Maria and I worked in the same firm, but in different offices. It happened that we both stayed up late, and her husband – a friend of mine – could call me and ask to take Maria to the bus stop and make sure she got the bus, and he would meet her at his place. So sometimes we would meet in the lobby together and walk to the bus stop, talking about things. We had many things in common, and my husband often didn’t understand something, and he didn’t like what Maria liked. I found an outlet in talking to her, albeit infrequently, and gradually this led to her hugging me goodbye, then kissing me on the cheek, and once she kissed me for real, missing her bus.
I knew it was wrong for my friend and his family, but I fell in love with Maria and could not deny myself.
Maria began to lie that she was working late just to stop by my house and cuddle together in bed; she made up stories about business trips or trips to her mother in the countryside, but in reality we spent time together, going out on dates when my friend was at work and couldn’t catch us.
I genuinely liked Maria, and though we never discussed the possibility of her leaving her husband, I somehow had no doubt that if I asked her to marry me, she would immediately file for divorce. I was living in some silly dreams, stealing someone else’s happiness, not someone I didn’t even know, but my good friend’s. I drank with him at the bar and listened to him mutter about how his wife had changed, how she was always getting all dressed up when she went out, how she must have had a lover. And falsely consoled him, and then rushed to meet my beloved.
I didn’t understand what I was destroying other people’s lives for or why, until one day Maria came to my house in a bad mood. She had quarreled with her husband, and decided to take it out on me.
– You are always filthy! Don’t you have the hands to take a rag and mop the floors? And the fridge is always empty. Do you think I have to clean and cook for two houses? You’re just a lover, not my adopted child, learn to take care of yourself.
That got me thinking. Maria didn’t love me, she considered me a temporary distraction. Our romantic days turned into the same drabness that reigned in her home. She was bored with me, and she didn’t think there was anything ahead of us.
I only wish I had been the first to ask her to break up with me. She texted me that night that she was leaving and that I shouldn’t dare tell my husband. I wasn’t going to. I was ashamed to look my friend in the eye, let alone admit to such a terrible thing. I just told him that I could no longer walk Maria to the bus stop, because I finish early.
The truth they say that on another’s misfortune does not build happiness. Now I live in perpetual fear that my new girlfriend might turn out to be a cheater like Maria…
