Lily
“Idon’t know what to say,” Sam whispered as she slumped into the chair across the small, round table. Her face was pale, mirroring the sickening disbelief that still clawed at me.
They hugged me tight, letting me sob until my throat was raw and my body trembled with exhaustion. And then their own tears began to fall.
“He was drunk,” I rasped, the words thick and bitter on my tongue.
Ebony set a steaming mug of tea on the table in front of me. “Being drunk isn’t an excuse for touching and kissing another woman.” She sank onto the chair beside me, tossing her long black faux locs over her shoulder.
“I still can’t believe he would do this to you. He loves you, Lily,” Sam insisted.
I let out a ragged sigh, blowing a shaky breath across the tea’s surface, before I took a sip. “I never thought he would do this to me.” My voice splintered on the last word.
When I thought about Ethan, the love of my life, being with her, I felt a real physical pain. The ache was impossible to explain.
Was reconciliation the answer for us? Or should I get a divorce? What about the kids? Our parents? How could I ever look at him again, knowing his lips, his hands, were on another woman’s body? How could I forgive that?
The phone vibrated against the table, announcing new messages and unread notifications from Ethan. My eyes, already burning, welled up instantly, tears spilling down my cheeks. Each drop felt like another shard of my heart breaking.
Ethan: I’m so fucking sorry, Lily.
Ethan: I love you so much.
Ethan: Please come home. I’m worried about you.
Ethan: Can you at least tell me you’re okay.
Ethan: Never mind. Marcus told me you’re with Ebony.
Ethan: Please, Sunshine. I’m so, so sorry.
Ethan: I hurt you, and I broke what we had. I would take it back if I could, every second of it.
Ethan: Please come home. We don’t have to fix everything tonight. I can’t stand the thought of you out there hurting because of me.
I finally picked up the phone and replied.
Me: Home doesn’t feel like home right now.
Ethan: I hate that I did this to us.
Me: You should’ve thought about that before you almost fucked her.
Ethan: And I’ll regret that for the rest of my life.
Unable to stomach another empty apology, I silenced his messages. I locked the screen, plunging it into darkness, as if that could somehow extinguish the darkness consuming me.
Ethan
“Dad, where’s Mom?” Maddy asked, a wide yawn stretching her small face. She was perched at the kitchen table in her pjs, her sock-covered feet swinging.
I flipped a pancake. “She’ll be back later today.” My voice felt thick, like I had dust in my throat. “She’s with your Aunt Sam and Ebony.”
“Are you working today?” she asked, her blue eyes, so much like mine, fixed on me.
I walked over, the spatula carrying a pancake clutched in my hand, and slid a pancake onto her plate. “Not today, sweet pea.”
“Yay!” she cheered.
“That’s a first,” Jake muttered, his voice flat, as he walked into the kitchen. He didn’t look at me, heading straight for the fridge.
“Morning, son.”
His silence was a physical blow, creating a cold, sharp ache in my chest. Nowadays, my own son looked at me with nothing but disappointment.
And he was right to. After what I did to Lily, after my absence, there was no excuse.
Now, I had to live with my choices and hope Lily wouldn’t leave me, that she’d give me a chance to make it right.
“I thought we could all spend the day together,” I said as I returned the pan to the burner.
“Can’t”, Jake replied, pulling out a carton of milk and a box of cereal. “I have plans.”
“Doing what?” I asked.
He paused, his eyes, dark and accusing, finally met mine. “Now you’re interested in my life?”
I flinched. “I’m sorry, Jake.”
He set the milk back in the fridge and turned fully toward me, his jaw set. “For what exactly?”
A lump, thick with regret, clogged my throat. “For not being here for you when I should’ve been.”
For everything.
He stared at me for a long, agonizing beat, his gaze unwavering, then slowly shook his head. A bitter, humorless sound escaped him. “I’m going to eat this on the patio.” He turned abruptly, the patio doors sliding shut with a soft hiss behind him.
“It’s okay, Daddy,” Maddy said, her small voice pulling me back. “I’m free.”
A genuine, fragile smile touched my lips.
At least my daughter didn’t hate me. But how long would that last when she eventually understood how I’d broken this family? Would she forgive me?
Lily
As soon as I walked into the front door, I was met with a suffocating silence.
It felt heavier than the humid air outside.
I couldn’t stay away long, not only because of my children, but because Ebony and Sam were right.
I couldn’t hide in a hotel room forever and cry my eyes out.
It wasn’t solving anything. Eventually, I had to drag myself back to face the ugly truth of my husband’s betrayal.
Kicking off my shoes, I set my purse and keys onto the hall table. I noticed the table lamp was on in the living room, casting a weak, yellow glow, but I didn’t stop to look, knowing it was Ethan waiting for me. How the tables have turned.
I headed straight for the stairs when a voice, soft and hesitant, stopped me cold.
“Lily.”
My hands were already gripping the banister. I turned my head slowly to find Ethan standing in the threshold, his shoulders slumped, eyes red-rimmed and puffy.
“Can we please talk?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
I turned to face him fully, crossing my arms over my chest. “Okay. Talk.”
He nodded. “I love you and I regret betraying you more than I can put into words. And I know I broke my promises to you. All of them. But I want to do anything and everything to rebuild my promises to you.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “How can you possibly love me after what you did, Ethan? Help me understand that.”
“Because I made a big, stupid, selfish mistake, Lily. God, I swear, it was a disgusting mistake.”
“You made a choice,” I corrected.
He shook his head. “It wasn’t a choice! I didn’t wake up one day and decide to betray you. It wasn’t planned.” His hands came up, a gesture of helplessness.
My jaw clenched. “You still made a choice and acted on it. You could’ve walked away. You could’ve stopped her. You could’ve stopped yourself. But you didn’t.”
“You’re right. And I’m so, so sorry,” he rasped, tears filling his eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, to cause you anymore pain. I don’t want to minimize what I did or ask you to forget it. All I can do is be honest, take responsibility, and work every day to become a better husband.”
He paused, his eyes shining with shame as he looked at me.
“I will never forgive myself for what I did to you. To our family. I failed you. I failed our kids. But I will fight for you. For us. I am not giving up on us, Lily.”
He shook his head, tears slipping down his face. “And if there is even the smallest part of you that still believes in us, I will spend every day proving I can be the man you deserved all along.”
We stared at each other for a long, agonizing moment.
I saw the raw, gut-wrenching remorse swirling in his blues, the agony of what he’d done twisting his handsome features.
And a small, foolish part of me, the part that still remembered the man I married, believed him.
Believed that he was truly sorry. But there was something about loving someone, believing with every fiber of your being that they would never hurt you or betray you, that cut deeper than any knife when that fear became a reality.
“Every time I shut my eyes, I can’t get the image of you doing the things you did with her out of my head.
Ethan, you touched another woman. Your lips were on another woman.
Those images are burned into my brain like an unwanted guest. I don’t know if I will ever want you to touch me again, Ethan. The thought makes my skin crawl.”
His shoulders shook violently, his face crumbling in grief, as if he’d already lost me. And maybe he had. Maybe this marriage, this life we’d built, was already teetering on the edge and was bound to collapse.
“I don’t know if I can forgive that, Ethan.”
“Please don’t walk away. Please, Lily,” he begged, desperately wiping at his tears with the back of his hand.
“Our marriage had cracks in the foundation, Ethan, and your actions demolished it.”
“No,” he said firmly, shaking his head. “We can still fight for this. We have to. Don’t let one horrible night erase everything we have, everything we are, and everything we could still have.”
I reared back in disgust. “What we could still have? Do you honestly think I want to have another baby with you after you let another woman touch you, kiss you? Are you serious right now?” I spat at him.
“Then let me spend the rest of my life trying to make it right!” he snapped back. “Give me the chance to earn your forgiveness, Lily. Your trust. Please.”
He took a step forward, his hands out in a pleading gesture, palms up. “I’ll move out. I’ll give you all the space you need, whatever you want, but please, Lily,” he cried, his voice breaking completely. “Please don’t give up on us. We can make this work.”
He sounded sincere—sincere enough that part of me wanted to believe him. But wanting to believe him and being able to trust him were two very different things. And I didn’t know if I could do either.
“How can you be so sure?” I asked.
“Because it’s us. It’s always been us. Lily and Ethan. It’s me and you, Sunshine. I love you so much. And I am so, so sorry.” He dropped to his knees, a broken heap on the floor, and cried, his face buried in his hands.
“God, I am so, so sorry I fucked up. I didn’t mean it. She meant nothing to me. Nothing!”
As I watched my husband, the man I’d built a life with, fall apart before me, my heart ached for him.
It was a twisted, cruel irony, given that he was the one who had betrayed me.
I had given him plenty of chances over the past few months to address the distance between us, but he hadn’t done the work.
He’d dismissed our children and me, retreating into himself, claiming he couldn’t handle the pressure at work and being the husband and father he used to be.
But he was able to be free with her, wasn’t he?
Free to give that woman the attention, the passion, everything that I had craved every night.
I was struggling even to consider forgiveness; the very idea of working to make it right felt like an impossible task.
What if he repeated this behavior? Like Ebony said, for a marriage to move toward forgiveness, it required both partners to be willing to do the hard work of rebuilding. But was I willing to rebuild on rubble?
“I believe you, Ethan,” I said, my lips trembling.
His shoulders relaxed, his sobs subsiding into ragged gasps. He looked up, a glimmer of desperate hope in his bloodshot eyes.
“But I can’t stay.”