A Lie That Doesn't Fade Away

I recently got divorced and I have this lingering guilt that won’t leave me alone. The whole affair was about more than just the physical, but there’s a small, mundane lie that haunts me most of all. One night during our separation, my soon-to-be-ex-husband called from his lawyer's office saying he had to stay late for a meeting and wouldn’t be home until after midnight. It wasn't true, I knew he was with someone else. He wanted to see how I’d react if he hinted at staying out longer than planned. But I didn’t want him knowing about my own secret, so I decided to play along and act like everything was okay. That same night, while pretending to be fine, I was secretly with another person too, though we never physically did anything that night, just talked late into the evening. It’s this silly little fib of staying in when I wasn’t at all, and it feels like a betrayal even now, long after the affair and marriage are over.