Spring
I don't do anything to hurt Derek again until eleven years after they're married. He shouldn't dare to be so neglectful, so late home, but he is, as always. I wait around, telling myself I'm looking out for him, clearing up Derek's mess, when in reality I'm on completely the other side of this rift. I'm… I would say I'm grateful for it, but that time has passed.

I've known for a long time that I'll never be with her. The guy I am now… he's not the guy that mopes over that fact for long. Being… being her best friend as much as I'm his best friend, being the one that's there for her when he's working late, when there's another neurosurgery convention or another ground-breaking surgery – that's normally enough. It's not like I think I would have been a better husband for her. I can't seem to keep faithful to any girls, but sometimes, when I've had a few too many to drink, when I walk through the snow or by a river or see a flash of red hair, I think that maybe I'm who I am because I'm who she's made me.

We never talk about that night by the river in South Carolina, never have. Not even the day after. It became a night of beautiful taboo, and I think she tries to pretend she doesn't remember, still. But I know her well enough to see straight through that one, at least, but if she wants to hide it away, I hide it away. She has that effect on me. I never thought I'd do anything for a person, but I would for her. Without even blinking.

That's why now, when she's looking up at me with those big blue eyes and crying something softly – it's tears she's cried to me before, I can no longer distinguish – and standing too fucking close all over again, that I lean down to kiss her. Because I know it's what she wants.

It's frenzied as we stagger through towards her bedroom, but in the last minute she stops us, pushing back a little, stepping away from our path towards her bed.
She shakes her head at me, almost imperceptibly. "That's Derek's bed." She whispers, like refusing to commit adultery in her husband's bed made it any better. We settle on the floor in the end, like the whores we both are, and my limbs ache for days afterwards, and I wish the dull pain would go away, believing it to be a rerun of the night beside the lake – something never spoken of again.

So when she turns up a week later, when Derek yet again forgets that she's offered to cook for him, I make my excuses to the potential date I have that night and invite her into my apartment.

We don't make it to my bed first, either.

Something shifts, after that. In the moments where Derek's name isn't mentioned, we're almost like a real couple. We walk through Central Park, we go out for dinner, we make love anywhere and everywhere in my apartment, we wake up side by side… but only when he's away. I buy her things… nothing too fancy, nothing that will catch Derek's eye, but shirts, skirts, even the odd pair of shoes… he won't notice. He is used to her piles and piles of designer clothing simply increasing. I sit with her resting between my legs as she studies for another fellowship, another paper in neonatal medicine, and she visits me, carrying Starbucks when she knows I have a busy day at the clinic I work part time at, and she smiles at me, and with a toss of her red hair I know we're on for tonight, too.

But time flies, so fast. My grandmother always said when you're having fun, and I guess that's an understatement. But Addison and I, we always know we have an expiry date.

And as it is, we don't make it to summer before Derek stumbles in on us in bed.