The Erosion of Beige

Prologue - Louisville, 1982

I used to think you had to do something spectacular to lose your life. A car crash. A plane falling out of the sky. A diagnosis in a quiet room. But I learned that sometimes, you lose your life by standing still too long, by staying married to a man who doesn't really know the sound of your laugh, by folding laundry and forgetting you once had a favorite color.

For me, it wasn't sudden. It was the slow erosion of being a "wife," a title heavier than it looks in print.

The truth was, I didn't just lose my life--I surrendered it. Piece by piece, year by year, until I became a woman I no longer recognized in the mirror. It wasn't Mike's fault. Not entirely. He was a good man--steady, predictable, safe. But safety had a way of suffocating you if you stayed in it too long. I used to think love was supposed to be a fire, but ours had settled into embers so faint I forgot they were still burning.

And then there was Todd. He wasn't just an escape. He was a mirror held up to the woman I'd buried--the one who used to laugh too loud, who once dreamed in color instead of beige.

THURSDAYS AND OTHER OFFENSES

Thursday mornings were the quietest. No garbage pickup. Just the low whirr of the refrigerator and the upstairs neighbor vacuuming for the second time that week. I had oatmeal most days, always with a little milk, never sugar. Sugar made me bloated, and while I had no one to impress, I didn't want to add physical discomfort to my world.

Mike was an army reserve captain on another TDY two weeks in Texas this time. He'd turned his GI bill from his prior enlistment into a career in dentistry and had rejoined the army five years ago.. The Army and VA were short on oral surgeons, so shipping him everywhere seemed practical to them, and provided him with valuable experience.

That morning, he exited after an unenthusiastic kiss on the forehead and a half-empty cup of coffee. The night before he'd left, we had sex, if you could call it that - there was about as much passion as someone folding a fitted sheet while half-asleep; like always, I'd lay awake after, staring at the watermarks on the ceiling. Sometimes, Mike's mouth would occasionally make sounds about having children as pillow talk, but I wasn't real enthused about essentially becoming a single parent, and told him so. You can imagine how the mood went after those conversations.

I wasn't real happy in my constrained world, but my expensive (and thus infrequent) long distance calls to my sister in Minnesota didn't offer much by way of solutions - and it was something I could never talk to mom about unless I wanted a lecture on what the bible said. Mom and dad had split when I was little, she never could get over him leaving, and thought they should be together forever.

By 8:30 in the morning I was dressed--jeans, sweatshirt, hair pulled into the same sloppy low ponytail I'd worn since '76. I applied a little powder under my eyes, just to avoid looking ill, as my skin ran to fair with some freckles. I'd stopped caring a lot about clothes or how I looked a while back - if I didn't watch it, I'd start to lose muscle tone and put on weight, it wasn't like Mike seemed to care, but I wanted to have at least some physical constant.

Russian class was at 10, my spot of color in days gone gray. Todd (or as I affectionately thought of him, the class distractor) was already there, chewing a pen cap and sprawled out in his chair like an undisciplined housecat. If he wasn't brown haired, I'd call him a ginger cat. You know the type - no sense of limb placement when seated politely.

"You look serious today," he said as I slid into the desk beside him.

"I'm thirty-three," I replied. He smirked. "That explains it."

Todd was twenty, lived with his parents, commuted to school and tended bar four nights a week at a decent Italian restaurant. He was extroverted, had a smart mouth and was probably the most irritating person in the class, but he was also the only one who ever talked to me like I was still part of the world. He dressed OK, tended toward jeans and a sweater with a ratty sport coat with a frame more like a man than that of a boy. He wasn't model pretty, but was appealing in his own quirky way.

That day, he shoved a half-folded brochure toward me. "You should go to this. Ohio State's Russian seminar that I'm going to got to. There's the seminar, and then a big screen viewing of Zhivago, and a mixer". He seemed a little breathless with this announcement.

I picked it up, my curiosity piqued, and asked "Accommodation provided?" "Probably some dorm couch or a sleepover in Lenin's ghost's guest room, but I don't really know the details it's a Friday, so no class the next day, and we can carpool", he replied.

I smiled before I could stop myself, and wonder if he noticed.

That's how it started.

ROAD TRIPPING

Friday morning. November. The trees had surrendered their leaves, and the wind bit through the sleeves of my sweater as I locked the door behind me.

Todd pulled up in a green Cutlass with rust at the wheel wells and a muffler that sounded like it was being strangled; I raised an eyebrow - this won't do.

"This car might make it to Ohio," he said, stepping out. "Maybe we should take yours. But I'll DJ."

"God help me," I muttered.

He followed me into my apartment for coffee while I grabbed my car keys. He looked around.

"Wow. This place is... clean. I'm impressed", he offered.

"Sterile," I corrected. "I like order." He raised an eyebrow in question, but really made a statement that said a great deal without many words - "No photos?"

"They're all in the drawer", I countered, omitting any explanation about military transfers and the need to stay nimble. He didn't ask why, seemingly filing it away as a piece of data.

By the time we hit the highway, I'd already learned that he played guitar "just for funsies, not real serious", he said. More convo (and God, that kid could talk), and I learned that he really yearned to travel, and was saving up money to get certified to scuba dive. In the romance department, it seemed like he simply drifted from meaningless pickup to meaningless pickup and while I didn't ask, it sounded like most of them were a little older than him and occasionally married.

Interesting. My guts fluttered a bit but I choked it down.

"And you?" he asked with a smile "Can you tell me about your world?"

I didn't answer, not really, just a vague biography - really a resume - shorn of any detail that would allow anyone to crack my shell. I talked in monotone about my 12 year marriage, my 39 year old husband, my sister, my father who had died in my teens. I didn't point out that he was probably in the third grade - maybe second - the day I got married.

He didn't press further, and I wasn't offering - he seemed to sense that, something that impressed me.

Somewhere past Cincinnati, I let him light a cigarette since he was polite enough to ask. I'd quit in 1979. But I still liked the smell, and truth be told, I was thinking that I wanted to start up again, just for something to do.

"Why are you even taking Russian?" he asked.

"Because I never got to be interesting".

He looked at me a little longer than usual after I uttered that little bomb,, and didn't have a smartass reply. Was this emotional intelligence, something that Mike struggled with on his best days?

The seminar was academic, and the crowd leaned heavily male and annoyingly, pretentiously intellectual. Because of that, I found myself holding onto Todd's elbow more than necessary. His jokes were juvenile, he flitted between conversation groups in the vicinity like a moth in a lampshade, but he kept ponderous men away from me, which I liked. When a graduate student in wire-framed glasses and a creepy, leery look slid up to my chair and asked if I'd ever read Tolstoy in translation, Todd appeared at my elbow like a ghost and simply said, "She reads men like you in the original", and I swore I thought I could see his jaw clench a bit.

Interesting. There's that stupid goddamn gut flutter again. As creepy guy slunk off, defeated, I snort-laughed into my wine.

As the evening burned on, the promise of overnight accommodations turned out to be a disaster. The organizers had begged OSU students to offer up couches and sleeping bags. Todd looked at me. I looked at him. Putting someone out didn't seem cool, and staying with a random student in a dorm felt pretty unsafe, particularly for me. Nearly in unison, we said "wanna bail?"

Joint laughter, and we said our goodbyes. We were tipsy, but not at the edge of drunk, and the notion of that long drive seemed like an awful chore. I suggested, bravely, that we should grab a hotel, and that I'd pay for it. Nonchalantly, like I hadn't been coming across some odd thoughts. He agreed that it was smart, but his agreement was not instant - he thought about it for a couple of beats.

OOPS

The motel was cheap and anonymous. Wood paneling in the office. Cigarette burns on the check-in counter. Flickering fluorescents.

I paid a sad sack clerk on duty who probably noted the absence of real luggage and the lack of a wedding ring on Todd's hand; he'd glanced at the ring on mine, which, coincidentally, felt like it weighed about 40 pounds at that moment. Todd tried to hand me some cash, but I refused. "My treat", I said.

The room was scruffy and cold, but appeared clean. Todd offered me the first shower. It was kind of dingy in the bathroom but the water was hot and the soap and towels were decent. I came out in an overlong sweatshirt and panties, and slid into my bed - the closest one to the heater. He showered quickly, coming out in a towel, and I couldn't help but notice that he flung it to the floor next to his bed as he flicked off the light. Must be a nude sleeper - Mike was a pajama boy through and through. Todd said "good night, Mary Ellen", to which I chuckled and replied "good night, John Boy", like we were Walton siblings.

I'll admit, that room really was cold - the heater struggled a bit. In the dark, lying in our separate beds, after a few minutes I said, "I'm cold, really goddamned cold - can we share some body heat?". I don't know if you noticed, but I'm naked", he replied, his voice seeming a little strained.

I said "I noticed, but I promise I'll behave", and convinced myself I would with a mental lie that I really did mean it.

He opened the covers, and I crawled in, playing little spoon to his big spoon. His body was warm, bare, firm, unfamiliar. "You're freezing", he said as I snuggled in. "Just hold me, I'll warm up in a second", I replied, my mind racing. His arms embraced me, driving off the shivers. When I felt him stiffen against my rear (and I should have guessed - he's 20, duh), I didn't move away; instead, I reached back and groped him. He gave a barely audible gasp, sweet breath on the back of my neck. I turned to face him and he kissed me, hesitant and clumsy at first, like he didn't expect it, then hungry - I kissed him hard back. My sweatshirt came off. My panties followed. We didn't stop and everything was on the table.

I know I came at least three times (I think he came four - I was just a sloppy puddle) before sleep finally took us; each time his caresses and whispered kisses and nibbles and licks brought the need back and we would be pounding again to another shattering climax. I slept lightly, occasionally stealing a glance at him as I contemplated the very bright line I'd just crossed and never really expected to cross. His face was still boyish in the early light--lips slightly parted, eyelashes fanned out like a doll's. There was no trace of cocky bartender or clever student in him then. Just a kid, not actually old enough to drink legally, who'd wrapped himself around me like I was the last warm thing in a cold world.

And I had let him.

We made love twice more after dawn - he was a little hesitant at first, and it was clear that he was fearful of my feelings about what we had done,, but I let him know with some tenderness that he was perfect and beautiful and that everything was wonderful. I wanted this, and we talked and caressed and kissed as the sun got high through checkout time. No protection. No regrets.

The first time Todd looked at me--really looked at me - as we walked through the parking lot of that shabby little hotel, I felt something more dangerous that I hadn't noticed before: seen. It wasn't just the sex, though God knows that was unlike anything I'd had before. Mike treated intimacy like a chore to be checked off, something to get through before turning out the lights. But Todd--Todd worshiped me. He had traced my hips like they were constellations, smiled at my face, kissed the faint lines around my eyes like they were proof I'd lived

And that terrified me.

Because what if this was all just a game to him? What if I was just another conquest, a bored housewife to brag about to his bartender friends? Worse--what if he meant it, and I wasn't brave enough to follow through?

The validation was intoxicating. For the first time in years, I felt desired, not just tolerated. But with it came a gnawing fear: What happens when he realizes I'm not worth the trouble?

We didn't speak much on the drive back. I caught him watching me more than once, his expression unreadable. I didn't ask what he was thinking. I didn't want to risk him saying something flippant, something that would send me careening toward shame, but he didn't. When we pulled into my parking lot and he helped me with my bag, he kissed my cheek--just once, featherlight-- before whispering, "You're not who I thought you were."

Neither was I.

EPIPHANIES AND A JOURNEY

That Monday, I bought mascara.

I stood in the drugstore aisle for twenty minutes, heart pounding, staring at little black tubes like they were syringes full of arsenic. It felt like cheating, like claiming a version of myself I hadn't earned, but I bought it anyway.

That next morning as I prepared for class, I watched myself in the mirror for a long time, dragging the wand slowly through my lashes, careful not to smudge. My hands trembled. I looked older, somehow, but not tired. Not plain. Just... visible.

Todd noticed, of course. Said nothing in class, but sent a note across the aisle.

You look like someone I'd try to get to know better.

I laughed and blushed. I tucked the note into my pocket while looking into his eyes. I didn't want to throw it away.

We started meeting between classes, and Mike's orderly and frequent TDY schedule was our template. There were parked cars. Campus benches. My apartment. Borrowed apartments of people Todd knew if Mike was home. Parks. One time, in the shadowy stairwell of a library annex no one used anymore. His mouth was always warm, his hands always eager but soft. He kissed me like he thought I might break. I kissed him like I needed to prove I wouldn't.

At first, it was all heat. Hot hands under sweaters and into my pants. Whispered groans in my ear, my hands gripping the back of his neck. Over time, the way he looked at me changed--more searching. Less hungry, more reverent - and was much more focused, less flippant, like he was changing along with me.

He started asking questions. What kind of music I liked when I was younger. Music I liked now. Favorite art. Whether I ever wanted to go to Europe. If I liked dramatic theater. Most inspiring historical figures. If I'd ever driven aimlessly just for the hell of it.

I had to hunt for answers for any of it, and that shamed me more than the cheating ever could, because that old me, the vibrant me, had forgotten who and what I was.

The next time Mike called from Texas, I let it ring twice before picking up. I had to count down to remember the right pitch for my voice. We talked about nothing. Car troubles. A recipe I found for meatloaf. The neighbor's new dog. He never asked how I was. When we hung up, I stared at the wall for a long time. Thankfully, Todd had left one of his T-shirts under my pillow; I held it to my face and cried not from guilt, but from the terrible, delicious truth that I was finally waking up.

A week later, I showed up to class in a red scarf and blouse combo that the old me would have thought was too young for me. It was vintage--bought at a consignment shop across town where the cashier called me "ma'am" and seemed surprised I was there.

Todd whistled low under his breath when I walked in. "Well, now we're in trouble", he grinned boyishly, winking as he said it. I sat next to him, our knees just barely brushing. I didn't pull away. I could see that our professor noticed, but she said nothing even though she looked at me and raised her eyebrows.

We started meeting more. Not just for sex--though there was plenty of that. My body ached in new ways, but never in protest. Sometimes we'd just drive for hours, no destination, listening to his cassettes. He liked Dire Straights and Talking Heads. Old me liked silence, but I found myself changing.

But he talked, always, even when I'd sit in silence; I enjoyed hearing him.

About how he hated being treated like an idiot by smug professors.

How he was sick of pouring drinks for businessmen who tried to tip him with life advice.

How sometimes he wished he were born in a different time - one that matched my own.

"You'd hate the 60s, so damned many rules," I said once. He looked at me sideways in reply, declaring "Yeah. But you'd be the one breaking them". I realized: that's how he saw me now. Not a sour housewife, not a woman past her prime, but something dangerous. Something worth chasing.

We made love one Tuesday afternoon in my kitchen. It was one moment of what had been many moments, but this one stood out.

The light poured through the tiny window above the sink, bathing everything in gold. We were halfway through a sandwich when he pulled me onto his lap, my skirt riding up as he kissed me breathless. Afterward, we didn't bother redressing. We sat there, me on his lap, our skin sticking slightly from the passion, sharing the rest of the sandwich and laughing about how we'd broken the kitchen chair.

"I don't want to just fuck you," he said suddenly, causing me to catch my breath.. "I mean--I want to. A lot. But not just that", he continued.

I stared at him.

"I want to know where you're from. What you always wanted to do when you were growing up. Whether you still dream", he said, melting my heart yet again.

I hadn't, for years. But now? I was beginning to.

Somewhere between the first motel and the third borrowed apartment, I stopped seeing what we were doing as something temporary. I no longer flinched when I passed the mirror. I walked with a sway I hadn't used since I was twenty. I knew what shades of lipstick suited me and what time of the afternoon light made my skin glow like bronze. I remembered how to flirt. I remembered how to hunger.

Todd never said he loved me, not outright at that point.. But he said it a hundred other ways. He said it in the way he touched my hip while pouring coffee. In the way he left me his worn flannel shirt to sleep in, smelling faintly of cologne and cigarettes. In the way he stopped checking his watch when we were together.

But I was still married. My world was split neatly in two: husband and lover, beige and color, silence and music.

Mike called every few days, his voice tinny over the phone, full of sandpaper and habit. He talked about army politics and new toothbrush sterilizers. I asked polite questions and offered polite laughs. I could feel him drifting, even from hundreds of miles away.

I had a system for surviving the mental upheavals over those months.

When Todd came over, I lit a specific candle. When Mike was due home, I bleached the sheets. I kept a second bar of soap for Todd. I wore perfume only on days when I wouldn't be touched by anyone other than Todd. At times, the management of it all made me dizzy with power. Other times, as I laid in bed sleepless, I felt like I'd built a glass house while handing both men stones.

The apartment became ours in certain corners, and truth be told, it was as if Todd were the man of the house and Mike was the interloper given the scope of the TDY and the fact that it seemed like Mike wasn't there most of the time, and never really seemed present even when he was home. When Mike was back from TDY, we'd have a fairly dull meal, and he'd watch a game or some sitcom as I did his laundry before he'd shuffle to bed - and sometimes there would be the occasional round of uninspired sex.

A copy of Crime and Punishment with Todd's notes in the margins lived on my nightstand. A pair of his socks nestled in my laundry. There was a bite mark on the inside of my thigh that lingered for days and thrilled me every time I caught it in the mirror.

When Todd was there, we made love on the couch, the floor, the hallway. Once, in the shower, his mouth against my neck while water streamed over us and he whispered that I smelled like safety and sex. I laughed and called him a poet with bad hair; he said he'd cut it if I asked, but I didn't.

It wasn't all giggles and stolen hours, though. Once, in a parking lot, he pulled away when I reached for his hand. "Too many people," he'd said, and I saw the flush of fear under his bravado. He wasn't ashamed - he was just young. I was a complication he hadn't expected to carry -but was someone to protect.

Later that night, I cried alone in my car. I didn't even know why.

Unbidden, Todd called after midnight. "shouldn't have done that," he said. I didn't respond.

"I think I just... I'm scared I'll mess this up", he continued.

"You already did," I said softly. But I didn't hang up.

He came over and said sorry with his hands, with his mouth, with his breath against my skin until I forgot how to be angry.

One Saturday, while Mike was between trips, I took Todd to a park on the other side of town. We walked under dying trees, leaves crunching under our feet. I wore sunglasses, even though the sky was gray. "You look like a movie star avoiding the press," he teased.

"Maybe I'm avoiding the truth," I said before I could stop myself.

He turned serious. "Do you regret this?"

I paused.

"No," I said. "But I regret having to hide it."

He stopped walking, still serious to lay out the deadly question "Would you leave him?"

I didn't answer.

He nodded like he understood, but I wondered if he did for real. In so many ways he reacted and queried and spoke like someone beyond his years, but I told myself that in his heart, he was still just a kid without the real life experience to navigate emotional minefields as complicated as these.

Another complication was that there was no question in my mind that the neighbors knew due to little slips. They never said it, but I saw it in the sidelong glances. The way Mrs. Gallagher on 2B raised her eyebrows when we accidentally overslept and left together for class one morning. The way Mr. Davis offered a faint smirk when he passed us in the stairwell when we came directly from class one day. Once, a single mom from across the lot caught us kissing near the laundry room. Todd's hand was under my skirt. She didn't gawk or stare. Instead, she whispered, "Go get yours, girl," with a wink. I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh or cry.

One night, Mike called and asked if I'd been lonely. The question was casual, offhand, probably prompted by a magazine article he'd read in the waiting room.

I told him I was fine, but I was anything but.

Sometimes, I'd find myself watching Todd--really watching--and wondering what his life looked like when I wasn't in it. His parents' house - apparently, there wasn't much interaction there - he described himself as "feral from 14 on - I never really was expected for anything and never had expectations for anything". His part-time job. Girls his age who didn't come with a husband and obligations and a pile of secrets. Did he kiss them differently? Did he joke about me with friends, or keep me to himself like a secret he wasn't ready to share?

I began to feel a soft panic when he didn't call. I checked my reflection more often. I started sleeping in matching lingerie sets again, just in case he showed up. I was falling in love, but I was also falling into fear.

At the same time, the affair was both exhausting and exhilarating in ways that I'd never considered. I'd frequently turn Mike down after being too sore to have vaginal sex - I felt some guilt over that and would come up with some excuse or maybe would give him a handjob just to keep him placated and to tamp down the guilt. When I wasn't too sore, there were times that I would have an opportunity to fuck Mike as little as a half an hour or so after I'd just fucked Todd. That was intense beyond words - the thrill of maybe being caught by smell or the extent of semen left in me sent me into orbit. I couldn't do it too often, as it made me come so hard it would almost make me cry; each time I would have to come up with ways hide my face so Mike wouldn't ask too many questions.

After a few months of living in this shadow world, I came to a decision that would probably force some big consequences. Todd never asked me to, but I stopped taking the pill and told him so, not because I wanted a baby, but because I wanted to know what it would feel like to let life, any life, take root in me again. To not be empty. I do know that once I stopped the pills I decided that Mike wouldn't be having that kind of sex with me again - that act was solely for another man, one who saw me and felt me and appreciated me. I started marking my ovulation on the calendar - not obviously--just a discreet dot in red pen. I did tell my sister in one of my infrequent calls, and she just gave a low whistle before delivering an "I hope you know what you really want" speech.

CONSEQUENCES

The cataclysmic crashing of my two worlds happened in a breath.

A week earlier than scheduled, Mike stepped through the front door with a duffel bag in one hand and a bouquet of gas station flowers in the other.

The moment Mike stepped through the apartment door, I was wearing nothing but one of Todd's shirts while getting a glass of water, my legs a visibly sticky, dripping mess after a frenzied lovemaking session that had gone on for what seemed like hours. For months now, there was no intimacy left untried, and I asked Todd to do things that I never would let Mike do, even if Mike had bothered to be interested enough to request them. After all, I was the wanton woman unable to control my own carnality, at least as far as one man was concerned, and I had a smile on my face as I put the glass under the tap.

As I heard the door close, I looked up and saw him, stupid flowers in one hand, that goddamned duffel of dirty laundry in the other. We both froze. The air between us collapsed like a bridge under strain, and my smile disappeared as semen dripped down my leg.

Shit. Not how I envisioned this going down, not with me mostly naked and dribbling cum on the floor. Clearly not my best, most dignified look. Truth be told, I knew I shouldn't risk a fart - that would be especially humiliating.

Shit, shit, shit.

On the other hand, we wouldn't be going into a pathetic cycle of me telling bad lies to cover it up - the bandaid was ripped off in one motion, and there was no denying this one.

Mike blinked. Slowly. Then again.

And then his face rearranged itself--nothing dramatic, just a pulling inward, like something breaking silently in his chest as he growled "Whose shirt is that? Is he here now? He's here right goddamned now, isn't he?"

My mouth opened, but the sound never came - Mike pounded into the bedroom to find Todd tangled in covers. Todd was probably terrified; I could see the tension in his expression. Even so, (and to my pride - there's that little gut flutter again) he stood up as a man, calmly, and announced that he needed to leave for work even as Mike thundered at him and me about the age difference, my betrayal, and complaints that he hasn't been paying rent "so that the two of you can rut like animals in my goddamned home". Todd methodically pulled on his pants and simply replied "the two of you need to have a talk about things - that part isn't my business" before exiting. Maybe it wasn't a grand, uncontrolled clash of male egos that some women like, but more of a purposeful statement of reality. Don't get me wrong - even though this calm exit settled the environment a little, Mike was still furious and accusatory, shouting about the age difference and in the process of waving his arms about, smashed a vase we'd gotten for our wedding - an item I never really cared about. I was watchful, matter of fact and resigned - tears could come later - as I calmly retrieved an empty duffel from a closet, but his rage shortly sputtered, as it was always likely to sputter.

I honestly expected a little more fight from him as I packed. Maybe more yelling. Some tears, perhaps. Some dramatic final moment at the door where he threw down his ring or made a show of slamming his stupid duffel with laundry onto some piece of furniture.

Instead, spent of his anger, he paused in the hall to the doorway with a quiet, unreadable look on his face as I reached for the handle. It had all been over long ago, but the whole edifice had been crumbling, limping along like a shuffling zombie from that old movie.

"I hope you find what you're looking for, Connie", like an epitaph.

He closed the door gently behind me, like he didn't want to wake the past.

THE WEIGHT

On the drive to the restaurant, I had a little time for reflection. When Mike walked in that day, I didn't just expect his anger--I wanted it. A part of me had been waiting for the explosion, the catharsis of his rage finally shattering the polite fiction of our marriage.

But he didn't scream, not much. He didn't throw things. He just... looked at me. Like he was realizing, for the first time, that he didn't know me at all.

"Whose shirt is that?"

The question was so simple, so devastating. Because the answer wasn't just Todd's. It was mine. A version of myself I'd forgotten existed.

Mike's fury sputtered out into something worse: resignation. He didn't fight for me. Not really. And that, more than anything, confirmed what I already knew--we'd been over long before Todd ever touched me.

Todd knew my choice immediately, even before I did.

When I showed up to his bar--duffel bag in hand, hair pulled back in a way that screamed "not okay"--he was still pale and keyed up from the argument, but came to me, arms open. I buried my face in his neck and whispered, "We need to talk."

He sat down without asking what it was about.

"I didn't mean to get caught," I said. He didn't answer. Just nodded, jaw tight.

"I think I wanted to," I added. That got his attention as he responded with a simple "Why?"

I paused for a moment with a straightforward explanation. "Because I'm tired of living in the middle of two lives." He exhaled, slow and careful. "Does that mean you're choosing one with me?"

I looked at him, square in the eyes before saying "I don't know".

He nodded. "Sit down, we're slow tonight and may close early. I'll make you something light to settle your nerves while I prep for tomorrow." He was like that now - even though he was normally a chatterer, when the topic turned heavy, he'd hear important things in the tone and stop to think on them before addressing or acting on them. It was a part of why I fell for him.

Sitting there at the bar and nursing my spritz, recalling the churning expressions on Mike's face as I had packed some things, I felt a mix of relief and crushing guilt as Todd wiped down counters while continually glancing at me in concern, because I was sniffling and on the verge of ugly crying.

In those few phrases, I had told him everything--the truth I'd kept locked away like a secret treasure and a poison all at once. But now that it was out, it didn't feel like freedom. It felt like a breaking.

Todd -- he was different. So young, so full of fire and careless laughter. With him, I didn't have to hide the parts of me I'd buried under years of loneliness and quiet resignation. He made me feel like I mattered again. Like I was more than just a shadow in someone else's life.

But Mike... Mike was the steady heartbeat of my past. The man I'd promised forever to, the man I still loved in some fractured way. He deserved more than the empty shells of affection I'd been giving him.

I wondered how I'd let it get this far. How I let myself slip away while pretending I was just "busy" or "tired."

The age difference between Todd and me wasn't just a number--it was a chasm of different worlds, different futures. I worried about what would happen when the thrill faded, or when reality caught up with the fantasy.

Todd's face when I showed up at the bar--pale, stunned, but deliberate--told me everything. He wasn't just a reckless kid anymore. He was in this. Really in this, and that scared me more than anything. Because what if I was making a mistake? What if this was just another kind of prison--one where I traded predictability for the terror of being left behind when youth and time caught up with me?

And for the first time, I let myself believe that maybe--just maybe--I wasn't just running away from something. I was running toward something, too.

Toward me.

Was I selfish for chasing this? For wanting to feel alive after so many years of feeling invisible? I couldn't go back. Not now. Not when I had tasted what it meant to be wanted without conditions, without excuses. The money would be fine - we'd have enough to start a life for now - it would be a little tough, but we were both healthy, capable of working and I had the nest egg from Dad.

For now, all I could do was hope that somehow, in this mess of love and regret, there could be some kind of forgiveness. From Mike. From Todd. But most of all--from myself. Over the past few weeks, I'd catch myself frequently imagining what life will look like twenty years from now.

Todd will be in his early forties then -- still young, maybe just hitting his stride. And I... I'll be in my fifties, a woman with a lifetime of wrinkles and memories etched into her skin. Will he still want me? Will the fire between us survive the slow, steady march of time? Or will I become a ghost of what I was, someone he outgrows like a pair of old shoes?

I'm scared. Not just of losing him, but of losing myself in the waiting. Of being left behind when youth inevitably pulls him forward. Maybe that fear is part of what makes me hold on so tight right now -- the urgency to live in the moment, to love fully while I still can, because the future is a question mark, and the present is all I'm sure of.

"Todd?" I asked, sniffing again and wiping away a tear. As he looked up, I said "I saw a drugstore down the corner - can we stop by there when we leave for a pregnancy test? I have a hunch."

His big grin was all I needed to know about the future. A beacon in the dark lighting the road.