Peter is a cheater

“Don’t go.”

He touches her arm slightly as she stops at the open door. Why won’t she look at him?

She sighs.

“I have to. It’s over.” He gasps and falls to his knees. “I’m sorry.” She breathes. She means it.

He has no choice, it’s his own fault. All he gets to do, is watch her walk away. The door falls shut. He stands grounded, staring at it, processing what happened and hoping, praying she’ll chance her mind. That she’ll come back, but why would she?

Maybe if he called her and apologised. But he tried that before. What would he tell her? It’s useless. He dials the number anyway, it switches over to voicemail immediately. He flings the phone on the couch. It was to be expected.

Oh, what was he thinking. That she wouldn’t find out? Such a fool.

He switches on the TV and throws himself in his chair, zapping away brainlessly. All he sees are her pictures in his head. Her face, her smile. Her tears. Her screaming at him.

The doorbell rings. He springs up and darts at the door in a few huge leaps. She’s back!

“I... I heard what happened, Peter, I... I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”

She runs her hand through blond curls, the way she always did, which initially drove him wild, wild enough to fall for it. He wanted to snap, yell and ask her if she was happy now. It wasn’t fair to blame everything on her.

“Where is she?”

“Gone.”

“Her mother’s?”

“No one picks up the phone there.”

“Have you tried her cell?”

“Voicemail.”

She’s silent for a while.

“Do you have any idea where she might go?”

“Far away from me.”

“I’m so sorry. I know it was a mistake, I never should have tried to...”

“Damn right you shouldn’t have, with a husband and two young sons. But I was just as bad for responding.”

Tears well up in her eyes. He doesn’t care. Or does he? He’s almost ready to take her in his arms again and comfort her. Almost, but not quite. He’s hurt too much.

“So, uhm, can I have my bra back?”

Was that all this was about?

“Michael has asked about it. Wondering where it was. It was a wedding anniversary gift.” She stares down at her feet and scuffs. “I think he might be beginning to suspect something.”

He nods and strolls into the bedroom to fish it off the bed. Blasted thing. He gazes at it. Such an everyday piece of cloth. How could it have caused such disaster?

“Take care, okay?” She says. And vanishes back into the house next door. Covering up her tracks before the husband gets home. At least for her life will go on unchanged. He’s lost everything.

She won’t come back. Not ever.

He ambles into the kitchen, picks up a chair, the one she always sat in. The stairs would do nicely.

All that’s left now is the note. He gets his favourite picture of them together out of their album, they had spent hours putting it together and scribbles across the backside:

Peter is a cheater