He confessed, “I wasn’t cheating on you.”
Even though he replied in negative, the use of word ‘cheating’ in the same sentence caused her immense pain. She wished to have only heard. “No. I didn’t do anything.” “I wasn’t involved.” If he can’t answer properly, it would have been for him to lie, as lie would calm her frantic mind. She didn’t want to face the demon right now; she was busy living her life and at this juncture of their relationship or her life, she couldn’t take it. But what the heck! She had to face it one day, why not now.
The pain it had caused couldn’t be put in words. She had read stories about cheating and adultery. Earlier, she had earlier dismissed them as plot points to make life of hero or heroine troublesome. She never invested them emotionally. Or she often laughed about them as she considered them as cliché of storytelling. Probably, it was because she was a scientist and her critical mind failed to sync with emotional needs of protagonists. When this understanding dawned upon her, the clouds of understanding burst open and she was almost drowned in the deluge that followed.