I left the office at two o’clock, hailing a cab for Logan outside of my office for a six o’clock flight. I was early, but I was antsy and on edge. I hadn’t seen you in over two months. I hadn’t felt your touch, I hadn’t heard you breathe “I love you” into my ear. I wanted to know what the surprise was. Were you finally leaving Madison? Had you bought me something? We didn’t have the type of relationship that involved gifts or mementos, things that would get us caught. We existed in a perpetual state of nonexistence, always deleting texts, always swiping left on messages, I know we both saved a few pictures, hidden deeply, tucked away for safe keeping, for late nights, lonely mornings, nostalgic moments. The way to make an affair work was to leave no evidence. To leave no proof. There was nothing in my world, or so I thought that could tie me to you. We were not friends on Facebook or Instagram. I didn’t follow you on Twitter, I wasn’t even sure if you had Twitter. Outside of the tiny microcosm we had created, population of two, we didn’t exist. I was overwrought with anticipation as I entered the airport and cleared security. I found a seat by the window of an airport bar and ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio. I didn’t eat. I couldn’t eat. I just sat and drank and waited for my plane to be called. You sent me a text around four, “I’m on my way to the airport. I’ll see you soon darling. I love you. So much. I can’t wait to hold you in my arms again.” That was the last time I ever heard from you.

I arrived in New York City at seven. The flight from Boston was only about an hour. I hailed a cab and headed to the Crowne Plaza in Times Square. I knew you weren’t as cautious as I was and that my name would be on the reservation so that I could check in when I arrived. I checked in without incident and ordered two bottles of wine to be sent to the room. I went upstairs and changed into black lace lingerie I had purchased on a whim after Arizona. Looking back now I realized I had bought it to wear on the night we were finally together as a couple and not as a secret, to celebrate our “coming clean” and starting our life together. It was supposed to be my surprise to you to celebrate our first night of freedom. I didn’t hear from you, but I knew your flight had landed at JFK. I waited. Nine o’clock, then ten, then eleven, came and went. I sat on the bed. I was drunk, having finished both bottles of the wine I had ordered for us. I turned my phone off and on to make sure it wasn’t the issue. I texted you, “baby? I’m waiting.” At midnight I called you but went straight to voicemail. At some point I finally fell asleep, on top of the covers, wine glass in hand, the last sip spilling onto the duvet and my leg, the tv on for distraction.

I awoke with a jolt around six in the morning, hungover, head pounding and stomach churning. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. It was nothing but bile and undigested white wine. I was thankful I hadn’t eaten anything the day before. I checked my phone. I had a message from Robert asking if I had gotten in and complaining that the cat had thrown up a hair ball on the couch, but there was nothing from you. I called your phone again and again I went straight to voicemail. “You’ve reached Thomas Hunter, you know what to do.” I didn’t leave a message.

I took off the lingerie and put on a pair of workout pants and a t-shirt. I wasn’t going for a run, but I didn’t have anything else comfortable to wear and I felt ridiculous walking around a lonely hotel suite in a negligée. I sat down on the bed, a rage of emotions. I pulled the pillow up to my face and screamed into it. I punched it repeatedly, cussing, at me, at you, at life. I called myself stupid and pathetic. I texted you again, “are you ok? What’s going on? I’m worried sick!” Nothing. Thirty minutes later I texted again, “Thomas, seriously, what the hell?” Where are you?” And thirty minutes after that, “what the fuck is your problem? Who the hell do you think you are? Fuck you Thomas!” I started crying, I mean ugly crying, sobbing into my hands, horrible choking sounds coming from my body, my nose running, spitting as I gasped for air, I caught sight of myself in the mirror above the dresser and didn’t recognize the woman looking back at me. Red, face contorted in anger and pain, snot running from her nose, hair standing up at all angles. I started laughing at the stranger across the room from me. Quietly at first, then a huge guffaw erupted from me and I couldn’t stop. I laughed and cried so hard that my ribs hurt for days after. I finally exhausted myself and I curled up into a ball at the bottom of the bed and I slept.

It was after four when I woke up. Spent. Empty. Hungry. I picked up the phone to call room service or maybe you, but deciding I couldn’t spend another moment in the room alone, I got up instead, took a shower, packed my bags and hailed a cab back to La Guardia. I was able to get on a flight leaving New York at ten, I texted Robert, told him the meeting hadn’t gone well and the client wasn’t going to pan out and that I was coming home. I sat in the airport, staring at my phone, willing it to ring, praying you would call me or text me. I paced the terminal. I threw up again. I went home.

The Lyft driver pulled into our driveway around midnight. I gathered my bags and made my way up the driveway to our front door. Halfway up the walk I changed directions and headed for the backyard. I didn’t smoke, I hadn’t in years, but I knew Robert kept a secret stash hidden in the grill. He thought I didn’t know, we both decided to quit when we got married, but I knew he hadn’t. I had found lighters in his pants pockets, cigarette butts in the yard, I knew the smell of stale smoke on clothing and I knew you couldn’t smoke inside in Boston, so I knew, he still smoked. I set my bags down on the patio, found what I was searching for, went to the outside bar and grabbed a bottle of beer. I sat on the back deck until two in the morning. Smoking Robert’s cigarettes, drinking his beer, and reevaluating my life. After a few beers I had made up my mind. I was done with you. I was over this. There had been so many slights over the past year, but this was unforgivable. I had rearranged my life for you. I had lied to my husband. I had been a part of you lying to your wife. I had lived for a year, wracked with guilt, constantly paranoid, and yet so head over heels in love with you that I didn’t care. I had become a master of excuses, telling myself that what we were doing was acceptable because it was true love. That what we were doing wasn’t wrong because what we had found in each other was real. I turned us into the victims, two people in loveless relationships, unhappy and unappreciated, miserable in our lives, fighting for something that would lift that veil and lead to happily ever after. At two in the morning, on the eve of our one-year anniversary I ran out of excuses.

Sunday was a manic blur. I unpacked, I went for a run, the first time I had run in almost two months. I punished myself, pushing myself to run hard and far. I came home and deleted your number from my phone. I deleted every picture I had saved of you and of us. I wiped you from my life, but I couldn’t erase you from my mind. I played it out in my head over and over again, sometimes I would imagine getting a text from you and ignoring it. I’d set deadlines, “if he texts me on Monday, I’ll text him back on Wednesday, let him see how it feels to be ignored.” “If he texts me, I’ll respond and say, I’m sorry, I don’t have this number stored in my phone. Who is this?” I did this for weeks. Different scenarios, different responses. I ran each morning, sweating out the hate and the hurt I felt. I went to work. I jumped every time my phone rang or buzzed. I’d close my eyes and pray, “please be Thomas”, but it never was. I tried stalking you and Madison on Facebook, but both of your accounts were private and I could only see your profile pictures. I resisted the urge to Google you. The days stretched on. The nights were longer. I didn’t sleep, I was barely eating, my nutrition came from wine or Tito’s. Robert noticed a change. At first, he was understanding, trying to figure out what was wrong with me, but after about two weeks of my zombie-like existence he became angry. We fought about my drinking, we fought about my lack of interest in our life, the lack of dinners, the lack of lunches, that lack of food in our refrigerator, the lack of sex, the fact that I didn’t speak when I was home, or shower on the weekends. Robert and I fought about everything and about nothing. My grand plan to erase you, to be done, to let you go, was an epic failure. You consumed me and I hated you for it.

As the days stretched into weeks and the weeks into a month the hurt started to subside. The pain I felt stopped haunting me every hour. I found myself laughing at shows on television, I went to the grocery store, I started cooking again and I stopped drinking. I was healing, it was a slow process, but I was getting there. I still sometimes cried myself to sleep at night, but it wasn’t every night. There were still times when I heard a song that reminded me of you and my heart skipped a beat. There were moments when I remembered the way your mouth felt on mine and my breath caught in my chest, but these moments were fading and I was regaining my life and my confidence. There were times when I wondered what you were doing, I imagined you going out to dinner and movie with Madison, smiling, laughing, holding her hand, I saw you at the grocery store, picking wine you liked or contemplating which steak to bring home, but it wasn’t every day. I was letting you go, I was moving on. It’s strange to me now, how this works, the pain, so sharp and piercing at first, so overwhelming that you can’t get out of bed or imagine taking one step toward the shower, so raw that your very being is shaken to it’s core, so strong that your body physically aches; how something that powerful can simply subside, can simply ebb like the tide and slowly disappear baffled me, but I was thankful. I had lived too long in your shadow. I had lived too long in this pain and rejection. I looked forward to the day you know longer haunted my dreams. I looked forward to the day you no longer existed.

I was at the office about a month and a half after you had stood me up in New York City, I was going over my notes from an early meeting with a new author we had recently signed when my administrative assistant buzzed me and said there was a Madison Hunter in the lobby. I stood there, frozen in place, my voice lost, “Mrs. West? Lana? Did you hear me? Madison Hunter is here, she says she has an appointment.”

Returning to Boston was like stepping out of a dream. I was groggy, disoriented, and confused. The life I knew had been completely upended. I was in my house, with my husband, at my job, in my office, with my coworkers, and yet, I felt like a stranger. Thoughts of you consumed me. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I lost eight pounds in the first week I was home. Nothing was suffering on the outside, I got up, made coffee, packed lunch for Robert and me, I went to work, I got shit done, like I always do, but on the inside I was panicked, I was frantic. After over a week of being gone I had a lot to catch up on, I was thankful for the work and the distraction. New manuscripts had come in, old manuscripts had been sent back. I was rocking and rolling like I always had, but I was lost.

You texted me two days later. “I miss you. I miss your body. I miss your lips.” I was at work, knee-deep in a new manuscript from a young author writing about their life as a child in New Orleans after Katrina, I was interested and I thought it had potential. I tried to ignore you, I made it three minutes before I responded. “I can’t handle this. I can’t stop thinking about you. I need to see you.” I had a conference in Savannah the following week. You agreed to meet me there. I booked my flight, extending the stay through the weekend. I went home and told Robert I’d be gone from Wednesday until Sunday night. He didn’t even question it. It was so easy, the lie, the excuse, I was shocked at how simple it was. I don’t know what you told Madison; I didn’t care. I spent two nights in Savannah alone, listening to industry execs speak about finding young talent, cultivating young authors, I was distracted, I learned nothing. The conference ended at 3:30 on Friday and your flight didn’t arrive until 8:47. I checked into the hotel alone, I booked a different hotel in the even that someone from the conference had also stayed on for an extended weekend. I didn’t give your name or leave a key for you at the front desk. I was flying under the radar and I was paranoid. I went to the hotel gym and ran for an hour on the treadmill. I showered. I changed clothes fifteen times and I waited.

At 9:30 there was a knock at the door. I looked through the peep-hole and saw you standing there. I opened the door, stood to one side and let you in. I shut the door behind us, turned the lock and closed the safety latch. You turned to face me; my back was against the door. Without a word, you embraced my face with both hands and kissed me. We spent forever at the door, kissing, sighing, loving, your hands moved across my shoulders and pulled the sweater I was wearing to the floor. I felt my hands slip under your shirt and began to lift it off your body. I pulled it up and over your head. We stood there, me in my dress and you half-naked, just touching, just admiring, not speaking. “You’re here” I whispered, “I’m here” you affirmed. We spent forever at that door, slowly sinking to the ground in the entryway, pulling at each other’s clothes, undressing each other on the patterned carpet, your bag still at our feet, my discarded sweater in a mound underneath, your shirt somewhere.

We didn’t speak for the rest of the night, but somehow made it from the floor to the bed. I have never known anyone like you. You were insatiable. You were constant. I did things with you I didn’t know were possible. That night transcended prior experience, movies, romance novels; I was completely unfettered and untethered. I let myself go and gave into you. For two days we didn’t leave the room. We didn’t explore Savannah, we didn’t eat a restaurant, we didn’t go to a bar, we didn’t walk hand in hand along the water front as I had imagined, there were no moments of us embracing and kissing in front of a store, of us holding hands across a table as we shared dessert. We ordered room service when we were hungry and ate in bed. We showered together when we felt dirty or just compelled to feel the hot water on our skin. I had brought so many outfits with me; I didn’t need any of them.

Our flights left Sunday night around six in the evening. We shared a cab to the airport. We stood in line for security together, you were holding my hand. You walked me to my gate. I left 45 minutes before you did. We were in the same terminal. We stood there as they boarded my zone, and I didn’t go. I stood there with you, head pressed into your chest, crying, gripping your shirt in both hands, sobbing. I had to go; I was the last person to board the plane and the gate agent was annoyed with me. I released you slowly, kissed you one last time and walked away. I turned to look back at you as I entered the jet bridge, I turned to look again as I was halfway down it, you were there, at the entrance, watching me leave. I turned one last time before I boarded the plane, but the bend in the walkway obscured you from view. I boarded the flight, found my seat in First Class and as we pulled out, I saw you, standing at the window, I pushed my hand against the window. I felt so hopeless. I was leaving you and leaving us. I was going back to reality and my husband, I couldn’t and didn’t imagine a future for us but I needed you to see me, sobbing at the window, hand on the glass, heartbroken and torn; to this day I have no idea if you did or could see me.

This was our existence, for almost year. We capitalized on conferences and work meetings. We both had jobs that required travel. We both had spouses that didn’t question us. We both made things up when we had to and escaped to places like Fort Lauderdale or Denver or Grand Rapids, where ever the wind and the airlines would take us. We saw each other at least once a month, sometimes more. Always different cities and always different reasons; I was meeting a new, potential client, you were attending a conference on something related to construction. Every trip was a new lie and a new adventure. Yet, every trip was the same. We didn’t leave our room. We didn’t explore the city. We ordered food when we were hungry, we showered when we felt dirty, we enjoyed each other in ways I didn’t know was possible, and we always cried when our time together was over. We had been together and apart for almost ten months. We had lied and cheated and cajoled our way through random cities and hotels. You sent me a picture once of my plane flying overhead, I replied, ” that’s the saddest sight I’ve ever seen.” We were always excited at the onset, depressed at the departure, and longing for more. I was completely lost and engrossed in this lie. I was drowning in guilt and yet devoid of remorse. I was, with all my being, in love with you. All I needed was for you to tell me to leave and I would be gone. I was so lost in you. I was, as Sandra Dee sang, hopelessly devoted to you. I was yours.

I don’t think people really understand the effort it takes to have an affair. It’s emotional. It’s taxing. It’s exhausting. You’re living a lie. Every day you have two lives, the one you know and the one you are hiding from everyone. I couldn’t talk to anyone about you. I felt isolated in my world and in my life. I had this huge secret I couldn’t share with anyone. It was eating away at me. I wanted to tell someone, anyone, I didn’t care. There were moments when I handed a five-dollar bill to a homeless person on the street and I wanted to grab him by the shirt collar and scream, “I’m having an affair with a man I am pretty sure I am love with and I don’t know what to do about it!” At home I strove to be the perfect wife. I cooked dinner. I talked idly about my day. I was engaged and present. At least as far as Robert could tell. I would be sitting across the table from Robert at dinner, listening to a story about his day at work, smiling and nodding at all the right places, but in my mind, I was with you. Sometimes I would be sitting there, listening to him and texting you. We’d watch television at night and my phone would buzz and it would be a text from you and I’d casually answer you and have this whole conversation while he sat there, next to me, on the couch. I had drinks with my best friend, but I couldn’t tell her about you. We laughed and talked about her kids, our jobs, our husbands, our woes, but never about you. I look back now and wonder if she knew. If somehow after all these years of friendship she had figured out there was something different, there was something up, but she never said a word and neither did I.

About ten months after this whirlwind romance began I had a conference in Phoenix. It was an entire week, Monday through Friday, but I decided I could fly in Friday night, even though the conference started Monday and stay through the following weekend. We could have ten days together. Somehow, you found a way. I don’t know what your excuse was, but Friday night you met me at the hotel in Jerome. My conference was actually in Sedona, about twenty miles from Jerome, it was a weird, 8:00 – 12:00 daily and then done style conference. There were options after lunch for spas or hikes with the group but I wasn’t interested, I didn’t sign up for anything that would take me away from you. We spent our time in Jerome alone. We stayed at the old haunted hotel that used to be the hospital; we ate at the Asylum, the hotel restaurant each night and took glasses of wine back to our room each night. We stayed up until the wee hours of morning laughing and joking about the elevator that ascended on its own and the ghosts that opened and closed the bathroom door each night. I went to work in the morning, exhausted but invigorated and met you for lunch for each day. We had almost ten days to ourselves. In that time, I came to know you. I mean, we couldn’t have sex all the time, so we actually talked. I learned all there was to know about. I knew your dreams. Your fears. Your aspirations. You called it twenty-one questions, which made me laugh, because I had always called it twenty-questions, and every night we just went back and forth asking each other the most random questions from what is your favorite color to what is your deepest desire. We both wanted a McLaren, although different models, we’re both afraid of falling, but not heights, we both love sushi, but you hated the how My Name is Earl, which I loved. At some point, I think it was Thursday, you and I decided that this was real. I loved you and you loved me. This wasn’t some lascivious tryst and we weren’t crazy, we were supposed to be together. We decided that night that we would tell Robert and Madison and that we would leave them. We knew it wouldn’t be easy. We knew there would be a whole lot of “paperwork” and bullshit, but we knew we had to do it. We created a plan. We spent the rest of the week hashing it out and making decisions. I owned most of everything in my life, I had been married before so I had started my life over and bought everything alone before Robert came into the picture. Robert came to me from a second marriage as well and was as dubious as I was about joint checking accounts and shared assets. My break would be easy compared to yours. You would have to deal with Madison and the alimony, she was a stay at home wife, she didn’t work. She had never been married before. You were all she knew. We knew you’d have to support her after you left. We knew we’d pay for this for the rest of our lives, but leaving Jerome and Arizona, we didn’t care, it was time for us to get on with our lives. We were going to work this out. We were going to be ok. We were going to be together.

It’s funny how easy things sound when you’re planning them out over wine, in bed, at two o’clock in the morning compared to the reality of actually coming home and saying it out loud. I got home, unpacked, packed lunches, and went to work on Monday. We hadn’t set a deadline, we hadn’t established a timeline for the departure from our current lives. I told myself, “just do it Friday, then you have the weekend to fight it out”, but Friday came and went, the weekend passed without incident and Robert and I attend a cookout at our neighbors and everything was as it should be. I hadn’t said a word to Robert because I hadn’t heard from you since we left each other’s arms in Arizona. Granted, this wasn’t the first time you had disappeared on me. Early disappearances had left me rejected and angry. I would start with innocuous texts like, “baby?”, “you there?”, “everything ok?”, but it was always radio silence on your end. It drove me wild with fear and doubt. I would lash out, I would attack you. I was so mad and so confused, I didn’t know what I had done to deserve being ignored. I’d send increasingly panicked texts and call at all hours of the night. Eventually though I ran out of steam, my resolve weakened and I convinced myself you weren’t in it like I was. And just when I had given up, just when I had gotten to the “to hell with you Thomas” part of the saga and was ready to let you go, you would reappear, always with an excuse, always saying how sorry you were, always drawing me back in. Work had been crazy, Madison had been too present, your phone died and you didn’t have a charger, you had a million excuses. I bought them all. After a few months, I stopped panicking when you disappeared, I stopped caring (oh the lies we tell ourselves), and I went straight to the “to hell with you Thomas” reaction and I didn’t try, I didn’t lash out, I didn’t text repeatedly. I told myself it’s over and that’s ok, it’s a good thing. It didn’t matter though, you always came back, and I always answered.

After Arizona you disappeared for almost three weeks and when you resurfaced neither of us mentioned our plan to leave our spouses. You just sent me a text that said, “I’m sorry love, things were crazy here”, and we moved on. I got texts from you in the next two months reminiscing about our time in Jerome, the fun we had, the nights we spent together, the ghosts, but we didn’t see each other. We didn’t plan other work trips to mask our escapes, we didn’t contemplate our departure from our current lives. You didn’t call me randomly on your lunch break to talk to me and you didn’t send me pictures of you at your desk. I felt like things were cooling down. I started preparing myself for the fact that this was an impossible dream, that this was a stupid teenage fantasy and that real-life would prevail and we were not meant to be together. I started to give up on you and I and accept that my life in Boston with Robert was the life I was meant to have. I tried to convince my daily that I wasn’t in love with you. That I didn’t care if you disappeared. I found myself despondent. I was drinking every night after work. Wine as I cooked dinner, Tito’s after work, sometimes beer if I was feeling responsible. I quit running. I quit going to the gym. I sat on my couch, drink close at hand and I stared at my phone, willing it to ring, willing you to text me. I was a hollow reminder of who I once was. I was a shell. And I hated you for it.

You sent me a text, it was after midnight, I was in bed, Robert snoring beside me, “I miss you. I want us to be together. In one week, it will be the one-year anniversary of us meeting. Can I see you?” I was proud of myself, I waited until almost noon the next day to respond, “where do you want to meet?”. “Meet me in New York City, I have a surprise for you.” I booked my flight that afternoon, you took care of the hotel. I would be seeing you in two days. I would be in your arms again. After two months of random texts, of not seeing you, of not knowing and of fretting, I was going to be away with you for three nights in the Big Apple. I was nervous. I was excited. I was all yours, drawn back in, again.