I cannot breathe. The room is too small. The walls are too close. Briana’s perfume is everywhere, on my skin, on my clothes, on my mouth. I am covered in her. The smear of herlipstick, the heat of her breath, the oily residue of her touch. It’s a film that coats me, a second skin of my own making.
I can taste her.
I can taste my own failure.
“Julian?” Briana whispers. Her hand starts to reach for me again.
Her voice is soft. Concerned. Does she really not understand what just happened? Can she not see the war being waged inside my chest? The way my lungs are seizing? The way my heart is hammering against my ribs?
“Don’t,” I snap.
Her hand halts, suspended in the air.
I see the hurt flash across her face. The confusion. Perhaps the first stirring of anger. But I don’t care. There is no room for her feelings in the space where my guilt is expanding, filling every corner, pressing against my ribs until I think they might crack.
I shake my head. My throat closes. “I can’t do this. Not again. Iwon’t.”
Her expression darkens. The softness drains from her face, replaced by something harder. Something colder. Gaunt. “Julian, don’t—”
“No.” I drag a hand over my face. It feels rubbery and disconnected. My palm is damp with a cold, oily sweat that smells of old adrenaline and panic. My forehead is slick. My breath is unsteady, coming in short, shallow gasps. “It’s over. For good. There is no us.”
As she stares at me, her eyes narrow into two hard, analytical slits. Her lips press together. She is trying to decide whether to fight or retreat, whether to push or let go.
“Why?”
“I love her,” I say with conviction. “I love my wife.”
Briana’s face contorts into a mask of scorn. Her siren-like beauty, which moments ago seemed soft and inviting, now looks sharp and dangerous.
“You have a strange way of showing it. Were you ‘in love’ when you were in my bed for months?”
The words land like blows.
Each one is precise.
Each one is sickeningly, undeniably true.
I have no defense. I have no excuse. I have no explanation that will make this better or different or anything other than what it is.
My jaw clenches so tight it aches. The muscles in my temples throb. I can feel the blood pounding behind my eyes, the pressure building, a physical mass of shame rising like hot bile in my throat.
“I was wrong and made a mistake. I will spend the rest of my life making sure I never make that mistake again.”
The words are not for her. They are for me. A promise. A vow. A line drawn in the sand that I will not cross again.
Briana opens her mouth. To argue, probably. To wound, even. To say something that will make this hurt less for her and more for me.
Whatever it could be, I don’t wait to hear it.
I unlock the door and walk out before she can say anything else.
I stride straight to the restroom, shoving the door open and nearly wrenching the faucet handle as I crank the water on. The sound is violent—water hammering against porcelain, drowning out the roar in my ears. The restroom smells of industrial bleach and someone’s old, stagnant urine.
I scrub my mouth.
Hard.
I use my knuckles, grinding them against my lips until I taste the tang of blood. The water is cold, shockingly cold, but I don’t adjust the temperature. I want the cold. I want to feel something other than her mouth’s warmth, her lips’ softness, the familiar fit of her body against mine, as if she had never left. I scrub until my gums sting and my jaw aches. Until the skin around my mouth is chafed and red. Until I cannot feel her anymore—only the sting, only the ache, only the small, punishing satisfaction of erasing her.
