Lily #3
“Ethan, we haven’t been intimate for months,” I began.
“You’re working later and later. And now there’s goddamn lipstick on your collar.
” It was my turn to toss my hands in the air, letting them fall uselessly to my sides, the weight of my despair crushing me.
“What in the hell am I supposed to think?”
A flicker of understanding danced across his face. “Sunshine,” he murmured, taking a tentative step toward me. “I am not cheating on you.”
My mouth fell open, and a silent scream caught in my throat. It took a few agonizing seconds for my brain to process the red-rimmed eyes and the way his words slurred. “Are you drunk? Did you drive home intoxicated?”
“No, I got an Uber.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “What happened tonight, Ethan? What is your assistant apologizing for?”
He swallowed hard, and clenched his hands into tight fists at his sides. “She…we.”
I waited for him to continue while trying not to freak out.
My husband was a looker, there was no denying that—his sharp jawline, those intense blue eyes, the way he carried himself.
It never bothered me when women gawked at him because I’d always known that he would never act on it.
He was mine. But now I was starting to question it.
Question everything. Question his loyalty to me, to us.
He ran a hand down his face, a ragged sigh escaping his lips. It was a sound of pure dread, as if this was the last conversation on earth he wanted to have.
Me too, buddy.
His eyes met mine again, clouded with fear and shame. “We… kissed and…” He swallowed hard, and my heart, already bruised and battered, stopped beating altogether.
“She… she grabbed my dick, but nothing else happened! I stopped it before it went too far. I swear to God, Sunshine, I stopped it.” The words tumbled out in a desperate rush, but it only fueled the inferno raging inside me.
“Why the hell would you allow another woman to touch you, Ethan!?” I snapped. “The only woman who should be touching and kissing you is your wife! Not your goddamn assistant!”
His chest continued to rise and fall with rapid, shallow breaths. “I’m so sorry, Lily,” he choked out.
“What exactly are you sorry for?” I asked. “If, as you claimed, that nothing happened, then what are you sorry for?”
“For her touching me! Me touching her! For allowing… for that split second… to let it happen!” He threw his hands up in the air.
My eyebrows shot up. “Are you telling me you wanted it to happen?”
He didn’t respond right away. The silence shattered my heart into a million irreparable pieces.
“Wow,” I said, shaking my head.
He could barely bring himself to touch his own wife anymore, but he had no problem letting another woman put her hands on him like she had any right to what I had been begging for.
“Lily, I didn’t want it to happen. But—”
“But what?” I snapped.
“I missed you, Lily. I missed your touch. I missed… us. And yes, for a moment, I wanted to feel desired and not looked at as a failure.” He sucked in a shaky breath before continuing.
“And I regret every single fucking second of it. You’ll never know how sorry I am, Lily.
I would never cheat on you. Please, you have to believe me,” he pleaded.
My eyes burned, but I refused to let the tears fall. “Then what the hell do you call what you did with her? Ethan, you cheated on me, even it wasn’t your intention.”
He shook his head vigorously. “No, no, I didn’t. I didn’t sleep with her!”
“You kissed another woman, Ethan. Were you turned on?” I whispered. The question burned my throat, threatening to bring up the bile that churned in my stomach, but I had to know.
His face contorted, a mask of pure agony, and beads of sweat formed on his brow.
I fought back the sob that clawed its way up, my voice barely holding together. “Did your dick get hard from her touch?”
His eyelids fluttered shut, and his shoulders slumped, his composure crumbling. “Yes,” he whispered, the word a ragged, shaky breath.
And just like that, the arrow struck, piercing through my already broken heart.
The air left my lungs. “You crossed a boundary, Ethan. Whatever your intentions were, you allowed another woman to touch you, to kiss you, to make you feel a certain way. That is a betrayal to me and to our marriage. And you can’t use alcohol as an excuse. ”
His eyes opened, glistening with tears. “That wasn’t my intention, Lily.”
The sad part was that I believed him. But it was too late. The damage had been done.
Ethan
The finality of her words struck me with the force of a lightning bolt.
I cheated on my wife. My Sunshine.
It wasn’t something I planned, but still, I allowed another woman to kiss me and to briefly touch my most intimate part of me that only belonged to my wife.
She stood before me, her expression filled with disappointment and deep pain.
The look on her face eviscerated my insides to smithereens.
I never imagined in a million years that I would see a look of unforgivable anguish on her face.
And I couldn’t blame anybody but myself.
I had done this. I had broken us. Broken her.
“I can’t do this right now. I need to leave,” Lily said quietly, breaking the tense silence.
“No, please. Not until we talk about this,” I pleaded, reaching for her wrist, but she snatched it away.
“Don’t. Touch. Me.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, lifting my palms in surrender. “Lily, please. I want us to fix this. We can move beyond it, together.”
“We had months, Ethan. Months to get it right. But the same patterns kept repeating, and now we’re just two strangers living under the same roof. This isn’t healthy for the kids or for us.”
“What are you saying?” Grief’s icy fingers wrapped around my throat, squeezing tighter with every heartbeat. I was about to lose her, lose everything.
“I think we should get d—”
“Don’t,” I growled desperately, stepping closer, my chest tight. “Do not say the word divorce.”
“You cheated on me! You shattered my trust, Ethan. You broke your vows to promise to love me faithfully,” she said, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“Lily, I never meant for any of this to happen. It was a colossal mistake, one I can’t undo, but it’s something we can still work through together.”
She shook her head. “If the roles were reversed, if another man touched me, kissed me, how would you feel?”
My jaw tightened so forcefully I thought I might crack a tooth. The thought of another man touching her sent a searing pain through my entire body, like acid burning beneath my skin.
“Exactly,” she said firmly.
“I wouldn’t walk away, Lily. And I’m ready to fight for us now. I’ll even go to couples’ therapy. I’ll rearrange my work schedule, work from home, whatever it takes,” I pleaded, my voice breaking as I reached for her hands. Relief flooded me when she didn’t pull away.
“I’ll do anything to make this work. Anything. Please, don’t give up on us. Don’t leave me. Let me prove myself to you.”
Her silence sliced through me, a slow torment.
I grazed her wrists with my thumbs, feeling the frantic beat of her pulse.
When I locked eyes with her, I could see the battle waging within her.
Part of her wanted to fight for us, while the other part seemed set on walking away.
But separation and divorce weren’t options.
We had been through too much to throw it all away. I couldn’t allow that to happen.
She didn’t say anything but removed her hands from mine.
This whole screwed-up situation was a harsh wake-up call.
It made me realize how little effort I put into fighting for her.
For us. For my family. The thought of Lily not being by my side was crippling.
Losing her would feel like losing a limb.
Without her, I wouldn’t be able to function.
A vital part of me would fade, my soul would plunge into darkness, and my heart would feel forever hollow.
Unable to bear the silence any longer, I said her name. “Lily?”
Without sparing me a final glance, she wiped the tears from her cheeks and walked out of the room.
I stood there, frozen, as though my very soul was being stripped away while I watched the love of my life walk away from me.