Behind Those Eyes

    "We need to talk." Those were the words that came from the mouth of my wife. I was making dinner, something that I had been doing the past several months. Normally I wouldn't mind the task, but…
     "Um… I… I'm not sure how to say it. I, uh… I know that you've noticed that I've been a bit more distant than usual." So it was going to be this. I think I didn't want to believe that this had happened. But I composed myself; hopefully I was overreacting. I stopped what I was doing and motioned for her to take a seat at the table. She paused a bit. My silence of late has been intimidating, especially when I've always been open and willing to talk to her. Eventually, she sat down, pulling the wooden chair out. Her legs were shaking. Already I didn't like where this was headed.
      "Feel free to say what's on your mind," I told her as I took my own seat. I made sure to keep myself under the table. I still wasn't sure what my reaction would be when she told me, and I didn't want to risk hurting her. Regardless of how painful the thought was, I didn't want to hurt her back at all. I loved her too much still.
       She looked at me, and I matched her brown eyes with my blue ones. Tears were starting to form in her eyes, and she quickly looked away. But that brief second of eye contact told me everything that I needed to know. I took a deep breath and began to calm myself, remembering how to keep the heat of any battle from getting to me. Over the years, it started to become second nature to me. It seemed that lately I had to focus more and remember how to do something that was second nature to me.
     "I… I… I've be… been…" Maybe she was waiting for me to finish it, but I folded my hands and waited patiently for her to say it. Her voice grew quiet and her skin began to pale as it dawned on her how much she did something neither of us thought we would ever do. "A-an… An affair." She closed her eyes, and I did as well.
     I was quiet for a long time. I'm not sure who felt it more that an eternity passed. My hands were folded, covering my mouth. A grimace took over my features and I began to shake. After a great deal of time had passed, I expelled a breath of air and said, "I know."
     It was true. I don't know why I thought not bringing it up or not talking about it would make what I saw a few months ago go away, but something in me just wished it wasn't true. I dated the woman for five years before marrying her. She wasn't like this. She was always afraid that I would perceive her differently because of where she worked, but I knew that she wasn't like that. Something had happened a little more than half a year ago that had caused her to change, but I never found out what. Since then, my loving and caring partner for life began to close herself off from me. Where she was always affectionate and bashful, she was distant and moody. The first month, I guess I had made a stupid assumption and hoped that it meant she was pregnant and that we would be starting our family. But when she didn't show after a few months and talked less to me, always wanting to leave the house and not tell me about her day, I began to think it wasn't that. I don't know why I didn't ask her about it, but I guess that I hoped that she would eventually open up.
      Now she did, when it was starting to become too late to save our marriage.
She opened her eyes. I was still sitting there, counting to ten and counting down to zero, back and forth. I made sure that I was calm, and that I wasn't going to let anger get the best of me.
      "You knew?" she said meekly. In any other circumstance, I would have already been at her side, comforting her and telling her that I still loved her. While I know that I still do, and I wished that it was a situation that I could have done that, it wasn't going to do anything to help us.
      I nodded. Speaking slowly and carefully, so that my words were well-chosen, I said, "I saw you with him. Several times. I know that it wasn't just a onetime fling." The first time I thought that maybe I was the one who was mistaken, and ignored it. I should have said something when I saw her back then. Maybe now it wouldn't be so far gone.
     She winced, and began to get up. She stood in the archway of the kitchen, where it connected to the den. I watched her. Her body language suggested something else, and I feared that this would be the thing that would send me flying off the handle.
     "I know how much this hurts you," she started, then shook her head. "No, I don't. I can only assume how much it hurts you, and even then I'm sure it's not even close." She was doing her best to not cry, I could tell. One hand wrapped itself around her stomach as the other wiped away tears. I still sat at the kitchen table, probably looking as emotionless as she had been the last several months. "But… It's… It's over between him and I. I… I can't apologize enough, I can't beg you and plead you enough to forgive me. I'm.. as shocked as you are, hun, about this entire thing. Don't believe for a second that I had been thinking of doing this, or that I envisioned something like this would happen. It… It hurts me too, you know? I don't know wh-"
     "Stop, please." My interruption caused her to give into her tears, but she didn't continue. Her face was buried in her hands now.
     "You say that you're sorry, but how can I believe you? How can I trust you again after this? Look me in the eyes and tell me that you regret everything that you've done these past months."
     Slowly, she looked up, her face red from the tears and she tried to meet my eyes. I tried to not be so fierce in my gaze, but I was too far gone from myself to be able to do it. When we did meet, I saw what I wanted to know. She would still be going behind my back with him if she could, even though she finally realized how much this is destroying us.
      Quiet as a mouse, she stated, "There's… there's something else." She tried to hide her body behind a support beam, afraid that I was going to go after her. Hell, I was afraid I would too. "Um… I…"
     With the following words that she said, it was then that I knew that there was definitely no way to put this behind us.