Rachel was walking back towards her apartment building from a long day of work. She enters her apartment pin on the key pad, walks through the lobby, and enters into the elevator. She clicks the button to her floor and waits for the elevator doors to close. As the elevator goes up floor by floor, she slumps on the wall exhausted and checks her watch, which said 3:30 pm. When the elevator doors open to her floor, she walks down a narrow hallway fixing her hair, reapplying lip gloss, and fixes a smile on her face, because even if work tired her, there was one person that always brought her happiness. When she reaches her apartment number 330, she’s at the door rummaging her purse to find her keys until she hears her man’s voice and a woman’s .

“Come on Brandon, she won’t find out about this” the woman said

“Amy this situation is not going to work and I can’t have Rachel finding out that you were here,” Brandon replied

“You know you’re just hiding what you truly want, if you’ve done it before you’ll do it again—“

“Amy please—“

Before Brandon could finish, Rachel opens the door violently and storms into the living room charging towards Amy. Brandon steps in to block her but Rachel slaps him across the face, “AGAIN?” she screams, “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME AGAIN!”

“Rachel, it’s not what it looks like I swear,” Brendon said, “please let me explain—”

“OH? LIKE HOW I LET YOU EXPLAIN BEFORE AND IT WAS BECAUSE YOU NEEDED TO FEEL SOMEONE ELSE?,” she roared, “WHAT MAKES THIS ANY DIFFERENT?!”

Rachel grabbed Amy’s purse and bag and threw it at her, “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY APARTMENT!” and Amy dashed out the door. Rachel walks past Brandon and he grabs her arm and he says, “Rachel, please listen”, “DON’T TOUCH ME,” she cried and yanks her arm out of his hand. She walks to their bedroom and slams the door.

Rachel couldn’t stop replaying the memories of walking into her apartment one day and finding Brandon sleeping with someone else on the couch. She couldn’t stop thinking about the two naked bodies touching, making love to each other, Brandon making love to someone else, Brandon’s shocked expression as if he wasn’t expecting to get caught, and the random woman lying on their couch smiling at Rachel’s heartbreak. She rolls over the bed facing the large window where the sky is raining on New York City and you could see the tiny yellow and red lights of cars going wherever they needed to go. On the other end, Brandon falls to the floor and leans on the bedroom door “Rachel,” he calls and she could hear him but refuses to listen. “I know you are thinking about what I did in the past five years ago. But for five years Rachel, I’ve made a vow to never betray you again and see that look on your face that haunts me every night.” Rachel gets up from the bed and sits by the door and leans against it. “Amy is just a colleague who pretended to be extremely drunk and tried to seduce me, but I thought about the past and was going to tell her that I am loyal to my wife and that she needed to leave,” Brandon explained, “I am not the same person I was five years ago, are you listening to me Rachel?” Tears streamed down Rachel’s face. Even though a part of her knew that he was telling the truth, another part of her couldn’t trust him anymore. “It’s been five years,” she says, “And I thought that I would be able to heal from the past,” she sniffs, “But it still hurts, Brandon,” she cries, “it hurts, and I can’t let myself be hurt like this again”

“So after all these years, you still don’t trust me…” Brandon said

“I can’t…” Rachel whimpered.

Without another word Brandon gets up and says, “We’re out of onions, so I’ll be at Publix.”Rachel could hear Brandon’s keys jingle and before Brandon closed the door he says, “I love you Rachel” and she heard the door shut. Rachel lifts herself from the floor and sluggishly goes back into the bed and thinks about Brandon saying “I love you” and was wondering if she should have said it back to him before he left but she fell asleep.

*Boom*

A loud thunder woke Rachel up. She looks out the window and see buckets of rain pouring down and gusts of wind. It was 9pm and she knew that Brandon should be back by now sleeping in the guest room. She turns on the lamp on her nightstand, grabs the remote, and turns on the news to get info on the weather.

“Authorities are at the scene where an 18 wheeler hydroplaned on 5th Avenue and

crashes fatally into this vehicle where the victim did not make it.” Rachel switches to another channel to watch Seinfeld, but it showed the same thing, “Authorities have now identified the victim as 29 year old Brandon Garrison—” “What,” Rachel gasps and she flips over the blankets, opens the door, and sprints to the guest room to see that her Brandon was laying there asleep and that Brandon was someone else. But he wasn’t there and Rachel started to panic. “Police are going to contact the victims close friends and family to give them the tragic news” Rachel throws on her raincoat and boots to go to the scene and turns on the kitchen light to grab her keys. But before she could grabs her keys, she sees a piece of paper on the counter and she reads it:

Rachel, no matter how long it takes I will earn your trust back. I’ll do what I need to do to prove to you that I will never cheat again. I wish I could tell you verbally but you won’t listen to me and I understand. You still need more time. I hope that one day you are able to heal from the past and forgive me, but just know that I will always love you Rachel.

Your husband,

Brandon

“I love you too Brandon,” Rachel says as she collapse to the floor and mourns what she had lost. The phone rings on the counter but Rachel remains on the floor hugging the letter to her chest and mumbling “I love you, please don’t leave me Brandon, I’m sorry for not listening”