All Part of the Adventure Pt. 03

So, so hungover. Ugh. My God. The hazy grey morning through the window felt like a searchlight. I turned my head, one eye open, and looked at Dan still snoring next to me. 'Lucky,' I thought. 'He doesn't have to feel this yet.' I wriggled my toes under the duvet, not quite ready to move yet, still trying to come to terms with a world where I felt this rough. I was still wearing my dress from the night before, clearly not having been capable of higher-order thoughts like getting changed in my post-party state. I was still sweaty and sticky, in desperate need of a shower. That felt like a lot of effort in my current condition, an insurmountable Everest. I lay on my back, trying to enjoy having the freedom to feel this woozy. I hadn't been this drunk in a long time, not even on our wedding day. When I was a student with nothing to do the morning after a night out, I used to quite enjoy the muzziness and general altered state that came with a hangover; it felt like a licence to loaf, to get a big breakfast and lie around in a hoodie drinking tea for ages. My reminiscences made my stomach gurgle. Hungry. Hungry and hungover. Hungrover. Ugh.

It took me a little while to break free from gravity and the warmth of the bed, but I desperately needed to go to the bathroom, to freshen up and get clean. As I started the shower running, I went to the wardrobe to get a couple of clean towels and smushed my face into them. Soft. Soft, so nice. Hotel towels were always fantastic; try as I might, I could never get them to feel the same at home. I took my towels back into the bathroom and breathed in the gathering steam. Mmm. Warm. Nice. I pulled my dress over my head and dumped it on the floor, driven by a suddenly overpowering urge to get under the stream of hot water. It felt so good. I stood facing the showerhead, head hanging down letting the water fall on top of my head. I realised that I didn't know where my hair clip had gone from the night before. 'Find it in a bit,' I thought, my hair hanging over my face, water dripping off the ends in a vertigo-inducing curtain. I felt a bit unsteady looking down like that, so I craned my neck up, eyes shut, facing directly into the falling water. I let it bounce off my forehead, my eyes, my nose, my lips, little hot beads of moisture, holding my breath until I couldn't any more. The hot water ran down my nose, over my lips, into my mouth. It felt really, really nice, cleansing, comforting. I flicked open the shampoo and scrubbed my hair, then the body wash and lathered myself all over, shoulders to feet. It smelled headily of jasmine, almost too much for my jumbled senses. Rinse, conditioner, rinse, facewash, rinse. I reached out of the shower and grabbed my toothbrush and toothpaste off the sink, squeezing a larger than usual dollop of paste out and brushing my teeth in the hot water. So nice, so clean.

I was just about to get out of the shower when I heard a thud from the bedroom. I shouted, "Are you okay?" and heard Dan's voice muffled in reply.

"Fell outta bed." I laughed and turned off the water, wrapped a lovely soft towel around my body and stepped out of the bathroom to see him lying face down on the floor. "Fine, just fell down. Give me a moment." I was still laughing. He looked ridiculous, his mouth smushed up against his shoes at the side of the bed, one foot still hooked on the edge of the mattress. I bent down to smooth his hair. "That's nice, El, that's nice," he said drowsily. "Don't feel brilliant," he said, shaking his head gently.

"No," I agreed, "Me neither. Shower helped me a lot, maybe it would help you too?" He nodded silently. "Maybe then get some breakfast?" He nodded again. "No rush." I kissed his head and he smiled.

"Yes, shower," he said. "Help me up a minute, not quite sure where my feet are right now." I took his hand and helped pull him to a sitting position by the bed, then up to his feet where he swayed like a tree in a stiff breeze. "Yep, bathroom now," he said and wandered off, closing the door behind him. I chuckled, unwrapping my towel and drying myself off. I sat on the end of the bed to dry my hair, my mind wandering to my brief liaison with Tom in the crowd last night. Was this how I was going to be from now on? Relentlessly horny, a sort of faithful-unfaithful? All I'd wanted was Dan, but I'd also just gone for Tom when I knew I could. In the right circumstances, what would I have let him do or, more appropriately, led him to do? I knew what I'd wanted him to do; I'd known that from the moment I'd laid eyes on him on the beach. I stood up, naked, and picked out some clothes for the day - comfort was the plan, so some denim shorts, a t-shirt and a hoodie felt about right. I got dressed, still rolling the problem around in my mind. It felt worse, much worse, the more I thought about it. I didn't know what had come over me. I didn't know why I'd done what I had done. The guilt lay on me, gnawed at me, a lion picking over my bones.

Dan emerged from the bathroom looking a lot more switched on, towelling his hair roughly. "You look nice," he said. "Reckon we should just take it easy today, yeah?"

I laughed, trying not to show my inner turmoil. "Yeah, I think so. Let's go and get some breakfast, then see how we feel. I'm not up for much besides chilling out, plus it's not exactly sunny yet." The weather was hungover too; a grey Atlantic smir was easing but the clouds were heavy.

"Cool, cool," Dan said, shrugging on his jeans and a light sweater. "Do you fancy trying that café the guy you met last night works at? It looks nice."

I thought for a second, then decided to sail close to the wind to avoid suspicion. "Sure," I said, "Why not?"

***

Fried bread. Tom's café notionally trafficked in healthier, more modern fare, but the girl who was working that morning agreed to help me out, so two fatty, carby triangles nestled on my plate next to some eggs, spinach, and local-farm sausages. Tom himself was thankfully nowhere to be seen. When I'd asked the girl she'd laughed and said, "Oh yeah, like he's doing the open on a Saturday," so clearly his Friday night party habit was well-established. I sipped my orange juice and ate my food, feeling some semblance of normality returning to my body. My mind, however, churned like the Atlantic outside the windows. This was why I couldn't live in a small town. You fuck up, and everyone knows you. Secrets couldn't be kept for long. I didn't want to keep this secret. I didn't want to have made those mistakes. I didn't know why I'd done what I'd done.

I watched Dan as he ate, blissfully unaware of the wrench I had thrown into our marriage. I'd been so intent on justifying it to myself, but in reality I was just cheating, just getting away with things. I loved him so much, and he didn't deserve this. He looked at me. "You okay, El?" he asked. "Not quite feeling right yet?" I fought back tears as I looked into his eyes, feeling his trust like an anvil on my stomach.

"I'm okay," I murmured. "Just not really feeling myself."

His eyes turned sympathetic, and he reached out and rubbed my forearm consolingly. "Hey, maybe you should rest up for a bit. Let's finish up here, then we can go back to the room and you can have a lie down. We should really pack, we need to leave early-ish tomorrow anyway." I nodded, silent. "I'm sorry you're feeling so rough. Let's get you back to bed."

We finished eating, paid, and headed back up to our room. Dan got me a glass of water as I lay on the bed, sick with guilt. Why? I'd never so much as looked at anyone else before, and now I'd fucked up, and fucked up hugely. Even if he never knew, I'd know. I'd always know. "You don't have to stay here," I said. "Go for a walk or something, get some air."

He brushed his hand through my hair. "You sure?" I nodded. "Okay, I'll pop out for a bit, but I'll be back in half an hour, tops." He kissed my head. "Try and rest, you'll feel better soon."

***

He left the room and went down to the sea.

Left me there and discovered a wrong.

Not the whole of it, rumour and spindrift,

Enough to put silence to song

And when he returned he was quiet

He kissed me and woke me so gently.

And when he spoke it was soft; I didn't

know why I had done what I'd done.

***

"But nothing happened really, right?" He looked at me, his eyes seeking some truth, some reassurance. I hung on the edge of a choice. I didn't know what he knew. Ought I tell him everything, give him all of the details, and be rightly skewered as a result? I wanted to, to a degree. I wanted to be clean. But I had no intention of doing this again, and I loved him; I would do anything to keep him. I wanted to tamp everything down into a tight, squashed puck inside me, bottle the screaming genie and never let it out.

"No," I said, the lie slipping from my lips, light like a feather. "No, nothing happened. I was just a bit drunk, and I guess he was too, and he was being flirty and I got carried away. I swear, nothing happened." The more I said, the heavier it became. A moment on the lips, a lifetime in the depths of my heart. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I love you, I really do."

"I love you too, but..." He looked deeply, deeply sad. "Trust is important, El. Trust is the basis of everything. I have always had absolute, total faith in you, the way I hope you've always had faith in me. Now I feel like that's been maybe a bit misguided, and I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what to do with that at all."

I put my head in my hands. "Dan, Dan, no, please, it's not misguided, it really isn't; I just got a bit silly last night. I've never, ever done anything like that before, and I feel so terrible about it. Please, you have to believe me, it's not like me and I think you know that. You know me, right? You do."

"I don't know if I do," he said. My heart plummeted. "I always felt like you were all in, like I am, but then I hear about this, this guy with his hands all over you, and you laughing and encouraging it, and I can't help but think this is just what you're like whenever I'm out of the room. And I know that's probably irrational, I know it's suspicious of me, but you've put a big, big crack in my reality and... I don't know. It's really, really difficult to look at you right now and think that I trust you. Because I don't. I just don't."

"What are we going to do? What can I do? Please, I'll do anything." I beseeched him, fully aware that I was sitting on far, far worse knowledge than he was privy to, just desperate to hear a plan of some kind, anything that felt like we could move forwards in some way.

"Well, I want to go," he said flatly. I gasped, chokingly. "No, no, not leave you. I can't make a decision like that right now; I also don't want to have to do that, of course I don't. But I don't want to be here any more. I want to go home." He paused, weighing whether to say what he said next. "You have pretty much ruined this, you know?"

I nodded, crying softly. "I know. I'm so sorry." I hoped he just meant the trip. I hoped desperately that he didn't mean everything.

***

We arrived home late, following a largely silent drive. We didn't really speak when we got in the flat either. Neither of us unpacked. Our bag sat like a coffin in the hall, surprisingly large, full of something heavy that neither of us could look at. I had retreated to the bedroom after Dan had turned on the TV, not yet prepared to pick up my phone, not ready to deal with the real world as the person I had become. 'You're a cheat, you're a cheat,' my brain sang to me, over and over. 'You don't deserve him.' I didn't want to deal with my friends asking me how our trip had been. I didn't want to deal with my mother, or my sister. I didn't want to deal with any of this yet, because I knew I was going to have to. I couldn't hide and I couldn't just be mired in self-pity, but I didn't know what I could do to fix what I'd broken.

After some time, Dan knocked on the bedroom door. "Come in," I said, sitting up and drawing my legs under me. He entered carrying a sandwich and a glass of Coke, and sat on the bed.

"For you," he said. "You can come and eat with me if you want." I thought about it. I didn't feel like I deserved to. I felt like his company was a precious gift that I'd thrown away and now shouldn't have the right to access. "Honestly, El, I'd like that," he said softly.

I nodded, biting back my sadness. "Me too," I said, looking up at him.

"Come on then," he said, standing up. I followed him back into the lounge, where he put the plate and glass on the table opposite his own. The news burbled soft doom in the background. My hunger got the better of my guilt and I took a bite of the sandwich.

"Thank you," I said. "You didn't have to do this."

"It's okay," he said through a mouthful, then swallowed. "Look, I'm angry, okay? I'm angry and I'm upset. But I love you, and I have to believe you when you say you've made a mistake. I have to, because what's my alternative?" He took another bite and chewed it. "Kick you out? Leave? I'd rather try find a way to work through this. I can't make any promises though."

I drank some of the Coke, cold and effervescent on my tongue, fizzing down my throat. "I couldn't ask you to," I replied. "All I can say is that I promise that I'll do whatever it takes to make you trust me again."

"I don't know what that would look like." He sighed. "Honestly, El, I don't know. I keep thinking about it."

"Well, when you find it, please tell me. Please." I took another bite of my sandwich.

"What was it that made you so interested in him anyway?" he asked. My heart sank. We were going to do this, then. I had been waiting for this conversation in the hotel, in the car, all the way back here. I decided to be as honest as I could be.

"He was oddly charming, and he made me feel charming too. That's pretty much all of it, to be honest. It wasn't anything much more than that."

Dan looked at me sceptically. "That's a pretty low bar, frankly," he said, his tone dark. "If that's all it takes."

"I wasn't... I wasn't thinking, I was just having such a good time and I let myself get swept away with it."

He took a drink. "So you're saying that all it takes is for you to be a little drunk, having a bit of fun, and then what? All bets are off?"

I shook my head vigorously. "No, no. It's literally never happened before."

"I mean, what did you want to happen?" He pressed the point a little harder, and I looked back at him with my brows furrowed.

"What do you mean, what did I want to happen? I didn't want anything to happen! Are you asking me if I wanted to fuck him, Dan? Seriously?" I let my voice rise incredulously.

He looked down uncomfortably and said, "Well, yeah, that is what I'm asking." There was a pause. He looked back up into my eyes. "That is what I'm asking, El."

"Well, well, no, I... I wasn't really thinking about anything! I didn't want anything particularly! I just... I just let... I don't know. I. Don't. Know."

He sighed. "That's almost worse, in a weird way," he said. "That makes it sound like you're just blowing around in the wind, waiting for something to happen. Aren't you happy? Have I missed something? Are you just looking around for the next, better chance to come along? Because I can't deal with that. I'm not here to just mark time until you find something more exciting to do."

"Jesus, no," I said, intensely. "Dan, I am happy. Honestly, I am. Or I was. I was happy before this happened. I had everything I wanted."

"Interesting use of the past tense there," he shot back. "So now you want something else?"

"No, no, I just meant... I just meant that now I've fucked it and I don't have what I want, because what I want is for you and me to be happy together."

He finished his food and pushed his plate into the middle of the table. "I think I need to go to bed," he said. "I need to sleep, and I need to think about this tomorrow." He stood up, picked up his phone from the little table by the sofa, then disappeared into the bedroom, quietly closing the door. I sat alone for a while, then cleared the table and laid down on the sofa to sleep.

***

Dan didn't talk to me about this thoughts the next day. In fact, he didn't talk to me about them all week. For the first couple of days I slept on the sofa, the morning sunlight waking me at early leaving me hours to fret about things, but a version of normality slowly reasserted itself. I slept in bed again, we ate together, we chatted about our days, the elephant in the room genteelly huffing and flapping its ears the whole time. We went to work. I lied to my colleagues, friends, and family about the situation. I'm sure Dan did the same, but there were no arguments and a distinct lack of frostiness, though also an understandable lack of real closeness.

The next Saturday came, which I had been dreading as there was nothing to fill the yawning gap between waking up and going to work on Monday morning. We drove to the supermarket, shopped for our groceries, came home, did housework, all normal, all cordial. We even laughed together at stupid things that we normally would, though with a slight caginess. The calm was a glass animal that I had broken and we had glued back together, its fault line necessarily fragile and demanding of careful handling. I felt hopeful, but tempered it. I couldn't rush Dan. He had to come to his own conclusions, and I had to accept the consequences of what I'd done.

The golden evening eased in over the city, the shadows lengthening but the air still hot. Dan went to the fridge and produced a bottle of white. "Shall we?" he asked, proffering it in my direction. "It's a nice evening. Let's open the windows, put some music on and relax." He procured two glasses, some crisps and houmous, vegetable sticks, olives. This was one of our favourite things to do on a warm evening, and I felt a little surge of hope again that everything was going to be okay. He motioned to me to bring some bits through to the lounge which I did, setting them on the coffee table and opening the windows wide, letting the sounds of the city in.

We drank and ate, relaxed together, our summer playlist gently filling the room as the evening wore on and started to cool down. The sun was heading towards setting, disappearing behind the hills and buildings, still a good half-hour out from actually disappearing below the horizon, when we finished the bottle of wine. Dan replaced it with another from the fridge and topped up our glasses. Taking a sip, he turned to me. "I'd like to go out. What do you think?"

My heart leaped. This was unusual, out of pattern, and I couldn't read his tone. I turned the thought over quickly in my mind. What we would have usually done is continue as we were until it got a bit later, then watched a film and went to bed. Maybe he didn't feel like we were at that sort of pitch of closeness again yet. Maybe he wanted distraction. I needed to give him what he wanted, to not stand in the way of however he needed to feel. "Sure," I said brightly. "Anywhere you have in mind?"

"No, nothing specific. Maybe the Bootlegger or something, I don't really know. I just fancy going out." Maybe he wanted to paper over last Friday with a better memory. We did often talk about going out more. I didn't have any better ideas, in all honesty.

"Sounds good," I said enthusiastically. "Just a little casual drink."

"Sure," he replied, "But let's at least make a little effort. Come on, let's throw some nicer clothes on and get going."

In the bedroom I looked through my side of the wardrobe. I didn't have much in the way of going out clothes any more. I quickly discounted the dress I'd worn last Friday, picking instead a simple but stylish blue pleated cami dress with thin shoulder straps. It meant I had to go bra-less, but I thought that it most closely fitted Dan's brief of making a little effort and I liked it. I paired it with some strappy nude open-toe heels. "How about this?" I asked him, giving a little twirl.