not sure why this rises up tonight. an event from many years ago.
(recording available: infidelity )
I remember how it felt, coming around the corner, into the room, and seeing them there. At first, total halt, the brain refusing to process. Eyes wide and staring without reaction from the mind; taking it all within me in ways I would hate and regret later; Things that did not register in the moment, which would return to taunt and haunt.
I did not realize I had made a sound, but I must have. A gasp perhaps, maybe a groan. Hard to say, but it was galvanic to them. Springing apart, faces shifting from flushes, rosy delight to the blanching white of fear and surprise, which in turn faded into either embarrassment or anger, depending upon which one you were looking at in the moment.
This too, only occurred to me in later moments. I do not recall registering any of it as I stood there, hands loose by my sides, keys finally on the ground, dropped from numb fingers.
The most awkward of silences, it felt like it stretched forever though I know it could only possibly been seconds, if not a split second. I said nothing. They looked so expectant that it seemed nothing was the only thing to give them.
Spun on my heel and walked quickly out. Didn’t think about my clothing. Didn’t think about my things. Didn’t think about anything other than the chant in my head telling me to get out. “Get out. You are not wanted here. You are not welcome here. You were unsatisfactory, lacking, not good enough. Go away. This is not home.”
I remember he chased me down the street ‘wanting to explain’. Why do they always feel like they need to? Some things never need explaining. Some things are said so well without words that explaining is an insult.
The look of him, face buried in her shoulder. The way her hair spilled over his hands and they gripped through it. The look on her face, eyes closed, head back, and flushed. How they twined with one another; heedless, lost in it.
I looked at him and shrugged and said, “What is to explain?” It threw him. My calm. I was glad of it. So very glad he could not hear the things inside my head, so very glad the things inside my head could not get out and make crimson stains all over the place.
He actually had the nerve to look upset with me, “You mean you don’t care?” I think back on it and can easily say that is the closest I have ever come to letting myself cross the un-crossable line. I could feel her rising up, the nameless one, her father’s daughter, with hands that could hurt, that could kill, and could do so without ever as much as blinking for it.
He was angry that I would not react. In the midst of his own betrayal, more concerned that he wasn’t the centerpiece of all things, more important than what his choices and actions had done. More important than anything or anyone. More important than me, for sure.
I just shook my head at him, “What does it matter if I care or not?” Allowing myself the sharp movement, I thrust my hand in a gesture back to the door of the house, where she stood, watching, “It obviously didn’t matter well enough to keep the door closed.”
He said nothing and that said everything. I lowered my hand and spoke quietly, “I will be back to get my things tomorrow.” He just nodded and turned and walked away, back to her.
I do not remember the rest of the night. I woke up on the sofa at a friend’s house and they took me to get my things. I stayed with my friend for a week, then found a room to let and moved on.
That’s what I tell myself. But I still remember the feeling… the feeling of finding that once more, I did not belong, did not fit, and was not sufficient.
They call it infidelity. The root words meaning, literally to be lacking in faith. I’ve always loved how words can be so telling. Nothing in this life is possible if you are unable to believe in it. But when it comes to infidelity, it seems the lack of faith is not as much in the ideal of ‘the relationship’ as it is in another person.
I remember the feeling of it crawling over me as I watched a man I had given all my faith to tell me silently and unequivocally that he had no faith in me.
He appeared at my table some years later, as I was having dinner. He was apologetic and appeasing and oddly enough, hopeful. It was then that I realized that he had no faith in himself.
It was a sad moment for me, even as it was such a moment of clarity. It made sense now, why he had no faith in me, and why he could be there, talking to me as if it was so normal a thing. I told him so. When he asked the inevitable question, I told him that it was impossible for me to have faith in him when he so obviously had no faith in himself.
He didn’t understand. He thought I was just ‘getting back at him’, I could see it in his eyes. He said, “Yeah, I guess I deserve that.” And I put my finger to his mouth and shushed him and said, “No, actually, you do not. But there’s no amount of faith in me that can lift you to what you deserve. It isn’t something I can give you. You have to give it to yourself.”
He shook his head and walked away and I returned to my meal. As I was leaving, I could see him sidling up to a pretty woman at the bar. I was not happy for it; I wasn’t happy for what I knew he was missing and wanted so badly, just as I was not happy for my own continued missing of it.
But I was content to know that while the difference is not visible from the surface, it is present and it makes all the difference in the world. Or at least, it will, some day.