Interrogation

Sean and I decided that it would be best if we went somewhere quiet but in public. I honestly wasn’t sure if I even wanted him in my apartment so we settled on a park about 20 minutes from the airport. I met him there; I didn’t offer meeting him at the airport or arranging transportation for him. When he arrived I was sitting on a bench in a blue jersey dress and heels. I had left work for the day at lunch but didn’t tell Sean so if I wanted to leave I could tell him I had to get back to work. He was wearing a white t-shirt, dark jeans, and his normal tennis shoes. I stood up when I saw him, it was kind of awkward.

“Can I hug you?” He asked.

“No.” I said. My voice wasn’t malicious but I noticed Sean was hurt by that.

I started walking towards a section of the park where free-to-the-public cement chess tables were placed with cement stools on either side. I wanted to be looking at Sean when he explained himself. When we settled and sat down, I pulled out my list of questions and got to business.

“Okay, so I’m not really interested in hearing you say how sorry you are. I know you’re sorry but I deserve an explanation and answers to my questions. First question: When did this happen?”

Sean was quiet for a second, like he was trying to work up the courage to talk about all of this. Then he cleared his throat and rubbed his hands on his knees.

“The night of our anniversary.”

“Oh.” I took that in, then: “Is it ongoing?”

“No. It happened once and I immediately regretted it.”

“But you didn’t tell me about it until a month later.”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to tell you on the phone…”

“So you were going to wait until July.”

“Yeah.”

“Really?” I said trying to keep the anger out of my voice, “After everything you said when this happened with Guy? You told me that you would never cheat on me and if you did you’d tell me right away, yet you were going to wait until JULY?”

“Would you have wanted me to tell you over the phone?”

“No, I would have preferred you never sleep with someone else. I would have preferred you answered your phone when you stormed off instead of this.”

I knew I was being rude, but I think I was justified in my anger and I don’t regret letting it out. Sean took a deep breath and didn’t say anything so I continued on.

“Who was it?”

Sean physically squirmed in front of me and refused to meet my eyes.

"Does that matter?" He asked.

I gave him the dirtiest look I've ever given anyone in my life before venomously answering back.

"Yes. Was it a groupie for the band? Was it Tracy?"

"Tracy?"

"So it was her?"

"No. Faith, Tracy is gay."

"So who was it, then? You had to know I would ask this."

Sean sighed and looked down.

“It was Karen.”

I watched a woman run by us on a park path as I took that in.

“I see.” I said regaining my composure, “Was she good?”

“What!?” Sean looked at me like I had sprouted antlers.

“Was she great? Was it the best sex of your life? Is she more flexible than me?”

Sean started sputtering. He certainly didn’t expect me to be so direct.

“Sean, I’m asking you if having sex with her was worth ruining our relationship. Stop acting like I’m asking unreasonable questions.”

He glared at me and then conceded.

“No. It wasn’t.”

“Why did you do this to me?”

“I was mad at you, Faith. I was SO SURE you were cheating on me with that guy at your office. I was upset and stressed about the tour and when I got back to the buses after seeing that I was just so angry. I wanted to hurt you like you hurt me and Karen happened to be there. She reminded me of you and we had the bus to ourselves because everyone was out celebrating Tracy’s birthday. She was there and she was comforting me because she and her boyfriend had just broken up. She was saying all the right things. One thing led to another and we…” Sean’s eyes started to fill up with tears, “we had sex. When I read your e-mail explaining things I felt horrible and-”

I held my hand up to stop him from going on.

“You told me you couldn’t get it up with people you don’t love, which in hindsight just seems like a load of bullshit and I never should have accepted that as an answer, but how exactly were you able to have sex with her with that problem?”

“I didn’t lie to you about that.”

“So you’re in love with Karen?” My stomach felt like it was filled with lead.

“No! I didn’t lie to you about my problem,” he lowered his voice, “but that was a long time ago. Therapy has fixed that particular issue for me. I don’t love her.”

“You didn’t take pills?”

“No!”

“Did anyone else know about this besides you and Karen?”

“No. We were alone and everybody else came back hours after we’d…finished.” Sean was visibly uncomfortable but I really didn’t care.

"So you guys have just been working together all this time like it never happened?"

"We've been avoiding each other and keeping it as professional as before it happened."

“Okay.” I said, “What do you want to happen?”

Sean seemed surprised by this question.

“I’d like for things to go back to normal but I know that’s not a possibility.”

“So you want to continue our relationship?”

“Yeah.”

“I need to think about it, especially now that I have all of this new information to take into consideration. But if we do go that route there are few things I’m going to need.”

“Okay.”

“We’d need to see a relationship counselor once every two weeks. I’m not going to be able to move past this without a professional’s guidance and help so if you say ‘no’ to the counselor I’m not even going to try and continue our relationship.”

“How am I supposed to do that with the tour?”

“You’ll have to figure it out. That's your problem, not mine. At least, not anymore. Talk to Karen about the schedule or something.” Sean winced at the sound of her name,” Also, the engagement is off.”

“Okay. Is that everything?”

“No. I need to say this: I honestly don’t even know if I want to be with you anymore. I’m still in love with you but the truth is, Sean, I’ve been really unhappy throughout our entire relationship and I don’t know if I want to work as hard as we will need to in order to fix it, if it can even be fixed.”

“I understand that.”

“I’m going to go; I have to be back at work soon. I’ll let you know what I decide when I have some time to think about everything.”

“Okay.”

We both stood and stared at each other and then started walking back the way we came until it was time to split apart. As I went to leave, Sean lightly touched my hand to stop me.

“Faith, I really am sorry for hurting you like this. I made a huge mistake because I allowed my judgment to be clouded with anger and you deserve so much better than that. I’ve never betrayed someone like this; I’m not that guy-”

“But you are that guy, Sean, because you did cheat on me, just like Kevin did,” He opened his mouth to protest but I cut him off, “The circumstances may have been different, but it doesn’t matter. You hurt me just like he did and the pain isn’t any different, in fact, it’s worse because I trusted you so much more than I ever trusted Kevin. You threw away our relationship because of your own insecurities and because you couldn’t trust me as much as I trusted you.”

I turned on my heel and walked away. I refused to look back.