The strange thing about betrayal is that it rarely begins with hatred.... sometimes it even begins with comfort.
Daniel's first lie to his wife was minor enough to live with in his conscience.
Staring at the unfinished bottle in front of him at the restaurant he replied over the phone “I am still working.”
Vanessa was seated opposite him, giggling softly to herself.
It wasn't perilous then..
Once, Daniel was the type of guy that would say people who cheated were terrible.
When Love was still easy.
In the days when promises were still kept.
In his memory always replayed the night he made those promises.. His wife Amara, her hands holding his, tears in her eyes, as the pastor preaches about fidelity as if it were unbreakable.
To keep and preserve.
He was serious about it then!
Or at least… he believed he did.
Marriage was in a state of change, like rust.
Gradually & Quietly.
Conversations became shorter. Work became longer. Exhaustion replaced excitement. Those minor events that they used to laugh about were slowly replaced by bills, obligations and daily routine.
Nothing terrible happened.
Which was nearly as bad.
There was no clear-cut blame to be taken for the tragedy.
Just distance.....
Six months ago Vanessa came to his office.
Confident. Observant. Easy to talk to.
She obeyed his orders. Scoffed at his jokes. How many years had Amara not asked a question for?
“How was your day?”
“Are you okay?”
“Are you feeling fatigued lately?”
Small things.
Dangerously small things.
Daniel repeated to himself that it was not serious.
Not crossed the line.
Not yet.
Emotional betrayals have a peculiar way of setting the stage for the real betrayal long before it happens.
The late night messages came to be a normal occurrence.
The smiles were now normal.
The guilt was broken down in a way.
Until one night… it was not.
It was in Vanessa's apartment.
Soft music. Dim lights. There's too much silence between them.
Daniel recalled looking at his ring before removing it and setting it gently on the table next to him.
Like if he were somehow innocent if he just took it out of his body.
Amara was sleeping on the sofa when he returned home that night.
The TV volume was soft.
He was standing unnecessarily.
Watching her.
A sense of something heavy in his chest.
Not regret exactly.
Not yet.
Just awareness.
The affair went on for the next several weeks.
And oddly enough, the most difficult part was not the lying.
It was the fact that lying was getting so easy.
Amara saw the changes happen, over time.
Of course she did.
Betrayal always lurks in the great errors, but most often it's in the details.
Delayed replies.
Emotional absence.
Forced affection.
Someone who is near but not with their mind.
One night, she whispered to him, “Is there someone else?”
Daniel didn't respond right away.
And silence has a language of its own.
Amara nodded, as if she had just been told that the thing she knew she dreaded was true.
However she did not cry out.
Didn’t throw anything.
Didn't cry like the movies say you're supposed to cry.
Rather, she queried one question.
The issue that remained with him longer than the affair.
“When did it become so easy to break your promise?”
Daniel was about to speak.
However nothing came out.
The truth was, he didn't know.
It wasn't a specific time.
No single decision.
Just tiny compromises.
Tiny selfishness.
A very small distance left unchecked.
Until finally the man who once swore to be loyal, is able to break it.
It was that night that Amara departed.
Quietly.
No scene or drama.
Only suffering so intense, it cannot be spoken about twice.
Daniel would come to know a wicked truth about infidelity in months to come, when he would be alone in the apartment he and Kate once shared.
Cheating eliminates love in a flash.
However, at times love lives on.
That makes it even worse.
You are aware that you are hurting someone who still loves you.
That's not what is noble about it.
Vanessa also left after a while.
It all started out quietly but came to nothing. Excitement faded. Guilt lingered. There had never been any real trust between them.
After all, relationships formed through betrayal tend to have suspicion in their midst from the start.
Daniel's wedding vows were still in his mind at times.
Not the words, per se.
Perhaps this is the tragedy, anyway.
Not that he ever lied.
But along the way… he turned into a man who could break a promise that had seemed forever.
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