his own office and his name on the door? Did he go to the gym five times a week to work on his six-pack? Undoubtedly so. My intent wasn’t to make her feel guilty though. At least I didn’t think I wanted her to feel guilty. I just wanted her to come clean. I wanted her to admit it and stop making me feel like an asshole because our relationship was falling apart. Yes, I was one of the reasons everything had gone south. But she chose to put more and more distance between us and drive a stake to separate the us. The stake had a name but I didn’t know who he was and I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to meet the man she deemed better than me. But I guess there was a small smug part of me that wanted to rub her nose in what she’d done wrong. I wanted her to know she wasn’t as clever as she thought she was. She was a trope. And I wasn’t stupid or ignorant. I knew she had been up to something and this was coming. I also chose not to intervene because the work I would have to invest to put things back together didn’t seem worth it. The work wasn’t worth the reward to me. If you could call it a reward. What would I gain? Me being paranoid and jealous and secretly letting what she’d done and apologized for eat at me every day and every moment she wasn’t in the same room as me. That didn’t feel like much of a prize to fight for.

  She flinched at my halfhearted accusation and looked at me with an astonished expression. She blinked rapidly and began to appear frightened before stuttering something unintelligible in answer.

  I thought I wouldn’t be bothered to know she was sleeping with someone else. Because I already knew deep down what was happening without being told. But her expression said it all. She wasn’t a good liar. I felt as though she’d punched me in the gut as she sputtered and tried to come up with an excuse or lie. It wasn’t the confirmation of the allegation that hurt. It was the fact she was going to deny it even though I could see it was true.

  I gestured for her to stop. “Don’t,” I said. “Please don’t lie to me. You at least owe me that much. The lie hurts more than the betrayal.”

  Her eyes rimmed with tears. She turned her gaze back to the coffee table, rubbed her thighs again, and nodded. She whispered, “I’m sorry.” Tears slid quickly down her cheeks and dropped onto her pajama bottoms. She wiped her face with the back of her hand.

  “It’s not your fault. It’s my fault. This has to be done and you’ll feel a lot better once you get it out. So just say it.”

  I would take the blame for this because if I would’ve given her what she wanted she wouldn’t have had to find a replacement for me.

  She turned to me and another tear rolled down her cheek. “Aren’t you mad?”

  I hated to see her cry. I wasn’t a sadist. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about her and that was the reason I’d rolled over and let it all happen. I wanted to see her happy and I wasn’t willing to be something I wasn’t to give her what she wanted. Yes, I was upset she was having sex with another man. But it made her happy. And once this was over with it would all tumble into place for her: the wedding, the kid, the house. There wouldn’t be any more chipped plates and unraveling towels. It would all be fresh and clean and new for her and everything she ever wanted and hopefully she’d be able to cling to that happiness and ride it out till death. We’d been together for seven years. I knew her well. She had Christian-like morals when it came to relationships and the secret coupling was eating her alive. I was raised by a single mother and instilled with the idea that an independent and liberated woman was one you supported, not condemned, even if her ideals didn’t exactly conform to your own. If this was what she wanted I wasn’t going to stand in her way any more than I already had.

  “Why should I be mad?” I said. “As long as you’re being honest with me. If you’d been fucking him for a while and I happened to find out instead of you telling me I’d be mad.”

  She flinched when I said the word ‘fucking’. She rubbed her hands on her thighs again. I laid my hand on top of hers to stop her from fidgeting.

  “Stop acting nervous,” I said. “It’s making me nervous.”

  “You’re too calm,” she said. “I keep expecting you to freak out and start screaming.”

  “Have I ever screamed at you?”

  “No.”

  “Why would you think I would do it now?”

  “Because I’m a horrible person. Because I just told you I’m having an affair.”

  It was my turn to flinch. We stared at one another silently, waiting for the other to make the next move. The word ‘affair’ had fallen from her mouth effortlessly but its impact was shattering and final. To me the word affair was far more of a damaging word than fucking. Affair implied an emotional connection with the person you were cheating with. I let go of her hand and sat back. Naomi stared intently at the floor as if she were ashamed to look at me. I stared at her back as she shifted away from me. The movement was miniscule but it made me cringe. It was as if she were readying herself for the onslaught of an attack. If she shrank away from me much more she would be cowering. I had to put a stop to this. I couldn’t handle watching her beat herself up over something I was partially responsible for.

  I said, “The brutal truth is I’m not going to fight to keep you.”

  She lifted her hand to her mouth to stifle a sob as if what I’d said was the equivalent to a slap in the face. Her shoulders jerked as she cried into her hand. I was thankful I couldn’t see her expression. I was being insensitive on purpose. If she was going to use a man to drive a wedge between us I was going to use hurtful words as an axe to sever us completely and put our relationship out of its misery. I didn’t want there to be any chance of reconciliation. If we were going our separate ways and in a few months she realized she’d made a mistake and toyed with the idea of eating crow I wanted her to think back to the hurtful things I’d said now and reconsider bothering me for a second round of dissatisfaction. Because I knew I would relent if she asked me to come back, and living in a relationship where I knew without a doubt I was a placeholder would destroy what self-confidence I had.

  “I can’t give you what you want,” I said. “It would make me unhappy if I did. You’ve found someone who wants the same things as you. I’m not going to beg and plead for you to stay.”

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and took a deep breath. I waited for her to acknowledge me. She continued to avoid looking at me.

  I said, “I couldn’t live with myself knowing the only reason we’re together is because I begged you to stay . . . knowing you’d rather be with someone else. If you stayed I would lose respect for you for not standing up for yourself. And I can’t trust you anymore.”

  She took a shuddering breath and sniffed.

  I said, “If we stayed together after this I would drive myself insane. I would constantly worry you were cheating on me . . . because you’d done it before.”

  She spun toward me. Her face was blotchy from crying. “I would never—”

  I cut her off. “I’m not saying you would. I’m saying I would forgive you. I’d never mention it again. But every time you were an hour late, or called to say you had to stay late at work, or made last minute plans with your friends . . . there would be a small monster in the back of my brain reminding me you’d had an affair once before.” I almost choked on the word affair.
“And I forgave you. And if I forgave you once it would be nothing for me to forgive you again . . . and again . . . and again.”

  She nodded to convey she understood. She finally sat back on the sofa. It wasn’t a gesture of relaxation or even one of defeat. She collapsed into the cushion from exhaustion. We both stared at the black screen of the television for a moment.

  I broke the silence. “And I’m not going to beg for other obvious reasons.”

  She spoke without taking her eyes off the television screen. Her words were monotone and emotionless, as if she didn’t care what else I had to say. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t want to get married. I don’t want to have kids. And I’m sure as fuck never giving up photography.” I waited a beat for her to respond and when she didn’t I added, “I don’t think you could live with yourself if all of a sudden I was willing to do those things anyway. I know I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I bullied you into doing whatever I wanted. Controlling each other’s dreams turns you into a parent. I don’t want to live with my mother.”

  She acted as though she were going to say something but caught herself. I was sure it was a retort to the mother reference. But she’d thought better than to bring up the subject of my deceased mother and I silently thanked her for it. It had been a year and a half since Mom passed and for the most part I was over it. But every now and then there was the pang of loss when talking about her or reminiscing of my childhood. Naomi tiptoed around the subject of parents after my mom’s death. She knew I was protective of my mother and anything that could be construed as negative against her. Naomi’s parents were both still alive and together. She didn’t have the first clue of what it was to be an orphan other than observing the situation through me and my brother.

  I said, “I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight.”

  “You don’t have to move out right away,” she said. “You can sleep in the bed.” She hesitantly said, “I can stay . . . somewhere else. You can stay here until—”

  “No. No.” I cut her off. “I’ll be gone tomorrow. I don’t want to be here any longer than I need to be. I have to leave. I don’t want to be cuckolded. Being here would make the situation a constant forethought. If we’re going our separate ways I’d rather make a clean break. Besides, there’s nothing tying us together but the address. I’ll call Phillip. I’m sure the two of us can have my stuff cleared out by the time you get home from work tomorrow.”

  “I can give you some money—”

  “I don’t want your fucking money.”

  The sentence was delivered gruffer than I’d intended. But it was true. I didn’t want to be indebted to her in any way.

  “I’ll stay with Phillip until I find something.” I suppressed a passive aggressive jab about my income because I knew it would turn into a fight about how I should’ve gotten a real job. “You know how to get ahold of me if you need anything.”

  She nodded. “So that’s it?”

  “Guess so.”

  “It feels like a weight has been lifted. I mean . . . I feel better but it feels weird between us now.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I don’t know. Now that the sexual aspect of our relationship is completely off the table it’s weird. Because . . . I still care about you. I want you to be safe and happy. It sorta feels like we’re really good friends now.”

  I wanted to tell her there was no way in a million fucking years I ever wanted to be her friend but I pushed it into the void with the devastated emotions threatening to spill over. And I didn’t want to be that guy. The guy who wishes evil and vile misfortunes on their ex because they felt they were wronged. The venomous feeling was there but I was actively choosing to ignore and suppress it. Naomi wasn’t a bad person. She was a selfish person and only doing what was right for her. Tomorrow I would move in with my brother and his wife and kid. I would wait a short time for the call or email or visit where Naomi told me she’d made a mistake and I would force myself to be strong and tell her not to bother me anymore because I didn’t want to be reminded of what she’d done and I didn’t want her to settle for second best. But I didn’t expect for it to happen. I was sure once I stepped out the front door for the final time it would be the last time I would ever talk to her. Seven years of my life gone. Just like that. And I wasn’t going to sit around and stew in self-pity over the whole ordeal. I was moving on. It was my own pettiness and selfishness that wanted her to eat crow. And even if it did fail for her it wouldn’t change anything. I would never step foot in this place again. She needed to find what she wanted and stop trying to mold me into something I didn’t want to be. This was over.

  “Yeah,” I said, “I know what you mean.” I patted her on the leg. “You okay?”

  She nodded and rubbed her thumbs together again.

  I stood. “I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight.” I took a couple of steps toward my office.

  “Where are you going?”

  I stopped. “I was in the middle of working on a set.”

  She opened her mouth to say something but I ignored her and made my way to the office. There was no need to rehash the situation. There was no need to reminisce. There was no need for us to continue talking to one another.

  I entered my office and shut the door in time to clasp a hand over my mouth. I suppressed the sob welling in my chest before Naomi could hear it. I’d be damned if I let her know how wrecked I was over the whole thing. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath to compose myself. This wasn’t the end of the world and crying over it was only a self-pitying act. Tomorrow was the beginning of something new.

  2

  Phillip entered the garage holding the last box from the trunk of his car. “Any special spot for this one?” He hefted the box awkwardly to keep from dropping it.

  “I guess with the rest of them,” I said. “Nothing important.” I pointed to the small pile of garbage bags and boxes we’d dumped on the floor of the garage away from the path of cars.

  “Are you taking any of this inside?” He carefully placed the box with the others.

  I meticulously rearranged the framed photos and stacked them against the wall of the garage. The last thing I wanted was for Phillip’s wife, Holly, to hit them when she pulled into her parking spot. I knew she wasn’t happy about me moving in and didn’t want to give her another reason to hate me.

  Scrutinizing one of my photos I said, “I’ll grab my clothes and bathroom things. I don’t need the other stuff around me all the time and I don’t want to clutter up your house.” I thought, Holly doesn’t want me to clutter up the house.

  Holly and I didn’t care for one another. Never had. She probably saw me as clutter. She made it clear the first time I met her she didn’t like me for whatever bizarre reason because I had never been anything but courteous to her from the first minute we met even though after five minutes I thought she was a bossy know-it-all bitch. She was controlling and—even though she’d never admit it—got knocked up on purpose so Phillip would drop out of college and get a shitty job at a call center and marry her and be forced to give her all the attention she needed. And she needed a lot of attention. Phillip doted on her after he dropped out of school so she could get her degree. I always wondered why he stayed with her when her main hobbies included making Phillip miserable and encouraging their twelve-year-old daughter to be a snotty brat. But I knew he would never leave her unless she told him to leave. It was the same reason I waited until Naomi decided it was time for me to concede from the relationship. When your father choses to take the final exit without any warning it fills you with a sense of abandonment as a child and you cling to anyone who’ll pretend to love you for as long as you can and you’ll do anything to make the relationship appear fulfilling for the other person. Phillip and I had spent our adult lives trying to make up for our father’s suicide. We carried the burden of pretending everything was okay on the surface level to break the cycle of emotional trauma and not let it manifest in other destructive wa
ys.

  Phillip stared at the pile of boxes we’d built while I anxiously nit-picked the placement of the frames. I wasn’t used to seeing him unkempt and in ratty clothing. He wore a paint-stained T-shirt with a large rip in the armpit and his jeans were on their way to disintegration. It also appeared he had skipped shaving this morning. Phillip’s job had a dress code and required him to wear a button down shirt and dress pants. And for the most part he continued to wear his work clothes on his days off. I assumed Holly would berate him endlessly if he happened to stain one of his good shirts and this was the reason for his homeless attire today.

  He looked over the pile of my stuff and said, “You don’t own much.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and rested his hands on his hips.

  I left the photos and joined him. I pulled two of the garbage sacks full of clothes from the pile and tossed them toward the door leading to his kitchen. “There should be a shoe box with my bathroom stuff.” I found the box and retrieved my laptop bag and said, “Don’t think I can live without this. You sure this stuff isn’t in the way?” I double checked the proximity of my belongings to the path of an incoming car from the overhead door. I gingerly set the laptop and bathroom supplies on the ground by the bags of clothing.

  Phillip eyed the prints leaning against the wall of the garage and approached them. He said, “They’re fine.”

  I’d rested the frames with the photos facing out. His gaze stopped on a photo of a woman’s small naked breast and midriff. The prominent focus of the print was on the well-formed supernumerary nipple a few inches below her breast.

  He scratched below his ear nervously and said, “Can we flip the photos around?”

  I stared at him for a second, wondering why he wanted the photographs turned. I said, “I guess so.” I approached the photo he was scrutinizing and flipped it to face the wall. I said what I was thinking. “Shame on you, breast.”

  Phillip made an aggravated noise. “There’s nothing wrong with the photos. You know I like them. It’s just—”