Physiologically, we crave the foods that aren’t healthy for us because they make our brains feel happy. Since learning this, I wonder if we subconsciously indulge in the intimate experiences that aren’t healthy servings for us because, in some twisted sort of way, they make our hearts feel satiated – that bursting, sweet, bubbling over kind of satisfaction that’s sealed with a lick of the lips and a smile.

It’s probably no consolation to you but I’ll tell you this: I’m a cheater.

Not the Vegas-style, card reading kind, but the salacious, sneaky, back-stabbing kind of person who probably deserves her picture on a billboard.

Here’s how it started.

I couldn’t believe that he’d gone through my phone. That he felt the need to check on me and see who I’d been texting.

That morning, I dropped off our son at daycare and made the 30-minute descent south of our apartment home to Atlanta. I went to my classes, grabbed lunch between them. Everything seemed fine and honestly, it was. I felt like a changed person. I knew where I was going, who I was going with, and it never once occurred to me that I might be punished for my offense.

Let’s backtrack for a moment.

When we became pregnant (because my now husband, then boyfriend, is the gentlemanly guy who shared and celebrated every part of the pregnancy journey) merely six months into dating, I knew my life would change. I experienced just some parts of the maternity joy that a lot of women candidly speak of, because I somehow felt betrayed by my body. I had never gained weight so rapidly in my life. How, I questioned, could my stomach stretch so disrespectfully now? My emotions were something I sort of beckoned when appropriate.Why, I didn’t understand, did those pesky animal rescue commercials send tears like great waves over the levies of my eyes? But I held on past the panic attacks and late nights, pacing roughly carpeted floors to spring forth new life into the world – the firstborn grandson to a Nigerian-American named Tai.

When I became chronically depressed at the sound of baby cries, my now husband would swaddle and soothe him. When I wanted to return to school, Now Husband set aside time to find a caregiver, and paid without complaint. When I decided to return to work, he spent his off hours at home, adopting the ways of woman in the kitchen and around the house. There’s not an ounce of my being that doubts he loves me, but there was – and often still is – an aching in my brain for the touch of a different man.

Eventually, I gave in to the demands. You don’t have to deal with this, I would rationalize in my head. You have sacrificed, settled for and – what, had he forgotten that? – I had a child for him. I needed to be held without having to ask for compassion. I needed my back kissed and my ass smacked and, from time to time, a good hair pulling to ease the pain.

Who the hell does he think he is, who I am? A zombie?

But I walked around numb from holding in so much silence. I moved in cautious, calculated steps, always careful to erase names, numbers, texts. Before I ever asked to leave the house, I had an alibi — many times a friend would be at the door, ready to meet me for lunch or dinner or Dave & Buster’s.

I was always sure to be careful, be kind. I kissed the right places. Made his favorites for dinner. Made myself the perfect helpmate to a loving, hardworking man. I made up my mind that I would be his forever, and nothing – especially that crazy case of HPV that suddenly appeared at my last pap smear – would keep me from it.

Then, I needed a new cell phone. The old one had grown incompetent to the new demands of my increasingly busy life.

“Just back up all your data, then copy it over once you’ve connected it to iTunes,” he said.

Simple.

“Who you been texting, going to meet when I was out of town?”

I don’t even look up. I just answer. “Nobody. What are you talking about?”

“Don’t try to play dumb. It’s all right here in your phone. Whose number…”

Oh shit. What do I do?

I can’t breathe. I black out.

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Courtney Akinosho
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