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Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery
Jack took me to Carlow one evening, with Gary lounging in the passenger seat like an uninvited chaperone who had convinced himself he was part of the plan. Jack had only vaguely mentioned that we were visiting a friend — a woman named Sarah — without explaining how they knew each other or why the visit was necessary.
Her apartment was tucked away in the hushed shadow of an old arcade, a place where lamplight spilled like melted gold across the cobblestones and the air itself seemed thick with whispered secrets.
When she opened the door, the words caught in my throat. She was tall and lithe, with raven-dark hair and the kind of face that could stop a conversation mid-sentence. A short miniskirt and a fitted top clung to her like they’d been sewn on. For one absurd moment, I wondered if we’d knocked on the wrong door — a brothel, perhaps. What kind of “friend” is this? flashed through my mind.
Jack and I sank into the narrow sofa, while Sarah’s body language flowed toward him like a tide drawn by some invisible moon. Their conversation moved with an ease and intimacy that felt like a locked room I had no key for. I didn’t know where they’d met or what bound them, but I couldn’t miss the way her lips curved into a smile honed through years of practice. Against her polished glamour, I felt suddenly plain, stripped of every ounce of beauty or poise I had ever claimed as my own.
I hated the envy prickling inside me. Hated, too, the urge to shove her off her smug perch. There was a closeness between them that needed no words. I sat there, the unwanted fourth wheel, my presence an afterthought, my place beside him feeling smaller with each passing minute.
When we left, the images began to take shape in my mind — of Jack with her — and the sickness that followed was not metaphorical but physical, curling low in my stomach.
A week later, Jack told me his three-year-old son had suffered an accident at home and now lay in intensive care in Dublin. His face was paper-white, his voice trembling, his eyes brimming with panic.
“I have to go right now. He might not make it,” he said, the words shattering like glass.
“What happened?” I asked, feeling my own pulse hammering.
“That stupid woman let him run wild in the house. He fell down the stairs and landed on some piece of wood — it pierced his abdomen. They’re going to operate. I’ll keep you posted, but I might be there all week.” He kissed me quickly, then vanished through the door like steam slipping from a kettle.
For seven days, I played the part of the patient, loyal girlfriend. He called in the evenings, his voice sounding as though it came from another planet, and I tried to comfort him. But the miles between us were more than geographical. When he returned, I expected warmth, relief — instead, I met a stranger. His body was present, but his mind had pitched its tent somewhere far away.
When he finally mentioned that Alice — the mother of his son — had been there every day too, a sharp, splintering pain twisted inside me. I wanted to believe their reunion was solely for Julian’s sake, but a darker question gnawed at me: What if they were back together? You can’t outshine the mother of someone’s child.
The change in him was impossible to miss. Normally he’d have pulled me into bed and refused to let me go until morning. Now he climbed to the top bunk, claiming exhaustion, lying still, eyes fixed on the ceiling as if searching for answers there.
“What would you do if I told you I’d been with someone else?” he asked suddenly, turning those searching eyes on me.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Have you?”
“No. Just wondering.”
“It would hurt me,” I said softly. “But… I’d try to work it out.”
It was a lie. The truth — that I would leave him without a second thought — stayed locked inside me. My cowardice gave him silent permission to keep whatever secrets he had. We were both lying, and we both knew it.
Days later, I ran into Joy, who casually mentioned that Mike would be in Goresbridge that night — with Jack and Stan. My stomach knotted so suddenly it felt like a punch. Jack and I had planned to go out together. He hadn’t answered his phone all day. The unanswered calls sat on my screen like tiny rebukes. Before I could think twice, I snatched my coat from the back of the chair, the fabric cold against my skin, and stepped into the street. I hailed a taxi, the driver giving me a sideways glance when I blurted the destination.
The moment I stepped into the pub, I saw him. He froze, one hand still curled around his pint, eyes locked on me as if the rest of the room had fallen away. For a heartbeat neither of us moved. I let the silence stretch, then walked past without a word, letting a younger, handsome stranger named James draw me into conversation. After a few minutes, James suggested some air. Outside, the night was cool and smelled faintly of rain on stone. We leaned against the wall, talking in low voices, the hum of music and laughter spilling through the open door. I laughed at something he said, but part of me was listening for the sound of Jack — or maybe trouble.
When we stepped back inside, the scene had changed. The music was drowned out by shouts, chairs scraping, glasses shattering. In the middle of it all was Jack, fists flying, bodies colliding around him. Something primal in me surged. I tried to push through the crowd, but Mike barred my way.
“It’s not safe, Teri!” he cried, his voice breaking against the chaos around us.
“I don’t care!” I flung the words back at him, my defiance sharp as glass.
When at last the melee dissolved into uneasy quiet, I found Jack at the rear of the room, cradling a bleeding gash above his brow. I brought him a handful of ice cubes, their sharp edges biting into my palm, and pressed them gently to the cut. He spoke softly, his voice blurred and distant, as though it had travelled a long way to reach me. He said he’d only wanted to pull them apart, but someone had seized him by the hair and yanked him into the fight. I slipped my arms around him, feeling the heat of his skin, the tremor in his breath. Beneath my cheek, his heart hammered fast and hard, each beat an urgent signal. I loved him with a force that felt physical, a weight in my chest. No one was going to hurt him — not while I could still hold on.There was a strange tenderness in the sight of him — his shame softening his features, lending him an almost boyish fragility. In that fragile moment, my anger gave way, and I forgave him.
Later that night, in his parents’ house, after we had already settled into bed, a moment of innocent tugging over my phone turned suddenly awry — my elbow struck his injured eye. His face tightened in a flash of unrestrained fury; he seized the phone and hurled it to the floor, the splintering crash of glass cutting through the darkness. I turned away without a word, and the weight of the silence swelled until I wept through the long, sleepless hours before dawn.
Weeks later, over lasagna with Joy, it came — the sentence that rearranged the entire evening. Gary had told her Jack had been with Sarah.
Sarah from Carlow.
The same Sarah whose polite smile I’d filed away without thinking twice.
The room seemed to shift a fraction, just enough to make the edges blur. So that was why he’d once asked what I’d do if he’d been with someone else.
The next day I brought it up.
“Did you have something with Sarah? Don’t lie — Joy told me everything.”
He smiled, as if I’d asked about the weather. “Oh, Joy. She talks too much. Don’t believe a word.”
And just like that, the certainty I’d felt the night before shrank to something smaller, quieter. He wouldn’t return to the subject, and I let myself take his answer. Eventually, I stopped thinking about Sarah. Or at least, I told myself I had.
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