My eyes track Andy‘s back as he walks out the door and into the cooler early fall temperatures of the evening, knowing that everything I’ve held tight for the last several years is now loosening its grip on me.

I can’t decide if it’s a good or bad thing. Todd’s affair was something that I never wanted to get out. I trust Andy that he won’t tell anyone, but it feels weird knowing that someone else knows this giant secret I’ve kept hidden to myself all these years.

Part of me feels like it’s a giant relief to have the burden lightened from my shoulders.

Part of me is terrified.

When I found my late husband, looking more broken than I’d ever seen him, with a naked woman straddling his equally naked body — and did I fail to mention the lovely picture of his hands being handcuffed around her waist? — on the couch in the living room of the home that we shared, I thought my world had simply crumbled around me.

It’s funny. When hit with the impossible, sometimes it’s easier to see clearly. Or, at least, a new side. It was his eyes.

A woman knows her husband’s eyes, what they’re saying in each moment. Whether it be in bed, or when they’re having a disagreement, when he’s happy and telling a joke or upset or grumpy.

The day I opened the door and came face to face with emptiness — and a bit of drunkenness — in his eyes; he shifted his focus to me, and I knew. It only took a second. A brief flash, but I knew it was deeper than him sleeping around on me. I knew he’d gotten his results. And they were exactly what we feared. He was supposed to wait but in true Todd fashion, he probably didn’t want me to have to sit there and listen to the news if it was bad.

“Christine,” he croaks out, eyes on me, his hands gripping her hips as he tries to move her away from him.

She digs her knees into the couch on either side of his legs and lifts her pitiful, unapologetic eyes to me before looking down at Todd.

She trails a fake fingernail down his cheek. He flinches and jerks away from her touch. “Todd, baby, what’s the matter?”

“Get the fuck off me. Now,” my husband growls, empty eyes now being replaced with angry ones, hands pulling at the metal cuffs around his wrists. I don’t even want to know details on that particular adventure. We’ve never had a perfect marriage. It simply doesn’t exist in this world. Two people? Two personalities? They’re meant to argue. It just happens. And it’s okay. It’s what makes marriage what it is. Working together, fighting for your love. It’s damn near impossible most days. Today seems like one of those.

But in all the years we’ve been together? I’ve never seen those eyes.

He turns his head, looking directly at me, and I almost stumble.

Eyes filled with despair.

Sadness.

And rage.

But I know my husband.

That rage?

It’s by no means directed at me.

At her.

At the results.

At life.

At cancer.

Fuck. Cancer.

“Baby?” She says the name like she has the right to.

She’s wrong.

He lifts his hands and pulls on her back trying to get her to move. “Don’t call me baby,” he growls.

“But…”

“I’m not your baby. You’re not mine. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”

“I can be here for you.”

“You have about three seconds to dismount my husband before I take you by your cheap ass extensions and pull you off him. And, just so you know” —I point to the cell phone in my hand recording her— “whether he’s in this video or not? I’ll have no qualms posting this for the entire town to see, so everyone knows what a cheating, lying skank you really are. Not that anyone had any misgivings on that, anyway.”

“See, Christine? This is why Todd came around looking for me. Because you’re such a bitch.”

I raise my eyebrows at her insinuation. First, that he came looking because — one glance at my husband tells me what I assumed in the first place. That she chased him down like the shameless whore she is. And second, because I’m not a bitch. Probably one of the people furthest from it. I’m… nice. A bubble of laughter bursts out of me, and I scoff. “I’m a bitch? Oh, that’s rich coming from you. The town bicycle.”

She narrows her eyes at me then smirks, the devil in her eyes shining with fury, then she twists her head and places her stupid breasts in my husband’s face, all the while he’s trying to twist and turn to get away from her, his hands bound, and his body weak. The reason for the weak body we were supposed to get when we went in for his appointment in an hour. Clearly, he had other ideas.

Cancer.

When we went to the doctor I never imagined that’s the word we’d be leaving with.

Up until a few months ago, my husband was healthy.

Still rocked hard abs and strong arms and shoulders.

Helped coach Bri’s traveling volleyball team.

Played basketball with his friends.

Then one day.

He just started to fall apart.

His illness hit him like a ton of bricks.

Hit us like a ton of bricks.

He no longer had energy.

His body was filled with pain.

Dwindling away like his body was being eaten away from the inside out.

And we were floundering.

Are floundering.

She places her lips next to his ear and says, “You always know where to find me, baby.”

Then the whore slithers her gross body down, stopping at my husband’s non-existent hard on, turns those snake-like eyes to me and licks, from bottom to top.

Todd continues to writhe under her to get her off him, all the while cursing a blue streak. I stand watching, oddly amused at her desperation and his stupidity.

He probably wants me to step in to help him, but if he’s dumb enough to get into this situation then he’s going to have to deal with the consequences of his idiotic actions.

“I said, get out of here!” he roars, and even I jump. She jerks to her feet after crawling out of where she had wedged herself, picks up discarded clothes, and starts putting them on, taking her sweet time.

“You’re pathetic,” I sneer once she’s righted and standing in front of me.

“Oh, please. I’m pathetic? Right. Look in the mirror, honey. I know your type. Ignoring your husband, especially at his time of need. You’re just jealous that I can be there for him. That I’m willing to be there for him.”

“Oh, and your husband? Your children? What about them? Who’s going to be there for them in their time of need? What about when they recognize you for the absurd, wretched, useless woman you are? Are you going to step aside when some other woman comes around?”

She clenches her jaw then scoffs, flipping her fake hair over her shoulder and stomps out.

As soon as I hear the door slam, I giggle. “She’s got the best comebacks.”

“She’s also got the key to these things.” He lifts his hands, showing me they’re still cuffed.

And that’s when I completely lose it.

Laughing uncontrollably like the lunatic that I feel like I am.

Because I just caught my husband having sex with another woman.

On the day he found out he has cancer.

Maybe I’ll never fully know why he chose that moment to give in to temptation. Maybe I’ll never understand why she continued going after married men and stepped out on her own husband.

But one thing I do know, is that Andy doesn’t deserve what he’s been given. Not that anyone deserves that kind of disrespect, but with Andy? He’s one of the good ones. The guy who would bend over backward to make sure that his loved ones are happy. The guy who would give up his life plans, dreams, in order to allow someone else to follow theirs.

Heather doesn’t deserve Andy.

I just hope Andy realizes it.