Essence of Her

By

Alyson Grant

Victoria Harrison

"I don't really know what to say here."

She cleared her throat and coughed.
Met two fearful and anxious brown eyes and looked away.
Then looked back down to she'd written and fiddled her fingers nervously.

And finally began again, continuing in a somewhat strained and shaky voice.

"You've become someone I can't trust."

"We had so many years of marriage, so many good times, so many experiences, so many things shared, two daughters and now this."

She lifted her eyes from the sheet she was holding and met her husband's somber expression.

"Our relationship wasn't perfect but we were working towards fixing that. Or did you somehow think that having an affair would somehow help the situation?

"I think not," she said as her tone grew even more tense, clipped and professional.

"All you did was hurt it further and abuse my trust."

"You abused it the second you took it too far. The very second flirtations began, the very second you couldn't look me in the eye and tell me honestly where you'd been however many minutes before…"

"How could you fuck her and then come home and make love to me?"

Her daughters flinched at her graphic words. She didn't notice.
Couldn't, as the tears began to rush to her eyes.
She tried in vain to hold them back but found that she couldn't.

"Do you even know the difference? Can you even tell?"

"Our ring," she asked. "What did that mean to you? Did you casually slip it off each time you saw her? Did you pretend that you weren't married? Could you?

Where there had once been a hint of desperation residing in her voice in the beginning, now all that remained were the underlying emotions that lay beneath her words as they came out in a fast rushed blur of anger. Bitterness, anger, hurt and resentment dipped and flowed throughout her thoughts. Those four emotions and a mixture of more infiltrated her mind, were evident in her expression, and came out in her voice

When their eyes made a tense connection the room seemed to dissolve and the people around them disappear.

For her, it felt like it was just the two of them.

For her, in that moment the only people in that room were a woman and her husband and it was painful to know that she would have preferred to be anywhere else.

"Or were two children and a wife too much of a reminder?"

She'd started out in a conversational tone that was both a mockery and a lie but ended with a harsh snap.

"Did you have fun slipping into the role of both adulterer and hurter? Because each time you thought of her, called her, saw her, slept with her…" Her voice shook with hurt and pain as she angrily brushed away a stray tear that had fallen onto her cheek. "Each time there was even the essence of her, you were cheating."

"And I can't forgive you."