Chapter 4: Fake It Until You Make It

The days after that night with Mike blurred into a gray, relentless routine that I forced myself through like a prisoner walking the same corridor over and over. I threw myself into work with a desperation that bordered on self-punishment. Every extra task, every double-check, every offer to cover for a coworker became another brick in the wall I was building between myself and the truth. Before my manager could even ask, I volunteered to work a full sift the following Wednesday on what should have been my day off. The twelve-hour days left me physically drained, which was the point. Exhaustion was the only thing that dulled the constant, low-grade nausea of guilt that lived in my stomach and the schedule kept my mind occupied and would not allow me to wallow in my pity and self-hatred.

Saturdays and Sundays however were sacrosanct. I would not work extra shifts on those days because that was my primary time with Mike and every other weekend with his daughters who would join us ... two joyful beams of light in what suddenly seemed to have become a very dark world. I know it is not politically correct to say in this day and age of female empowerment, when a woman is supposed to focus on her career first, but perhaps I am old fashioned. My greatest dream, my grandest hope, aspiration and ambition where I have planted my flag in the ground and said “My purpose in life is...” (and has always been for as long as I can remember) to be a mother myself one day. I had hoped, prayed and planned that Mike would be the man to put a ring on my finger and make an honest woman out of me, while keeping me barefoot and pregnant for the next three to four years, but that dream like so many others now seemed to have faded away, obscured by a gloomy fog of my infidelity that the light of hope could not penetrate.

My work schedule was brutal. I clocked out at seven most evenings, unless my shift ran long, which it did often, and then I had to be back at seven the next morning. That left almost no real time or energy for Mike during the week. I still tried. I drove straight to his place after work whenever I could manage it, even if it only meant an hour or two of quiet presence on the couch before I had to leave again so I could sleep enough to function. On those short visits I made myself the perfect girlfriend. Attentive. Affectionate. Soft-voiced. I asked about his day and listened like every word mattered. I curled into his side and let him hold me. I initiated contact more than I ever had before ... small touches, lingering kisses, the quiet offer of my body even when I was so tired my eyes burned.

I told myself that if I could just be enough ... more than enough ... then the thing I had done would somehow lose its power. That if I poured every remaining scrap of myself into him, the scales might tip back toward something I could live with. It never worked. The more carefully I performed love, the louder the voice in my head reminded me that the performance was built on a lie. Every gentle touch from him felt like a gift I had not earned. Every time he looked at me with that open, trusting expression, something inside my chest twisted until I could barely breathe.