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.”