Nobody's Interesting Life

SEVERAL WEEKS WENT BY. My relationship with Madeleine completely deteriorated.  What was broken before was irreparable now. We had hid it under the bed for so long without talking about it. Now it was brought out into the open and we talked around it. I slept in my own bed, in my own apartment most days of the week – a rarity before Brigitte. Madeleine stopped asking why. Partly because she didn’t want to know the truth, and partly for what further inquiry would do to her self-esteem. At least this was my interpretation. We loved each other, but it was not enough. She loved me, but she needed to feel loved. I loved her, but I was excited about somebody else. I had spoiled it. I had spoiled it rotten. And I was angry with myself for doing so. When you affront love, love always wins.  Only a fool takes it for granted. And I was most certainly a fool. Things went on this way for some time. We sleepwalked through our relationship and fought without energy, prolonging the en...

IT WAS SHORTLY AFTER 2:00 PM when I left Brigitte's. I needed the time to think, so I decided to walk home. A large part of me wanted to tell Madeleine exactly what happened, but I knew I couldn't. What right did I have to ruin her ability to trust future lovers? Or maybe I was justifying keeping my indiscretion hidden. Either way, what we had was over. At the very least it was permanently altered. No, it was over. This was the first time I had crossed the line with another woman and I wasn't about to soil whatever was sprouting. I was a picaro, but Brigitte had tapped into something so far inside me I thought it had long since left. Once upon a time, everything was pure and beautiful. That was all gone now. But with her I thought maybe I could have something like it again, without the naivety of the other times. So I'd tell Madeleine I'd lost my phone. And I'd tell myself it was for her sake.  I thought briefly about tossing it into the seine. Then I thought...