Broken

I sat down with my face to the window and away from her.

“Tell me everything.” I could hear her sharp intake of breath, her nervous giveaway. “I don’t know where to start,” she said. “At the beginning,” I replied, still looking out at our back garden, littered with the fallen petals of the cherry blossom we planted when we first moved in.

“Ok,” she took a deep breath, in preparation for what she had to say, “it was about four months ago, I met him through work,” I quickly glanced over to see her eyes where focused on the small rag nail she was twisting with, trying to avoid looking at me. “He was an artist and I…I…was given his exhibition to work on,” another deep breath,” Tommy you have to understand when I first met Malcolm I had no idea…”

“Wait, Malcolm? Malcolm Finnick?” I shouted as my head snapped towards her in utter confusion. “Yes,” she replied with her eyes firmly focused on the well worn kitchen tiles. “But I’ve met him before. I went to his show. I shook his hand. Had it already happened when I shook that bastard’s hand?” I shouted again, failing to remain calm.

“Yes,” her voice sounded small, I was fighting with my instinct to run to her side and comfort her with the hot white rage racing through my veins. “Go on,” I managed through gritted teeth while turning my head back towards the window. “I never wanted to hurt you Tommy, I need you to know that. What started between malc…” she stopped as my eyes darted to meet hers at the mention of his name,”between me and him was just friendship. He was kind to me, he listened to me, made me feel again. You must know Tommy that we have been broken for so long, I was just searching for a temporary fix, but it turned into something…more.” Those last three words pierced me so sharply I couldn’t stop the tears flowing down my face, each one leaving a perfect trace of her betrayal behind. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. And then I realised something that I foolishly missed before.

“Eloise,” it hurt my lips to speak her name but I continued, “how long have you been sleeping together?” She made no attempt to answer me but instead kept looking down at the floor. “Eloise, look at me. How long?” My anger was starting to leak out, “you told me it was only one time but I met him in July and that was nearly five months ago.” Still no reply. “Answer me Eloise! I deserve to know!” The rage I had been holding back exploded as my fist hit our kitchen table and Eloise jumped back into reality. “I deserve to know,” I repeated, this time almost pleading with her. She looked up from her own tear stained face, “since the first week I met him in June,” she finally confessed.

“I don’t understand, how could you do this to me? To us? After everything we’ve been through? After…Annie?” I struggled even to say her name, a pain that felt all too familiar to me. “You know Tommy. You must know. We’re broken.”

I stood and walked out of the front door for the last time.