posted by dave on Monday, November 8, 2004 at 10:57 PM in category ramblings

Right off the bat, I need to make one thing perfectly clear.

This was all my fault. She did nothing wrong. She was always a lady. She was the perfect wife.

She just wasn't my wife.

She was married to one of my best friends. A friend who trusted me enough to ask me to keep his wife company while he was away serving our country.

It still amazes me how quickly it all happened.

For months I kept my word to my friend and, in the process, gained an even stronger friendship. For months we talked and hung out and drank and smoked together. It was the best period of my life.

Then it started. A nagging little feeling in my heart that began to grow each time we were together.

I tried to shake it off. I told myself that there was no way I could have those kinds of feelings for someone I'd never even kissed. There was no way I could betray a friendship (two friendships!) like that. I kept telling myself that it wasn't real, that it was just a phase.

I was kidding myself, and I knew it.

I'd been trusted with that which my friend prized most in the world, and, even if it was in mind only, I'd betrayed that trust. I had to get away before my terrible secret was exposed.

Those last few weeks when I rushed my Air Force discharge through, and prepared to move away - those weeks took all of the willpower I had in me. If I could just keep my feelings to myself for a little while longer, if I could just get the hell away before I blurted them out in some drunken soliloquy, I could limit the pain to myself.

It hurt to leave, but it would have hurt far more to stay. My betrayal would never have become our betrayal, and it was only a matter of time before my secret would be exposed or guessed.

For a while, after I left, we wrote each other. I even went to visit once, partly as a friend, but mostly to see if my feelings remained.

They did.

Once I returned to Seattle, I told her in a letter. I told her the words I'd only told - and meant it - two women before her. I thought she deserved a reason for what came next...

Later in the same letter, I told her goodbye.

post a comment

If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.

I'll pretty much approve anything except SPAM comments, or comments that clearly have no purpose except to piss me off, or comments that are insulting to a previous commenter.

Use anything you want for your name and email address. I think it has to at least look like a valid email address though.

mysterious gray box mysterious blue box mysterious red box mysterious green box mysterious gold box

search main 'blog

Year

Month

Category

Author

Search word(s)
   help me!

blog favorites

searching
awakening
the convenience of grief
apology
merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
paradise
nothing personal
the one
dream sweet dreams for me
the willow bends and so do i
on bloodied ground
r.i.p.
lack of inertia
gray
thinning the herd
or maybe not
here's looking at you
what i miss
peril
who wants to play?
feverish thoughts
the devil inside?
perseverance
my cat ate my homework
don't say i didn't warn you
forgiveness
my god, it's full of stars
hold on a second, koko, i'm writing something
you know?
apples and oranges
happy new year
pissing on the inside
ramblings
remembering dad


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.