Cheating

I went to the bar to forget what I saw, and woke up naked in the bed of the girl who had despised me most in class. That same morning I’d be getting three million.

When she came to sweep the empty house, I told her to go back to her town спокойно. Three hours later we were in my bed, and my wife still hadn’t landed.

I was her assistant. We worked twelve hours a day. That night, barefoot on her sofa, she looked at me like never before, and I knew something had changed forever.

Thirty-two years old, red nails, and a way of looking at women that seemed like a greeting and a question. I was a married woman. That is, until the night I forgot my keys.

The door opened just as Carolina crossed the hall naked, with another man behind her. That night I learned my silence would have a price I never imagined.

Every morning I picked her up for work. That dawn, out in the middle of the fields, I discovered she could no longer hide what she felt when she looked at me.

The two goons dragged me off to tour the machines while she stayed alone with the owner. When I came back, the desk was empty.

When I opened the door to the empty apartment, I wasn’t expecting to see him there with that smile. The client was running late, and the clock was silently marking our only chance.

When we got there that night, my wife was already wearing the plug. What we didn’t expect was to run into a nineteen-year-old who would change the routine.

At five in the morning, with my wife’s friend smoking on my terrace, I knew I was going to tell him about the night she herself pushed me over the edge.

When she leaned in to say goodbye at the door, her mouth found mine and everything I’d buried for years came rushing back.

Her message came Tuesday at four: “My boyfriend’s away. I need to get out.” My best friend’s sister was waiting for me, eager.

He’d asked that no one in the building see him. When she locked the door and pressed her back to the wood, she was already trembling in his hands.

I’d spent five years waiting for my husband, and that night, with my sister-in-law’s lover in front of me, I realized my body could no longer bear silence.

I swear that when I got on that plane all I could think about was closing the deal. I never imagined that night would be the one where I lost myself and us.

When I opened that old folder on his computer, I never imagined a photo of her would be the beginning of my own betrayal.

I got out of the taxi without looking back. It was eleven at night, my wife was still screaming my name from the landing, and I only wanted to disappear from the world.

I went downstairs for ice and he shut the door behind me. With the party going on outside, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop him even if I wanted to.

Diego was asleep when he felt the mattress dip beside him. It was her, barefoot, whispering that she’d only come down to get her pajamas. His brother was snoring next door.

For days I hid among the bushes, watching her ride another man every night. When he was laid up with a fever, I took his place.