Confessions

I took the hotel robe.

Not because it was nice. It wasn't. Thin, scratchy, one wash away from being a rag. I took it because he kept saying, "Nobody can know I was here," while standing there barefoot in that stupid expensive suite like secrecy was something I was supposed to be flattered by.

So when he got in the shower, I folded the robe into my tote and left wearing my own clothes like nothing happened.

He texted later asking if I saw it.

I said no.

The weird part is I still have it. Bottom shelf of my closet. I never wear it. I never even touch it. I just like knowing something from that room left with me and not him.

He got to keep his marriage. I kept the robe.

Honestly, that felt fair.

1. Deleted his number. 2. Checked our old thread from my laptop because apparently I'm creative when I'm insane. 3. Drove by his building twice. 4. Told myself it didn't count because I never parked. 5. Wore the perfume he liked to the grocery store for no reason. 6. Stared at canned tomatoes like a widow in a war film. 7. Almost texted "wrong person" just to reopen the door. 8. Didn't. 9. Felt superior about that for maybe forty minutes. 10. Still slept with my phone face-up like God was about to reward me for restraint.

I wasn't healing. I was just trying to look less pathetic from certain angles.

I told him I had a dream about him before we ever touched.

That part was false.

What was true is I wanted to see what kind of man he'd become if he thought fate had brushed against him. Men act different when they think they've been chosen by something invisible. Softer at first. Then reckless. Then vain.

It worked faster than I expected.

He asked what happened in the dream. I said, "You already know." That was enough. It is almost embarrassing how little men require to begin building their own mythology.

After that, everything got strange in the way I wanted. More eye contact. Longer pauses. Messages sent at hours that implied poor judgment. He thought something cosmic was happening. Really it was just me, bored and curious and willing to light a match near an open curtain.

I never corrected him.

That is either manipulation or talent. I go back and forth.

this is gross probably but whatever

my friend left her lip gloss in my car and i knew it was hers because she always buys that plumping kind that burns. i put it on before i met him. not because i wanted to be her. not exactly. i just wanted to see if he noticed anything familiar and looked guilty.

he did.

like immediately.

didn't even say what it was. just stared at my mouth for a second too long and got weird and quiet.

so yeah. i kept using it.

for like two weeks.

i know that sounds psycho and maybe it is but you have to understand, when people lie to your face long enough you start getting hungry for tiny proof. tiny reactions. little cracks. i wasn't trying to confront anybody. i just wanted to sit there looking normal while he slowly realized he was not as slick as he thought.

the lip gloss made my mouth sting. that was part of the fun, honestly.

I told myself I saved it in case I needed proof.

That was the respectable version.

The real version is I liked the way he sounded when he forgot to be careful. Low voice, rushed breathing, my name like he wasn't supposed to say it out loud. I played it in the dark more times than I'm willing to count. Not because I missed him exactly. More because I liked hearing what I could do to someone who spent all day pretending to be composed.

The worst part is it's not even a long voicemail. Twenty-three seconds. Half of it static. One stupid whispered sentence and then the click.

I still haven't deleted it.

At this point it's not evidence. It's a souvenir.

This is going to make me sound worse than I probably am.

He told me she always wore soft colors. Cream, blush, white, all that quiet-pretty stuff men mistake for innocence. The next time I saw him, I wore white too. Not because I wanted to look like her. Because I wanted to know if he'd flinch.

He did.

Tiny thing. Barely there. But I saw it.

That's the part nobody tells you. Once you know where guilt lives in somebody's face, you can find it every time.

I kept wearing white after that. Silk once. Cotton once. One dress that made him stare at me like he was standing too close to a fire he built himself.

It wasn't about fashion. It was about pressure.

nobody sent them

that's the confession

big stupid arrangement too. not funeral big but enough to make people notice. pale roses, weird little ribbon, expensive looking vase. i put my own card in there and signed it with just an initial because i wanted people at work to start guessing.

and they did

for three days i got to be the woman somebody was losing sleep over. people kept looking at me different. softer. nosier. even the ones who acted above it were absolutely dying to know.

there was no man. there was no admirer. there was just me and my debit card and a very specific mood.

i don't even feel bad about it. which probably says enough.

I left no note, no lipstick message, nothing so adolescent.

I only touched the bottom edge of the bathroom mirror after washing my hands. Just enough to leave a clean streak beneath the fog the next morning. A place where fingers had been. A small disruption. Something a woman would notice immediately and a man never would.

He had told me, rather smugly, that she notices everything.

I wanted to test the range of that gift.

She noticed. Of course she did. He texted me the next day asking whether I had "done something weird" in his apartment, which was insulting for two reasons. First, because yes. Second, because he said it like the weirdness had arrived there without him.

I never answered.

Some acts are improved by silence.