This is my entry in the “50 Ways to Leave You Lover” event. It has been edited by my Sweet Inspiration, blackrandl1958.

Leigh was cheating on me; I was sure of it.

How did I know? Does it really matter? Strange car in the driveway; came home early; Girls’ Night Out; more sex, less sex, she was cheating, and I knew it.

I didn’t know who or how, but all the signs were there.

We weren’t married, thank goodness, and no kids, but we were living together, with high hopes for both in the foreseeable future.

Leigh and I had met at a Simon & Garfunkle reunion concert. How two members of Gen X became such fans of a group that technically hadn’t existed for years has to be blamed on our Boomer parents, whose playlists, while containing many Sixties acts, were probably 50 percent Simon & Garfunkle. I think they played “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” so often as a lullaby, that it still puts me to sleep.

By a quirk of fate, I managed to score a couple of primo tickets to the Paul Simon show at the Gahden. Yeah, I’m from Boston, deal with it.

I was thinking that this might be our chance to reconnect, maybe I could get past her cheating, when my phone rang. It was Leigh.

Before I could even tell her the good news, she was giving me the bad news.

“Jack, I’m sorry, but I have to work late again tonight.”

“Again? This is the third time this week, and I’ve got...”

“Jack, you know I’m up for promotion, and this project might be the final piece to get it for me. I’ll make it up to you this weekend. Love you,” and she was gone.

Yeah, she’d “make it up to me.” If I put all the time she had to make up to me together, we wouldn’t do anything else for a year.

With all these late nights at work I was pretty sure it must be someone at work, but how could I find out? PI’s weren’t exactly in my budget.

Well, I certainly wasn’t going to let those tickets go to waste, so I called my boy, Roy, who was almost as big a fan as I was, and he was only too happy to come along.

“Do you wanna grab a bite first?” I asked him.

“Yeah, but let’s just grab a slice at Regina’s, I hate all those new Yuppie places.”

“Works for me,” I said, and we headed out.

We took the “T;” no way were we going to fight the traffic and pay the outrageous parking fees, also, no worries getting a DUI.

We had a couple of brews with our pizza; we didn’t want to pay for too many at the show, not at the highway robbery prices they charged inside.

We walked to the Garden, went through the ridiculous screening you have to through everywhere these days, and we were ready for one more beer, probably the last until after the show.

Our seats weren’t quite as good as they seemed, but still pretty damn good, though we didn’t spend much time sitting; everyone was standing.

The show was great, Simon was in fine voice, and his band kicked ass.

I was having a great time until just before the encore, when a camera started panning around the arena, showing the images on the Jumbotron.

“Hey, look, Jack, there we are,” Roy said, pointing at the screen, just before the camera moved on.

Before I could look away it settled on a couple just a few sections away. It was Leigh and her boss. He had his arm around her, but more important was the shocked look on her face as she was pointing at the screen. From her expression, it wasn’t seeing herself, which should have been a kick, but that she had seen me, and knew that I was probably seeing her.

The jig was up. Now I had both the proof that she was cheating on me, and with whom.

She started moving towards me, and as the band started up I had to laugh; they were playing “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover.”

“Hey, Roy, I don’t want to deal with this here; let’s split.”

“Shit, she’s coming,” Roy said, “let’s slip out the back, Jack,” and he pulled me towards an exit I hadn’t noticed before.

I chanced a look back, and it seemed like she had lost sight of us. I turned back around and kept my head down until we were through the door.

“Man, that sucks,” Roy said.

“Yeah, what were the chances she’d be here with her lover?” I said.

“No, I mean we missed the end of the concert!”

“Smart ass,” I said as I punched him on the shoulder.

“I’m just yanking your chain, but seriously, what are you gonna do?”

“Do? Fuck, I’m gonna dump her cheating ass, that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“But, you two have been together for so long.”

“Yeah, but she’s been cheating on me for a while. Just because I’ve only just caught her, how can I trust how long this has been going on, or if this is even the only time?”

“You going home, Jack?”

“No. I don’t know if she’s gonna dump lover boy, maybe since she didn’t catch up with us, she’ll decide to still fuck him, but I’m in no mood to deal with her tonight. Can I crash at your place?”

“Of course, man, for as long as you need.”

The next morning I went to work without going home first, but I was sure that I would see her when I got home that afternoon.

Sure enough, she was there when I got home, but she was waiting for me outside, not inside.

“Why are you out here, Leigh? You have your own key.”

“After last night I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome.”

“It is still your home ... at least for now.” I took some satisfaction when she winced at that last part.

“Well, why don’t we go inside, I don’t think we want to be having this discussion out here,” I said, unlocking the door and following her in.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Just coffee,” she said. “I need to keep my wits about me.”

I popped a hazelnut pod in the Keurig for her, a French vanilla for me, added our usual cream and sugar and brought them to the living room, putting them on the coffee table.

Sitting on opposite ends of the couch, Leigh took a couple of nervous sips, then began.

“I know it’s a cliché, but it wasn’t what it looked like...”

“Oh, give me a fucking break. I can’t believe that you actually said that.”

“But it’s true! Chuck had tickets for the show, and you know how much we love...”

“Yes, Leigh, we! That’s why I had two tickets, one for me and one for you. Tell me, did you try to buy the tickets from Chuck?”

She couldn’t meet my eyes.

“Didn’t think so.

“I suppose I don’t need to ask if this was your first time going out with Chuck, and I won’t ask how many of your late nights at work were really spent working.”

“You’re wrong,” she said.

“Wrong? What was I wrong about?”

“The late nights. I really was working. I won’t lie to you, not anymore.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“We’d usually stop for a drink or two, just to unwind, we never did anything that wouldn’t pass the boyfriend test...”

I was about to say something, but she continued on.

“We didn’t. Oh, I won’t say that I wasn’t attracted to him, and I’m sure that he would have been interested if I had given him any encouragement, but I didn’t, until...”

“Until?”

“Until last night.”

“What the fuck! Do you expect me to believe that was your first time out with him?”

“Yes, because it’s the truth. Yes, we sometimes had a drink or two after work, but it was just like I told you, it was just to unwind.”

“So what was different about last night?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” she sniffed, “but for the last month or so I’ve felt us drifting apart...”

“Oh, no you don’t; don’t you be putting this on me. I’ve been begging you for weeks to cut back on your hours, to spend more time on us, but you kept blowing me off.”

Leigh was silent for a moment.

“Maybe if we can get over this hump we can get some counseling to work on our other issues, but if we can’t, then the rest doesn’t matter.”

“I guess I can’t really argue with that,” I said, and motioned for her to continue.

“As I said, I did find him attractive, but certainly nothing that I would normally act on. While he was never inappropriate, especially given that he was my boss, but I’m not blind, I knew he wouldn’t exactly fight me off.

“What happened was sort of a perfect storm. Over drinks I had mentioned that we were big Simon & Garfunkle fans, and were hoping to get tickets for Simon’s show. He mentioned that he was a fan, also, but in hindsight I don’t know if he just said that to get closer to me.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” I replied.

“Yesterday at lunch,” she said, glancing at me. “Yes, we had lunches together, he asked me if we had any luck getting tickets. I told him we hadn’t, and he mentioned that he just happened to have two tickets, and would I like to go with him.

“I know that I should have at least tried to buy the tickets from him. I was pretty sure that this was probably the first step in a planned seduction, but I was sure that I could handle him, and I REALLY wanted to see the show.”

“I suppose our “drifting apart” figured in there somewhere,” I said, with some irritation.

“I honestly didn’t think it consciously, but it was probably working on me at some level.”

“And then I called.”

“Yes, you called, and I dearly wish that I had let you speak, because I assume you were calling to tell me about your tickets?”

“Got it in one,” I said, “but why not tell me about you going to the show with Chuck?”

“Well, I obviously couldn’t tell you about that, even I could see that it was too much like a date. There was no way that you would let me go, and I had no good reason why you should.”

“So why are you here?”

“Well as I said, it was sort of a perfect storm, several things coming together at just the right, or maybe the wrong, time.

“Since we had time, Chuck suggested that we have dinner first, so we went to The Harp. I was in a bit of a funk about us, having a couple of drinks, looking at Chuck.”

I’m sure she could see the steam coming out of my ears.

“Please, Jack, bear with me, I’m almost finished. He was doing a lousy job of pretending that we were just two co-workers out having fun. I knew he was hoping that that might be the night that he sealed the deal, and I wasn’t sure that he was wrong.”

“You know,” I said, “this isn’t exactly helping your cause.”

“I know, Jack, but I’m trying to be honest here. I don’t think this is the time to try to sweep things under the rug.”

I took a deep breath to settle myself down, and nodded for her to continue.

“As we left the restaurant, he tried to take my hand, but I shook him off. When we got closer and the crowd got denser, he put his arm around me. I tried to pretend that it was just to make sure that we didn’t get separated, but I knew better.

“I’d like to be able to tell you that we were there just as two friends, but that would be a lie. Oh, the words might not have been spoken, but I was on a date, but not with my boyfriend. I was cheating on you.