The news was bad, the worst it could be, really.

Scott had hoped that he could take good news back to Gemma, his wife of 12 years. That wasn’t to be. He also needed to tell his best friend, Tim.

The Oncologist had been as gentle and as kind as he could be, but telling a patient that his cancer, previously thought cured, had now rapidly metastasised to most of his major organs, his prognosis was bleak and no treatment save for palliative care would be possible, is never easy. Scott had six months to live, at best.

He had received his initial diagnosis of cancer two years earlier. He had gone through the agonies of chemo and radiation therapy, His wife Gemma had been his rock as had his best friend, Tim.

Tim had been really good, supporting Gemma as well as Scott, driving them to and from his hospital appointments, helping around the house and doing the yard work when Scott was too weak to cope, helping him run and eventually sell his business.

Scott felt that he owed a great deal to Tim, his best friend since early childhood.

Scott was thinking about how he and Gemma could show their appreciation to Tim as he made his way back from the hospital.

When he arrived at the apartment he shared with Gemma, he found her in the living room. They both started to talk at once. “You first,” he said.

“Scott, oh, this is going to be so difficult.

“Scott, I have loved you with all my heart ever since we met, 14 years ago. Although I still love you very, very much indeed, I no longer feel that burning, all-encompassing love that a wife should feel for her husband.”

He looked at her, in silence, he felt a lump growing within his chest as he waited for her to continue. He knew what she would be having to say would be bad, but he had no clue as to how bad it was going to become.

“You know that over the past two years, after you were diagnosed and treated for cancer, that Tim was my rock? Well, our rock, really, I suppose I should say? Well, over those two years he helped me with the health insurance paperwork for your private healthcare, the paperwork for selling your business and getting you the best price so you could take early retirement, getting to the pharmacy to get your prescriptions, taking me to visit you in hospital while you were receiving your treatments and a thousand and one other things?

“There were times when I didn’t know if, mentally or physically, I could continue, knowing you were in hospital and they gave us a prognosis that wasn’t too favourable.”

Scott nodded, silently. He was beginning to have a very bad feeling as to how this would progress. His apparent acquiescence emboldened Gemma enough to continue. “Well, a while ago, Tim and I realised that we were beginning to have loving feelings for each other that were growing and growing. We tried to ignore them, but in the end, we realised that the situation we had found ourselves in could no longer be ignored and that we were now no longer good friends, that we were now in love with each other. Majorly in love with each other.”

Scott found his voice, at last. “Did you ... have you slept with each other?”

“Oh, no, Scott! Never! No, we would, could never, do that to you! It was bad enough that we were betraying you emotionally, but betraying you physically wasn’t something either of us could do, though we were tempted. But we didn’t.”

“What is it you want, Gemma?”

“I want, no, that’s not right, I need a divorce, please, Scott. That’s so I can marry Tim, the man I now love with all my being.”

“You don’t love me anymore?”

“Oh, please don’t think that, Scott! There’ll always be a special place in my heart for you as the boy who took my virginity and the man I loved with all my heart for 14 years, but I want to spend the next 14 years or more with Tim, the other man who I now love with that burning, passionate love that I used to feel for you. I’m sorry, Scott, I just don’t feel that deep, burning passionate love for you, any longer.”

Scott sat down.

“Scott, when you came in you wanted to say something. What was it? Was it about your check-up at the hospital? What did they say?”

He shrugged. “Oh, it was something and nothing. It’s not relevant to you, so there’s no need for you to concern yourself about it.”

She nodded, having failed to comprehend the exact nature of his words. Perhaps she had heard what she wanted to hear?

“Oh, that’s great, honey! Look, I’m going to go to Tim’s house. We are going over to see his mother in the nursing home she lives in to let her know about Tim and me. We’ll talk, you, Tim and me, about the practicalities of the divorce later this evening. I have left some papers on the table.” She motioned toward a stack of papers. “And...”

Scott interrupted her. “I’ll sign them, now.”

“There’s no need for haste, Scott! You need to read through them, have a lawyer look them over. But please, please understand I want the minimum from this divorce. I certainly will not touch any of the money from the sale of your business or your retirement funds. After all, I realise that I am breaking your heart, breaking you financially, too, would be wrong.”

“Why would I need to have them looked at by a lawyer? It’s not like you’d cheat me out of anything. I trust you.” That was a slap to her face that was almost physical in its impact on her.

He took the papers and signed them. “But you have no witness?” she asked.

“Get Tim to countersign it. He knows my signature. And please pass on my best regards to Mrs Oliver.”

He felt it no longer appropriate to say: “Give my love to Mandy!” as Mandy was no longer his life time friend’s mother; she was Mrs Oliver, the mother of the lover of his wife. Sad, really, as he’d loved Mandy as a second mother after he’d lost his own mother several years before, and now that would all be gone, too. Pity, but adultery had a lot of toxic fallout.

“Okay.” Gemma sounded crestfallen.

‘Damn her!’ thought Scott. ‘She’s getting what she wants but that still isn’t enough!’

She kissed him on the cheek and then left the apartment.

‘Great!’ Scott said to himself. ‘Fifteen minute drive to Tim’s house, a 30 minute drive to the nursing home, an hour or two with Tim’s mother, a 30 minute drive back, so that would give me three or four hours to do what I had to do. To disappear from the lives of the cheating assholes forever.’

He went into the bedroom, cleared out enough clothing to last him for a few weeks, grabbed his laptop and packed it all into a couple of suitcases.

He left his cell phone in the kitchen, along with his wedding ring and the signed divorce paperwork. Would the paperwork that he’d signed without a witness be good enough? He shrugged. That wasn’t his problem. He had the rest of his life, or rather the rest of his death, to concentrate on, now.

He called for a taxi and gave him an address several miles away, leaving his old life behind.

When Tim and Gemma got back to the apartment Gemma was horrified to find the divorce paperwork and the ring on the kitchen table, along with his phone.

She ran to the bedroom. She’d sort of expected to find a mess, but instead the bedroom she’d shared with Scott for the entire length of their marriage was as neat as ever. The difference was that it was now devoid of any sign that Scott had ever lived there.

She flung herself into Tim’s arms and began to sob. Tim was feeling ambivalent. Yes, he felt guilty for falling in love with his best friend’s wife, and he hadn’t been looking forward to the meeting between the three of them that Gemma had planned for them to have, plus he hadn’t liked the idea of Scott and Gemma living together, even in separate rooms, whilst the divorce went through. Scott signing the paperwork and just taking off like he had meant things would be easier for Tim and, he thought, for Gemma, too. Now he had a sobbing woman to help calm.