Notes: The titles belong to Shinedown.
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It was not really infidelity, because in order for there to be betrayal there must first be some kind of loyalty involved.
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despite the writing on the wall
She left home by train on a Tuesday and didn�t look back.
She found herself at his doorstep, not because it was her destination but because he had always been her refuge, and he let her in because she had always been his. The questions were there, in his eyes, but they were not spoken, and for that she was grateful. Their existence had always been verbal, in the years when she controlled his life and he thought he controlled hers, but things had changed, and she found that she welcomed this new silence, because it said more than any of their words ever had.
He didn�t touch her, not at first, he just stood there with his hands stuffed in his pockets and looked at her, his eyes lingering briefly on the bag clutched nervously in her hands, and the ring that still sparkled on her finger. There was no hesitation in his step as he crossed the room to take the bag from her and place it by the door, but it was there in his eyes as he looked back up at her, and she knew that he was giving her that last little out, that last escape. But she didn�t want it, because she already had escaped, and he was what she had escaped to.
When their lips met, there was no softness in it, no restraint, and when she pulled back to catch her breath, she could feel their fire dancing in the spaces between them.
It wasn�t love that she saw in his eyes, not anymore. Love was too easy a word for it, too uncomplicated. It was passion and regret and pain and adoration and a million other things besides, but it was not love, and she tried not to let it hurt.
Maybe it had never been love, not even in the beginning, all those years when they had danced around each other in a whirlwind of denial and banter, hiding under the constraints of their job titles. Maybe it wasn�t even love when they had found a release for their victories and losses in each other�s arms. She knew that it hadn�t been love when she had walked away from him and married someone else.
Or maybe that was the only time it was love, when she was able to admit to herself that she could no longer make him happy, that maybe she never had.
But here she was, in the twilight of a Tuesday evening, and none of it mattered anymore because his hands were tangled in her hair, and her lips were capturing his, and they were caught together in a rhythm that had nothing to do with memories or hopes, but only the present, only the now, only each other. There was such a familiarity to the movements, to the taste of him, and she marveled at the fact that everything and nothing had changed between them over the years.
She woke in the night and reached out to run a hand down the smooth skin of his back, committing him to a memory that was not tied to sight, not tied to the picture of his haunted eyes or unruly hair or unavoidable smirk. She tasted him on her lips as she slid from under his sheets, and she caught the brief scent of him on her clothes as she slipped into them in the darkness. As the door closed behind her, she listened for the last hint of his peaceful breathing, and when she stood on the train platform with the wind whipping her hair across her face, she could still feel the silk of him against her fingers.
She left him in the darkness of a Wednesday morning, and she didn�t look back.
such a cruel contradiction
�You can be more.�
It seems to be what he tells you with every word, every look, and sometimes it makes you want to hit him, want to throw him back against a wall and demand to know if any of it will ever be enough for him. You�ve done it all, everything he ever asked of you, everything he ever tried to convince you that you could do, and you know that you owe it all to him, but it�s never enough. There�s always the next thing to do, the next part of the world to change, and it�s honestly exhausting you.
Toby once tried to tell you that you only became President to make your father proud of you, but you know that�s not true.
You did it because Leo asked.
Because he came to you that day with a napkin in his hand. He told you that you could do it, and you believed him, because there had never been a day when you didn�t believe what he told you, when you didn�t trust him with everything that had ever mattered in your life. So you trusted him to make it happen, and he did, and now you sit in this legendary office and you know that it is occupied by the wrong man.
He was always the one with the vision, the one with the drive. You know that you have the political instincts of a rock, and you�re comfortable with that because you never really wanted to be a politician in the first place, and anyhow you always had him around to keep an eye on that side of things for you.
It�s not really that you feel you owe him, although you know you do. It�s more than that, and more than the friendship that has kept you by each other�s side all these years. There is a devotion that goes deeper than honor, deeper than brotherhood, and though you both refuse to put words to it, it is there, in the moments when his eyes meet yours in understanding and his face crinkles into one of those smiles that can light the world.
There are days when you think you live just to see that smile.
You don�t hear him enter the room behind you, but you feel him there somehow, and you don�t bother turning, because you already know what you�ll see. His clothes are rumpled from a long day of meetings and other insanity, and there is an exhausted bruised quality to his eyes that has been there for too many years now. But he is still here, this late at night, still hard at work making it easier for you to change the world, and you know that when you turn to him there will be a weary excitement in his eyes, because this is what he loves to do, what he lives to do.
�Good evening, Mr. President,� he says, and you mourn the days when he would call you by your name. You look up then, because you have to, and see nothing that you hadn�t expected. One of your hands waves invitingly at the chair opposite you and he sinks down into it while you wonder when exactly the two of you got so old.
You don�t talk, because talking is what you both do all day, and you�re exhausted of it. Instead you sit, and there is a companionship in the silence that could not come from words, from voicing the unexpressed after all these years. Together you listen to the slow ticking of the minutes, and as you think about the way that time has irrevocably changed you both, you know that he is even now thinking of the future, thinking of what�s next.
What�s next?
They should be his words, but they are yours, because you are the one who asks the question. The answer inevitably comes from him.
You know you should leave, should go upstairs and get some sleep, but you have no desire to go upstairs to that bed and find yourself nagged by the woman in it. So you sit here with this man who has been your rock and your shield for so long, and when you look into his eyes you see those words there, with a tiny smile behind them.
�You can be more.�
if only for a while
He is her gate to the world, but he is also her wall, and sometimes she just needs to escape him.
Each moment away from him feels stolen somehow, and she wishes most days that she never fell in love with him, because it would make this so much easier. But she does love him, and that is why her own betrayal hurts so badly.
She clutches the sheets around her as she lies beside another man, and she can feel the slight vibrations of his words, but she�s far too tired to lift her head and look at his face, so she doesn�t even pretend to listen. He�s probably just trying to hear his own voice anyways, because that�s how he is. He�s a politician, and they generally seem to be comforted by meaningless words.
She discovered long ago that most words don�t have meaning, not really. So much more is said in the silences between people, the looks and the pauses, and time has taught her that sound is not a great loss. She reads more into what goes unsaid than by any words shaped by their lips, and she knows that the silence she lies in now with this man speaks volumes.
They are both trying to escape, in their own ways, and she doesn�t feel used at all because she knows she�s using him just as much. She doesn�t understand, really, what he needs to free himself from, because it seems that the love he is looking for is right there outside his office every morning, but he�s probably too self-involved to see it, so she doesn�t bother trying to tell him. She knows that he doesn�t understand her need either, but the reason for her escape is not here to interpret, so she just smiles and shakes her head and answers his voiceless questions in a way that requires no words.
She tries not to think of the man waiting at home for her, because it seems that even in the moments when she is without him he is a presence to her. It hadn�t been like that in the beginning, when they had started working together, because then he had been all business, and she had wondered for a while if there was any fun in him at all. But time had passed, and she had uncovered sides of him that she believed even he hadn�t known existed. Maybe her love of him came from the rather simple idea that she had been a part of creating the man he had become.
Maybe it wasn�t really love at all, just pride, and the tiny invading notion that she owed him something.
But tonight she lies with another man, and she doesn�t think of him, except in the tiny part of her mind that is constantly aware of his presence or absence. She has grown tired over these years, years of waking with him and working through the day with him and settling back into bed with him after a long day together. It is a tiredness that she fears she will never be able to escape, but this is her attempt.
So she clings to another man and wonders in that part of her mind that she tries to ignore whether he ever feels this, this need to escape her. She doubts that he does, because there is a loyalty in him that she cannot relate to, and it saddens her because she fears she will one day break his heart without meaning to.
That is a guilt she doesn�t want to have to live with.
But tonight is not about him, she tells herself, and she lifts her head to discover that the man by her side is still talking into the darkness. He pauses when she looks at him, and she starts laughing, because he is after all quite a ridiculous man. �You know I�m not listening, right?� she asks, and she has learned over the years not to mind the fact that she can�t hear her own words. He gapes at her for a moment or two, but then his face splits into a grin and he mutters �Yeah, I know,� and they laugh together because maybe they are equally ridiculous.
She turns to lay her head on the pillow, and as she drifts off to sleep she finds herself thinking that there may be more escape in their laughter than in their embrace.
if you fear the answer
I am not that woman.
You see, the way I look at it, you would probably say that I�ve now been that woman twice, but I really haven�t. The first time it didn�t mean anything, and it was a one time thing, and I was drunk. Those are three reasons that all add up to the fact that I am not that woman, not in the least.
This time he�s in love with me.
So obviously, it doesn�t count.
Look, every woman starts out with standards. In the beginning the list is ridiculously long, filled with things like a head full of hair, and a bank account full of money, and the ability to make you laugh, and understand your moods, and cater to your every whim. As the years pass, that list gets shorter and shorter until there might as well not be a list at all. A few years ago, it got to the point where �single and interested� were pretty much my only criteria.
Then, that one night, I decided that �single� wasn�t all that important either.
But like I said. I was drunk. So I�m really not that woman.
I always hated that woman. You know the one, the one who thinks that the rules don�t apply to her, who imagines that the ring doesn�t really mean what people seem to think it means.
It does mean that. It means off limits. It�s just that sometimes the limits are a little skewed.
Anyway, that time it was a mistake. And after that night, it was one that I never intended to make again. I had very good intentions, you know. The best intentions, really. And it all would have worked out very well for me if my greatest friend in the world hadn�t decided to wait until after he was married to let me in on the fact that he�s in love with me.
But he doesn�t love her. He never did, and I can�t honestly tell you why he ever married her. So that has to mean that it doesn�t count, right?
Right?
God, I hate us both.
I never meant for it to happen, you know. I was happy for him when they got married, I really was. He deserved someone like her, deserved to finally be happy with someone. The problem is, he wasn�t happy, not with her, and I never realized it until he showed up on my doorstep last night.
He cried. I�d never seen him cry before, but he did then, standing dripping in my doorway as he told me that he loved me, he always had, and he had made a terrible mistake in marrying her. He asked me to forgive him, as if he had done something to hurt me, as if forcing himself to live all this time with a woman he had never loved was in some way affecting my ability to function.
I didn�t mean to sleep with him, but what was I supposed to do when he was standing there looking so miserable and lovable and desperately in need of the love he could not find at home?
He�s in love with me. And God knows I�ve been in love with him for longer than I can remember. So we�ve done nothing wrong. It doesn�t count, not really.
I swear, I�m not that woman.
as he slowly fell apart
They almost have the same eyes, the same shade of blue, and it throws him sometimes when he wakes to find those eyes on him, either pair, because he always sees the other in them.
The mornings when he wakes with her are easy and comfortable, filled with the scent of home and familiarity. She usually wakes first, because she has an internal alarm that is not dependent on caffeine, and most mornings he opens his eyes to see her watching him sleep. It�s reassuring, in a way, to wake to that kind of love every day he�s home, and most mornings find him taking her in his arms and worshipping her elegant white skin before he can even think of starting the day.
The mornings with Sam are different. They are always in hotel rooms, never in a home, because nights when he is in his own city are spent with her. That is a rule between the two men, one of many. Those mornings never happen in Washington. They happen everywhere else in the country, though, from Maine to San Diego, and there is an excitement to never knowing when he is going to show up in a city. He always gives him his travel information, and there have been nights when he has lain awake in a lonely hotel room, hoping desperately for a knock at the door, only to wake in the morning sleep deprived and still alone.
The nights when he does come, though, are beyond perfect, so he doesn�t begrudge him the odd night when he doesn�t show.
In the beginning, he had thought that it was a choice he was willing to make. At some point along the way, a decision had become necessary and he had chosen her, because he could not imagine his life without her. They had stood there at the altar, him and her together, while the man in his life stood by his side and watched him bind himself irretrievably to someone else. He didn�t pretend to think that it wouldn�t hurt him, but he had been sure their friendship would survive.
But then Sam had left, suddenly and without a word, and he had been left with a wife and a hole in his heart that she could not fill.
So the decision had been changed�not reversed, but altered, and now he wakes in the mornings to one set of blue eyes or another, and he tries not to see the blind faith in hers or the betrayal in his, because he cannot stand to be the cause of such pain.
She doesn�t know, and he hopes that she never will. When he proposed to her, he told her that she was everything to him, but he knows now that it was a lie, and he regrets saying it, because she is only half of his everything.
The other half meets him in government funded hotel rooms, and kisses him with an intensity that she doesn�t have, and touches him with a strength and familiarity that a lifetime with her could not bring. And when he lies in his arms in the dark, he sometimes longs for her feather light touch, for the silk of her hair running through his fingers.
He is never satisfied, and at times he hates himself for it.
There is infidelity on both ends, because he loves them both, and betrays one each time he is with the other. But there is a weakness in him that makes a decision impossible, and so he continues this duplicitous existence because he cannot live without either of them. So every morning he wakes to a set of blue eyes, and he thinks of the other identical eyes that are opening to find an emptiness in the bed beside them.
Each morning breaks his heart a little more.
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It was not really infidelity