The Main Thing To Note

Three years ago, I cheated on my then-girlfriend, Kate. The circumstances had been spectacularly typical: a struggling long distance relationship, a copious amount of alcohol, and an overly-flirtatious party guest. I guess perhaps the only other aspect worth noting was that the night happened to be the Friday the 13th of that October.

But the main thing to note is that it happened.

That Sunday, Kate had caught a ride with a classmate of hers from the University of Arizona to come up to Phoenix. She had planned this ahead of time so that she could spend the day with her family.

The weekend before, I had promised that I would drive her back to Tucson that night. Kate had called my apartment at about 9:00 pm to let me know that she was ready to leave.

I had gone to pick her up.

She later told me that she had known the moment she had answered the door and seen my face that something was very, very, wrong.

We had been driving almost an hour. She had been in a bubbly mood, talking and laughing about her family and friends at school. I had been making only one-word responses and the occasional grunt. As we approached a rest-stop, her mood suddenly became serious. �Pull over when we get there.� I nodded, avoiding her eyes. "Now, tell me what's wrong."

And there, in the antiseptic, orange, glow of the rest-stop lights, I told her everything.

She bore the news as well as I had expected her to.

After she had returned to the car, where I was still sitting and staring morosely at nothing, we resumed our journey.

She had asked me a lot of questions. Most of them began with �Why?� I don�t remember what I told her. Then she asked why I had waited so long to tell her. I had said, �I don�t know.�

I had been lying.

I knew why I hadn't wanted to tell her.

There are times when you know all the way down to the bottom of your heart that the next words out of your mouth are going to change everything forever. Inside, you get an inkling of the stark, bitter, loneliness a god might feel when there is no one else to blame in all of existence.

The reason I hadn�t told Kate right away is because I had wanted to extend the last few moments left on this Earth in which she didn�t utterly despise me. It was an empty indulgence, of course. A petty, self-delusional, and perverse indulgence.

Because delaying the truth, believing that you can buy yourself time before speaking those relationship-altering words is an illusion.

You can�t buy yourself time before you say them.

You started saying them the moment you chose your course of action.

And you will continue your soliloquy.

Hopefully, when you decide to stop, that person is still even willing to listen.