too good for me. I’ve made so many mistakes and this is going to crush her and hurt her more than it should. It meant nothing to me back then, but it’ll mean everything to her right now. And I hate it.
“There’s something I’ve got to tell you.” As I say the words I look Kat in the eyes, and her face changes. She has this way of hiding her emotions, but it doesn’t last long. She’s looking at me with a hard stare and her lips pressed into a thin line. She gives it to me all the time, but I know the second I give her silence, that mouth will open and every emotion she’s feeling will show. She can’t hide it from me.
“When you asked me about Samantha, if I’d slept with her,” I have to break off from my thought and take in another breath.
The clink of Kat’s fork hitting the ceramic plate makes my chest feel tight. She lets out a small sound, almost a sigh but weighted down with a bitter hopelessness.
“I told you the truth, that I haven’t been with anyone since we got married,” I say and watch her eyes, her expression, everything about her, but she doesn’t look back at me. Her shoulders rise, like she’s holding her breath and waiting for a bomb to go off.
“It was years ago, Kat. Before I knew how much you meant to me.” The words come up my throat as if they’re scratching and digging to stay buried down deep inside of me.
Her expression crumples the second I hint at the affair. If you can even call it that. “I felt like I was lying to you. Every. Single. Time.” I bang my fist on the table and the plates rattle with each word and make Kat jump, but I can’t help it. “I felt like a bastard when I looked you in the eyes and said nothing happened, because you should have already known.”
“When?” Kat asks me.
“I swear that night in the papers was about something else. Something that has nothing to do with that woman or sleeping with her. It was–”
“When!” she screams out the question as her eyes gloss over. She doesn’t stop staring at me, but the emotion I expect to see isn’t there. It’s only anger, a furious rage that stares back at me. “When did you sleep with her?”
“The night I got the call from my mother,” I swallow thickly and add, “I was with her.”
“The night she told you?” she asks me with a morbid tone and I nod, feeling that acid churn in my stomach as my clammy hands clench. “You were at the company party?” she asks instantly, although it’s more of her recollecting than an actual question. She didn’t even have to take a second to think about it. But I guess that night is something that will forever stay with both of us.
“You were supposed to take me out that night,” Kat says and each word sounds sadder and sadder as she looks away from me. “You were fucking her while at work.”
“It was a one-time thing. A mistake. I didn’t know who she was and things were getting serious with us, Kat. You don’t understand. It wasn’t how it seems.” I stumble over my words. Leaning closer to her and reaching for her, but she pushes away from the table, slamming her palms against it and scooting the chair back.
My hands fly into the air, keeping them up. As if I’m not a threat. Trying to keep her here with me to give me a chance to explain.
“Look, we were getting serious and I needed … I don’t know how to explain it.”
“You didn’t want to be with me anymore so you went and slept with the first girl to bat her eyes at you?” she asks although it’s an accusation and a bitter one at that.
I can’t explain how pathetic I feel as she looks at me like I’m the devil. It was just a game back then. I wish I could change it. If I’d known what Kat would mean to me, I’d have put a ring on her finger the moment I laid eyes on her. I never would have done anything to risk what we had. Lies. So many lies, a voice whispers. If that was the truth, I wouldn’t have needed to call Samantha with my eyes on a lifeless body in the corporate hotel room. If