Who We Once Were

A short story about love, marriage, and infidelity.

As I sat there on the edge of the dirty hotel bed with the man, who was not my husband, undressed and sleeping soundly next to me I began to reminisce. My mind wandered back to the day that Anthony and I took a spontaneous bike ride around the small city we had been living in for almost ten years and had grown to know very well. Having been married for only a year, we had a different outlook on life. Back then I used to believe we could do anything, overcome anything, as long as we had each other by our side. This was before the loss and the devastation that comes with life. That beautiful day was looked upon through new eyes. Eyes that were hopelessly in love and shaded in rose. Eyes that had not yet looked into the face of despair. 

            I remember wrapping my arms around his waist as he rode on the streets and sidewalks of our familiar town, though to me, it was not familiar. It was as if I was seeing the town for the first time. The trees were covered in small cherry blossoms and when the wind blew, the blossoms would float away. Not aimlessly, they floated as if they had a purpose, as if they were leading us into a full life of happiness. I could not have been more incorrect about this. Now the years have passed and looking back this once happy memory, has turned sour and makes me sad. The bitterness I feel toward the happy couple we once were is something I will never be able to explain to those who peer into my life through the windows that confine me in our suffering marriage. 

            “How had things become so bad? How had I allowed them to get here?” I asked myself as I began to quietly pull on my clothes. Though, it did not feel as though I were pulling on clothes at all. With every layer I add I feel naked, covered by nothing but the shame of my infidelity. I know how we had arrived at the suffocating point in our marriage that we are currently in, I knew the mistakes I had made and the hardships that we had encountered to get here. I never dreamed things would get so bad that I would seek love and attention in the arms of a man that I did not know nor did I love. 

            As I look around the pestiferous room that I entered in a drunken stupor late last night, I begin to notice the things that I did not notice then. The walls are stained with nicotine and the paintings that adorn them are faded and ugly. As I survey the room I begin to become overwhelmed with something. A recognition of sorts that I knowingly committed the worst sin I could imagine against a man that I love, in a room that is as dank, disgusting, and shameful as I am. The life we have found ourselves in is one of pure happenstance, it was shaped by outside forces that began to shrink the walls that once abounded with love. “I love my husband, our life was so beautiful” I thought to myself as I gathered my keys and purse, I feel my eyes begin to well with tears as I realize the gravity what I have done. 

            I begin the five block walk to our apartment, where my husband is surely waiting for me. My mind wanders back to the memory of that day on the town. We had everything we could have needed, a house, happiness, solid sustainable income, and each other. Three years into our marriage, Anthony lost his job. We tried so hard to come back from this, he searched for jobs every day for hours upon hours. As the days passed and there was no luck found, I began to see him lose hope. Each day he smiled less, laughed less, and said less. I could feel the walls he was building around himself become stronger and stronger with every rejection interview and every failed search. Walls that were thick and dark with depression. He began to shrink into himself and push me further and further away. Of course, he didn’t know he was pushing me away. I knew things were becoming bleak for him but I also knew we would be able to weather this one storm together and move forward. I believed this every day until the day an eviction notice was posted on our front door, alone the income from my job was not enough. This was the day I saw my husband finally reach his breaking point and give up. 

            I begin to pass the familiar shops that near my house and my anxiety grows as I know what is waiting for me when I get home. With that eviction notice, we were forced to pack up the life we had built and move to a small studio apartment on the opposite side of town and away from the life we had built. Though I knew the life we had built together had ceased to exist for a long time prior to this move. This was when the fights began. Fights that I started over nothing and only did so because I knew when we argued, it was the only time my husband could look at me. I knew he was ashamed of the fact that he hadn’t been able to find a job in almost two years. I knew he hated himself for not being able to take care of me the way that his father took care of his mother. What he didn’t know at the time was that having him near me was enough for me, that we could live this shoe string life as long as I had him next to me. I would have been happy. 

            We began to drift apart as things became worse. With every bill we received, we grew further and further apart. I can’t even tell you when we started sleeping in separate rooms, truth be told when we did I didn’t even notice. All I wanted was for him to tell me he loved me and that everything was going to be okay. Except he never did that, he watched tv and drank constantly. “What am I going to tell him?” I ask myself as I near our home. I know that he will know where I went last night and why I was gone for such a long time. He may have lost his confidence but he will never lose his cunning ability to know when I am lying. 

            I arrive at the small bakery that resides below our small apartment. I stop as I always have so I could smell the fresh baked bread that wafted from the open front door. This time, I don’t smell bread of any kind. I smell only the scent of the cologne from the stranger from the bar. It makes me sick to my stomach to smell him again. With the nauseating smell filling my nostrils, I reach for the knob for the door to the stairs that will bring me to our home and to my waiting husband. Apprehensively, I climb the familiar stairs until I arrive at our door. I gaze upon the slanted 103 that resides on our front door as it always has. As I take a deep breath and open the door to our familiar apartment, I prepare myself for the inevitable. I prepare myself to look into the eyes of the broken man that I love, I prepare myself for the detriment of our once beautiful marriage. Letting the breath out, I open the door and standing behind it in the entry way is Anthony. His eyes are red with tears and his clothes are spotted with sweat from worry. The thoughts of who we once were swell in my mind as I begin to sob looking at him.

            “Where do we go from here?” I ask myself as I look upon the man that I have come to know so well. He knows what I have done. “Where do we go from here?” He asks me as tears well up in his eyes.