As the morning sunlight gently makes it away into the bedroom and across my face, my eyes slowly begin to open. Still in a state of half sleep, I reach my arm out to the other side of the bed only to touch the pillow. She left. She must have gone after I fell asleep.

I sigh deeply and sit up, rubbing my face. I wince when my hand rubs my cheek, there must be a bruise there. There’s a little spot of blood from my ear on the pillow case, normally that would disgust me, but right now I just don’t care. I can’t make myself care about anything except about how much I’ve hurt her.

I get up from the bed and walk into the kitchen to make myself some coffee. As it’s brewing in the pot, it is eerie how it’s the only sound running through the entire house. No sounds of pans with bacon sizzling in them, no humming along to a song she loves that’s playing on the radio, no sounds of the shower running, *****, I would give anything just to listen to the soft scraping of her fuzzy slippers as she walks around the house. I half expect that she’s going to come through the door any minute, as if she’s not here so late in the morning because she went out for her morning jog later than usual. Or perhaps she went to the grocery store or the dry cleaners, or she’s running some other errand. She’d walk through the door, flash that illuminating smile and say “Good morning baby, I love you.” I smile at the thought, but the smile fades when I realize that’s not going to happen. It may never happen again, all because I let my hormones do the thinking for me when things got to a rough spot in our relationship. “Well, they’d been that way for a while, hadn’t they? We stopped really communicating years ago” I think, but then I scold myself immediately for trying to justify my infidelity. There’s no justifying such a betrayal. If I were in Tina’s position, I don’t know if I would forgive her. I know I don’t deserve Tina’s forgiveness.

I pour myself some coffee and begin to replay last night in my mind. All I can think about was what happened when I got home from Provocations. My god, the look on her face, then when she slapped me? I never knew Tina could have such a rage. And the *****, the most angry and depressing ***** I’ve ever had. And what if Tina hadn’t given in the way she had? When she said no over and over as I was ripping of her shirt it only made my desire much stronger. I had to show her that I loved her; that’s all I could think at the time. Then she finally gave in to it, but if she hadn’t? Would I have kept going? “Most likely.” I say aloud in disgust. What was I thinking? How could I betray my beloved Tina like that?

I begin to feel dizzy and set my mug on the counter, still full. I rush to the bathroom and splash cold water onto my face over and over until I feel stable again. I’m breathing heavily, and I look up into the mirror. With strands of hair matted to my forehead and icy water dripping down my face, I ask myself with strong contempt, “What the ***** have you done?”