It's a bit chilly outside. Unusual for mid-September in New York, but not a surprise, considering autumn is around the corner. Ben clutched his coat closed to guard his body, a white t-shirt and long black pajama pants, both made of semi-thin cotton, separating his alabaster skin underneath. Not only was it crisp outside during his cigarette, but in his soul. He's had a long day, and he needed to get away from it all.

He's hurt, but grateful that he's not forever bound to what would soon become his past; his wife had been unfaithful, hiding an illicit affair with their recently widowed male neighbor (she only went to console him, she said; one thing lead to another, things happened, it was a one-night stand, didn't mean anything). One thing Kate failed to do was tell Ben that she'd been messing around with that man long before his wife passed, for the last three of the five years that Kate and Ben were married. He was grateful that they had no children to fight over, and the couple signed a pre-nuptial agreement before they said "I do". He was ready to move on...

Before they got married, Kate and Ben had been nearly life-long friends, from when they first met in primary school, at the sandbox, to attending prom together. The romance didn't come into play until they both graduated from separate colleges and returned to live with their respective families: Kate called Ben a week after she got home, and they met up at a neighborhood coffee shop an hour later. They caught up with each other, and ended up cuddling under a blanket in the backseat of Ben's car, naked and basking in the afterglow of their passionate yet quick lovemaking session. Three months after that, Ben proposed and Kate accepted, but they held off for a number of years before actually making it official.

Within their first 18 months of marriage, Kate wanted to get started on extending their new family, but Ben wasn't in that much of a hurry. He'd just started working as a up-and-coming attorney for a top law firm, and not yet ready to become a father, so Kate decided to go back to school and study to become a social worker, which is in high demand. She never thought that would be her line of work, being that she's earned a degree in Business, but she began to enjoy the work and the rewards that came after cases ended successfully. That's how she met their neighbor, Joe, who was attempting to cope with taking care of a cancer-stricken wife and fighting alcoholism himself. A week after Kate's first appointment at the man's home, feelings began to develop, moments became more intimate and physical, and guilt had built up as Joe's wife lay dying in a hospital bed. A month after Kate and Joe became lovers, his wife passed away.

Three years into losing his wife, the man continued to allow Kate into his home and into the bed he and his dearly departed once shared for 13 years. One night, the night before Kate "spilled the beans" to Ben, remorse crept up on Kate. After telling her lover that she had to move on and try to make things work with her husband, she returned home and thought about what she'd say to Ben. The poor bastard, she told herself. He doesn't deserve this, but there's been so much lacking in this relationship for so long. All I wanted was a baby, to grow our family, but he put the kibosh on that plan. He's too busy, but I was willing to wait. No, I'm being too selfish. I need to tell him what's going on.

She wouldn't see Ben that night, since he was working late on a bankruptcy case. She went to bed and woke up the next morning, Ben's side of the bed not undone and still cold. He didn't return home until 4pm that day; when Ben opened and stepped through the door, he saw Kate pacing in the kitchen, her index and thumb rubbing the bridge of her nose in frustration.

"What's wrong?" Ben said in his deep British drawl.

"Nothing," said Kate, avoiding eye contact with him. She was still thinking about what she should say to Ben that'll make the affair easier to talk about, but she knew that she still had to at least tell him first what was going on.

"You're starting to worry me, love. You look distressed." Ben walked on front of Kate to stop her in her tracks, taking both of her arms into his hands and gently rubbing her left forearm with his right thumb.

"Please," pleading with Kate in the most gentle tone she's ever heard his voice get. "Tell me what's going on."

Kate looked up and into Ben's crystal blue eyes, which were eagerly waiting for a response. Her eyes began to well up, and she took a deep breath and exhaled. "I cheated, Ben."

Ben held her gaze, complete with a stunned look on his face. The moment she said those three words, he was gutted. He'd spent their relationship being faithful, assuming that she was doing the same. He thought he had been doing what was expected of him as a husband, but then, suddenly, guilt on his part began to settle into his gut. Ideas that he was spending less time with his wife and more time with his job started to rot his brain. She wanted a baby, but he wasn't ready for that yet, but what if he had just put his demands aside and fulfilled her one wish?

"Ben, honey, I understand what you may be thinking, and it's not your fault. I just want you to know that." Ben dropped to his knees on the kitchen floor while she talked, and Kate, following suit, grabbed and rubbed his left hand on both of hers, automatically caressing it with her right hand. She then explained what had happened when she first cheated, but she lied, telling Ben that it was a one-night-stand and nothing more. Ben could hear much of anything Kate was saying, due to the overpowering voice of guilt yelling loudly in his head and taking over his conscience, but Ben accepted her infidelity, and, still in shock, decided to forgive Kate, just to stop her from talking: "You're only human, things like that can happen. I don't know why, but I feel like crying."

"Oh, god," said Kate, throwing her arms around Ben's neck and tightly embracing him. She felt horrible once he started shaking and sobbing. She knew there was no way that she could keep the actual length of her affair from her husband, nor could she prevent him from seeing an imminent appearance of a baby bump, a result of her infidelity.

After Ben calmed down, they ordered Chinese take-out for dinner, eating in silence. They cleaned up, took separate showers, put on their nightclothes and went to bed without a word to each other. Kate was the first to drift to sleep, but Ben was wide awake. The thought of his wife with another man severely tore at his insides, and he wanted to rip that feeling out of his body, as well as that image out of his brain. As he looked out the window, the silent sobs began, and Ben cried himself to sleep.

When he woke up the next morning, the vicious thought returned, but he figured he was dreaming about the whole thing, and his arm unconsciously flung behind him to feel for his wife, but she wasn't in bed. Panic rose in his throat, and he was milliseconds from calling her name when he then heard a retching noise coming from the master bathroom. The calm that came over him after hearing that sound only lasted a good three seconds before he realized what that noise meant.

As Kate walked out of the master bathroom, wiping her mouth with a wash-towel, her eyes widened at the site of her husband stuffing a suitcase with as many clothes as he could fit into it. She didn't stop it, because she knew that he knew. He heard it, heard her throwing up in the bathroom when he woke up. She couldn't blame him for leaving, and she wasn't going to get in his way. There's no telling what would happen if she did.

Ben was beyond angry. He wanted to yell and scream at his wife, ask her why she would do such a thing as go behind his back and mess around with another man. Instead, he suppressed that anger and continued to pack. There are things he left behind for the time being to return for while Katewas out at work, so he got what he could, threw on a pair of jeans and his Chuck T's, grabbed his car keys and suitcase, and walked out of the bedroom as fast as he possibly could. He was thankful after getting to the Range Rover that he didn't have to hear, deal with or see Kate; after throwing his suitcase in the backseat, he jumped into the driver's seat, turned on the ignition, and hurriedly backed out of the driveway.

Ben shakes those nightmares out of his head, taking a drag from his almost-finished cigarette. The memory of him sobbing loudly in the privacy of his car bothered him, and he threw the finished cigarette onto the ground and went back into the hotel. Surely some movement will keep the negative thoughts at bay. Unfortunately, while waiting for the elevator, a really bad memory came to him: the day before, he'd went back to their home, to collect some papers and his briefcase for work. Thinking that his wife was out at work, Ben went up the stairs and into the master bedroom. As he walked up the stairs, however, he began to hear muffled yells. Realizing what those sounds were, he gathered him confidence, opened the door, and walked into the room where Kate and her lover were having sex, Kate being on top in a cowgirl position, facing Joe and bracing herself on the man's knees behind her. Neither were clothed, nor were they covered with a sheet. Ben simply walked over to the closet, grabbed his briefcase that stood by its door, opened it and searched through the papers inside.

The man wasn't paying much attention, but Kate, in the throws of passion, managed to turn her head in Ben's direction and open her eyes to see him kneeling on the floor.

"OH MY GOD! Ben, why didn't you call or anything?"

"I didn't think anyone would be home." His tone was monotone and calm during this sentence, but then changed to a cheerfully sarcastic one. "Didn't mean to disturb you; just came to get some papers for work. Carry on."

"Oh, God," said Kate. Her lover lay underneath her, eyes closed. He didn't want to get involved in a possible argument, so he tool a pillow and placed it over his face.

"BEN-"

"I didn't come here to argue. I'll only be a few minutes, and then I'll be out of your way." By the end of his sentence, he was done perusing the contents of his briefcase and had stood up to walk out with it. he wanted to escape the house as fast as he could and break free of Kate's excuses; he was exhausted from crying his eyes out the night before and constantly thinking about what went wrong and how it could have all been prevented. He'd finally come to the realization that it wasn't preventable, and that it wasn't his fault.

Finally, the thought was interrupted by a tap on the left forearm crossed across his chest and interlaced with the right; he'd gotten on the elevator and not realized it, along with a man who had also gotten on, asking Ben for the past ten seconds which floor he was going to. For some odd reason, this is what Ben needed. Not just the interruption from the horrible dream, but someone to wake him up from it, and this man, who looked to be in his mid-to-late 50s (but could have been older; looks can be deceiving) was the wake-up call.