NEXT STORY
Bradley was cheating on me. I knew because I was staring at a message he had sent to me by mistake:
I’m going to be late. Stuck in traffic. I’ve got champers. Did you bring the handcuffs? – Brad
He had told me he was working late tonight, that he was stuck in a middle-management meeting. I didn’t know if middle managers had meetings that ran until midnight, but I trusted him. How could I not? He was my boyfriend of five years.
I sank onto the sofa, and watched my phone, the shaking of my hand barely perceptible while I waited for the next message to come. What would he do? Would he try and cover it up? Would he simply not reply? Would he instead turn up at our flat, and say he had meant to surprise me all along?
My bet was on the third option. Bradley was a good actor, a quick thinker, and deathly afraid of taking responsibility for himself. He would try to lie about it. I could just feel it in my gut, like a sixth sense.
I thought I would be angrier. I honestly did. I had often run through scenarios in my head. How would I react if I caught him cheating? Would I be furious, abandon all pretense of dignity, and scream my head off at him? Would I give him ammo he could use as evidence when he inevitably called me crazy hysterical or unreasonable?
Or would I take it cool, and simply pack my things without saying a word and get out, leaving him flummoxed and speechless, leaving him alone to mull over what he’d just lost? That would of course be the ideal way to do it. It scared me a little that I’d spent time considering this entire situation before. Had I been a suspicious person? Was I still distrusting?
Truthfully, I never thought it would happen. It wasn’t just because I didn’t think Bradley had the guts, either. These musings were a product of my insecurities. I knew that.
But now that it was happening… now that I was faced with the reality that he had been cheating, that he was going somewhere to meet someone else where handcuffs were on the menu… and champagne. I tried to kid myself, tried to think of some insane reason why he would need them.
I couldn’t, though.
The flat became nauseating. The curtains I had picked, solid lime green, began to make me dizzy. The bowl of plastic fruit I had put out as a joke on the dining table because they scared him (he reads Steven King) was now actually frightening. I stared at them, the sick yellow of a citrus finger fruit making my mouth water like I was just about to vomit. And they stared back, mocking, laughing. You bought us for him!
The room turned sideways. The air-conditioner roared. I felt a thread of anger. I tried to tug on it, turn it into a rage, but it was caught in my subconscious, tangled in amidst the rest of my feelings. I couldn’t get it out. I couldn’t take advantage of this roaring ball of energy. It was inextricable from my… disappointment.
Turbulent thoughts broke on the cliffs of my confidence, eroding from the bottom up, caving in, threatening to send the whole bluff toppling.
I took a deep breath. I knew what I would do: I would wait. I would wait to hear him out. If only I could be so fucking certain of his guilt that I could leave and never look back without feeling any guilt of my own.
Because I knew myself. I knew I’d find some way to blame myself.
So I waited and learned that I was right. I heard the keys in the lock not an hour later, tentative, and afraid. The turn of the key, dawdling and pathetic as though I might be asleep, completed its clicking revolution, and the door opened. Within the white-painted wooden frame was Bradley. Sweat made the skin above his lip shine. His eyes were like a child’s when caught. His suit hung off his limp body like drapes.
“I brought champagne,” he offered the intonation in his voice making it clear to me that he was aware of the uselessness of his attempt. At least he had tried, I thought. At least he didn’t give in straight away, wilt beneath my accusing stare. “I can explain,” he said, and he set down his briefcase.
I didn’t know what to say. But I did know that he had essentially just confirmed the worst of my suspicions. I wanted to hurl obscenities at him. I wanted to throw books at him. I wanted to be cruel, to put my finger into every open wound I knew lay in his psyche, every insecurity he had, every crack of weakness he harbored. I wanted to dig my nails in. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted him to suffer for what he’d done. And I wanted to see it, wanted to hear the pain in his voice, wanted to watch that all-too-common transformation from faux-indignation born of defensiveness to anger.
“It’s not what you think,” he said. His voice wavered andancedwavereda unneeded tension. “Me and the boys, we were”
“Don’t.” My voice was quiet and full of resolve. Its calm even caught me off-guard. It was then that I knew for sure what I was going to do, and knew what I had to say. “Please don’t. I know you weren’t with your friends.”
He looked at me then. I could see it, that balloon within him inflating. Cornered. Wild eyes. His mental claws were unsheathing themselves. That was when animals and people alike were most dangerous.
“Well, fuck!” he shouted, throwing up his hands before slapping them at his sides. “What the fuck do you want me to say, huh, Maya? You don’t think you played a part in this, too? You don’t think if it wasn’t for the state of our relationship at home-“