The Unlit Ballroom

The weight of it, Jesus, it was a physical thing. Sat across from her at the kitchen table, the fluorescent light above humming, buzzing, too bright for this hour. For this moment. It bleached the color from everything, made Eleanor’s face look stark, tired. My hands, clammy things, were clamped tight under the table, knuckles white. Stomach twisted in knots, a fist clenching around something sharp, something metallic. Been practicing the words for weeks. Whispered them into the bathroom mirror, into the empty air of my car on the way to work, into the deep, unforgiving night. Never sounded right. Always too small, too flimsy for the chasm they had to cross. My tongue felt thick, a slug in my mouth.

It started so goddamn innocently, didn't it? That’s what I told myself, every single time the guilt started to chew. A shared coffee break. A cheap laugh over a stupid office joke. Sarah. Her eyes, lively things, never quite settled, always searching for something just beyond the frame of whatever we were talking about. Not like Eleanor’s. Eleanor’s eyes were calm, steady, fixed points, like anchors in a storm. Sarah's were… a drift. It felt harmless, at first, just a small crack in the dam. A trickle. Then the trickle became a stream, pulling me.

We met in places no one would think to look. Corner booths in diners past midnight, smelling of stale coffee and forgotten dreams, where the only other patrons were truck drivers with hollow eyes and shift workers too tired to notice. Parking lots behind closed hardware stores, the air thick with the scent of sawdust and exhaust. Once, stupidly, dangerously, in a goddamn park, under the skeletal branches of a winter oak, the leaves long gone, stripped away by the cold. The moon, a cold, indifferent eye, watched us. Each touch, each whispered word, a step in some kind of forbidden dance. The kind where you keep your feet light, your breath held, always ready to disappear back into your own skin. The shadows were our partners. They softened the edges, blurred the harsh lines between wrong and right. Made it all feel like a dream, a stage play where I was someone else, someone bolder, someone free. The air tasted of exhaust and secrets, a bitter perfume.

Home. The smell of Eleanor's baking, the kids' crooked drawings tacked to the fridge, the comfortable, worn-out couch where we watched too much TV. All of it felt like a costume I zipped myself into. Arthur, the devoted husband, the present father. He existed, sure, but he wasn’t the whole story anymore. A hollow space grew inside me, filled with Sarah's scent, the memory of her laugh. Guilt, a cold, wet cloth, pressed against my chest, soaked through to my bones. It made me irritable, made me snap at the kids for nothing. Eleanor, bless her patient soul, thought I was just stressed about work. She’d rub my shoulders, tell me to relax, her fingers warm on my skin. Each touch was a fresh stab, a reminder of the rot. I'd strip off one skin and put on another each night, but neither ever quite fit right.

One night, I almost got caught. Or I imagined I did, and the difference didn’t matter. Leaving Sarah's apartment building, my head still buzzing, a silhouette flickered in a window across the street. Just for a split second. A quick shadow. My heart hammered, a frantic drum against my ribs, so loud I could hear it. I stumbled back to my car, fumbled with the keys, dropped them, cursing under my breath. Drove like a maniac, checking the rearview mirror every five seconds, seeing ghosts. It was probably nothing. Probably a neighbor getting a glass of water. But the fear, raw and animal, ripped through the haze I’d been living in. What if? What if someone knew? What if Eleanor found out not from me, but from some nameless stranger, some cold, hard fact dropped at her feet? The thought curdled my stomach, made me want to throw up everything I’d ever eaten. Sweat beaded on my forehead, ran cold down my back.

That was the beginning of the end of the dance. The shadows, once so inviting, started to feel like walls closing in, suffocating. The moonlight, once a romantic glow, felt like a harsh spotlight, exposing me in all my ugliness. The thrill curdled into pure, unadulterated dread. Sarah saw it. 'You're pulling away, Arthur,' she said, her voice quiet, a little bruised. I couldn't even lie well anymore. Just nodded, mumbled something about work. She deserved better. Eleanor deserved better. I deserved the slow, agonizing rot that was eating me from the inside out. The freedom, that intoxicating rush, started tasting like ash in my mouth.

The decision to confess wasn't a sudden flash of courage, no. It was more like a slow, painful erosion. Like a river wearing down a rock, grain by grain, until there’s nothing left but a jagged, exposed core. I watched Eleanor sleep last night, her face soft in the dim, orange glow from the streetlamp outside. She looked so peaceful. So trusting. And I felt like a monster, a creature of the dark, unfit for any light. The words felt like stones in my mouth, heavy, sharp-edged, ready to cut. How do you say something that will shatter someone's world, someone you swore to protect? How do you un-say years of careful, calculated lies? My chest felt like a bell, struck again and again with a dull, heavy hammer, resonating with a sickening thud.

'Arthur?' Eleanor's voice, quiet, cutting through the hum of the fridge, pulling me back to the too-bright kitchen. Her eyes, those steady, knowing eyes, looking at me, waiting. She’d sensed something for weeks, I knew. The distance, the sudden quietness, the way I flinched sometimes when she touched me. I took a breath. A ragged, shaky thing. My hands, still clammy, were clenched under the table, knuckles white, digging into my palms. The first word, a raw, guttural sound, tore its way out. 'Eleanor… I… I’ve been seeing someone.'