Undone

You always think you'll know how you'd react under pressure... until the pressure presents itself

Bring up the topic of cheating in any room, and the answers are always interesting. Most people say they’d fight their significant other. Others say they’d fight the other party. Some even say they’d fight both while others say they’d quietly leave. I didn’t know what kind of person I was until recently.

The moment I walked in the door, I knew something was off. It was the energy. It didn’t feel right. I closed the door louder than usual hoping that whatever it was would reveal itself, but it only seemed to stick like a thick fog.

As if on autopilot, I walked up the stairs of our two-bedroom townhouse and the feeling only worsened. Photos chronicling our relationship hung on the wall to my right, but everything in my peripherals seemed to be gray, and flaky, like the last remnants of embers from a fire.

The closer I got to the landing, the more narrow my eyesight became. The energy I’d walked into was now equivalent to a sort of mud that had caked up to my knees.

I turned the corner towards the bedroom door, still hoping I was wrong.

Even over the sound of the blood rushing into my ears, I could hear my fiancé in the most intimate embrace with someone who wasn’t me. And from the noises coming from the room, they weren’t expecting me for some time.

Before ever being faced with this moment, I thought I’d be the type to walk away quietly. Pick up what remained of my pride, and lick my wounds in private. Instead I was frozen at the door unable to move. I was stuck. I felt myself unable to take a deep breath as my entire world crumbled on the other side of that door.

I didn’t want it to be real. I hoped I was imagining things, but when they finished, and the door opened, everything stopped. The look in his eyes, a mixture of shame, surprise and something undefined met me. The person on the bed was making some sort of gesture, but I couldn’t tell. All I could see were his eyes.

I don’t even remember going into the kitchen let alone grabbing the knife. Honestly, I don’t remember walking away from the front of the door. But as the cold steel of handcuffs settled on my wrists, I realized I was in a different category of person. Someone who shouldn’t ever have to find out the answer to that question.