~Mischa~

I made a conscious decision to cheat on my husband.

Now, before you judge me, hear my story. Hear how much I'm like you, how similar my thoughts are to your own. Yes, I'm a horrible person. Yes, I've done horrible things. Yes, I don't deserve forgiveness. Yes, bad things happened because of my actions.

But I'm willing to bet I've done things that maybe, just maybe, you have thought of doing.

Maybe, just maybe, you're not as innocent as you'd like to think.

Or maybe I'm not so guilty ...

~Falling Out of Love~

Falling in love is kind of easy. Two people meet. They're attracted to each other, or maybe they're not. But they connect. Friends, a connection, whatever. It leads to something more – flirting, then dating, then sex. Then LOTS of sex. Move in together, live together, love together. Happy wonderful times, and then voilà, marriage.

Mischa had known Michael for a long time, since right after high school. They had both gotten jobs at Target before college, met while bagging up cheap home décor. They went to school together, stayed friends, hung out all the next year. Then at the end of that following summer, after a drink too many, Michael kissed Mischa. Pause. She kissed him back.

And they lived happily ever after …

That's what made her so mad. They couldn't blame it on being young – they had started dating at nineteen, but didn't get married till they were twenty-four. Five years together, that's a long time to get to know each other, and twenty-four isn't that young of an age to get married. That's an adult. Capable of making semi-intelligent decisions, once in a while.

They couldn't blame it on not really knowing each other – they were best friends. “The Mikes,” as they were affectionately known to their friends. They had started as best friends, and she could honestly say that they were still best friends. Not a day went by that they didn't speak to each other, about everything and anything. Anytime anything happened in her life, Michael was the first person she wanted to talk to about it. Promotion at work, gossip with the girls, the next door neighbor that she battled over parking spots with; all of it. They almost had their own language.

Worse than falling in love. Worse than hating someone. Falling out of love was much, much harder. How does a person say that?

“Hey, I love you – I really do. I want you to be a part of my life. I can't bear the thought of not seeing you and talking to you every day, but I just don't want to be romantically or sexually involved with you anymore. I'm not in love with you, and have thus become increasingly less physically attracted to you.”

What a horrible fucking person. She hated herself. She found herself hoping, praying, that Mike would cheat on her. At least if he cheated on her, then they could break up, and he wouldn't hate her, and of course she wouldn't hate him. It would be her release, she could thank him.

I just don't want him to hate me. Please don't hate me.

They had talked about it. Multiple times, so Mike could never claim that she hadn't tried. She suggested therapy. Shot down. She pointed out their problems. Denied. Michael had a rich fantasy life; everything seemed to be fine in his mind.

But in her mind, there was nothing fine about a married couple not having sex in almost six months.

“Don't you want more than this?” she would ask him.

“I'm just stressed, we're both busy,” he made up excuses.

And being best friends just made it worse, because she knew him so well. She knew he genuinely believed that, that he honestly thought there wasn't a problem with what was happening between them. He didn't seem to notice the time that passed between their sexual encounters.

Oh, but she did, and the further and further apart their sexual encounters became, the less and less she wanted them. She got so used to satisfying herself, it got to a point where she didn't care. She started to prefer sex with herself over sex with him. At least with herself, she didn't have to shave her legs, she didn't care how much weight she'd put on, and she always came.

A brag that Michael couldn't share.

“What do you want to do for your birthday, Misch?” Mischa's best friend Lacey asked her, as they jogged down the street.

“I won't be here for my birthday,” Misch huffed, picking up their pace.

“Oh, I keep forgetting! How does Mike feel about that?”

Mischa started jogging even faster.

“Eh. He's bummed, but he's excited for me,” she replied.

Once upon a time, Mischa had been a dancer, had even gone to the University of Michigan for dance. Ballet, tap, and modern jazz. Later hip hop. She taught at a studio for a while, but a torn ACL put her out of commission. While recovering from her injury, she put on weight. At first just ten pounds. Not so bad, and she enjoyed the bigger ass. But then a year later, another ten pounds crept up on her. Before she knew it, she was fifty pounds overweight.

But why should she care? Not like she had anyone to get naked for, not like she could dance well anymore. She left the dance studio, got a job at an insurance office, and it turned out she was really good at it. Filing claims, selling policies, boring shit, but the money was excellent.

The company Mischa worked for was expanding at a rapid rate. They already had multiple branches all over the United States, and a couple in South East Asia. Now they were expanding to Europe. Misch's boss was being sent overseas to help start up offices in Italy, Turkey, and Armenia. Misch had been asked to go along to assist him. No worries, it wasn't happening immediately – she had a year to prepare. A year to plan.