Tell Your Partner Your Secret
The look on your partner’s face is like shattered glass.
This is a collaborative choose your own adventure story. Click here for the chapter guide. Go back to chapter 1 by Linden Schneider here. Return to the previous chapter here.
“Babe,” you whisper with caution, “I have something to tell you.”
Your partner frowns at you. “What is it?”
You huddle on your side of the bed, and hug your knees to your chest. “Do you remember the last question on Vacation Roulette’s creepy quiz?” Their quiz was chock full of strange, disturbing moral dilemma questions. But the final one troubled you most.
Your partner grimaces, covering their legs with the blanket. “Yeah. I wondered what you answered, but I was…too nervous to find out. The question asking whether you would be willing to cheat on your partner to save someone else’s marriage?”
You blink. What? That wasn’t the question you got at all! Your thoughts spin like a maelstrom. “What did you answer?” you murmur.
Your partner doesn’t meet your eye. “You go first.”
With a deep breath, you say, “I actually got a different question from you.” Your partner gives you an astonished look. You hide your feet under the covers. “It asked me — whether I would be willing to kill my partner to save ten lives.”
The look on your partner’s face is like shattered glass. “And?” they prod with a hoarse voice.
You grimace but push your way through. “I said yes. Sorry, but I couldn’t be so selfish as to keep you while I watch ten other people die.”
Your partner’s face is contorted with pain. “Wow, I can’t believe that’s how much you value me, that you could throw me away after all we’ve been through together.”
You grit your teeth. “It’s not like I would really kill you. It was just a hyppothetical question.” You feel angry and defensive. “Wouldn’t you have done the same?” Your partner doesn’t answer. “So how did you respond to the cheating question?” Though you can guess what’s coming.
Your partner sighs and mops a hand over their brow. They slump back against the headboard. “I guess I can’t judge you. I said yes as well. Though I’d rather you cheat on me than that you kill me.”
At once, your anger boils up into fury. “Seriously? You would rather I be unfaithful to you?”
They throw up their hands and toss their phone onto the bed. It lands face up, but the screen is switched off. “If you cheat on me, it’s still possible to forgive and reconcile, depending on the situation. But if you kill me, then that’s the end of the story.”
These thoughts are so grim and depressing. You take a few moments to breathe more deeply, as you are hyperventilating. “All right, fine. But tell me, in what world would infidelity save somebody else’s marriage?” Your words come out sharper than you intend, but you don’t care at this point.
Your partner shoots you a withering look. “It’s like you said about not being selfish. You can use your imagination. Some people are trapped in unhappy marriages, not because their spouse is a bad person, or even that they hate each other, but because they’re not giving each other what they need. Sometimes when someone cheats and gets that need met elsewhere, then they feel better about their marriage, so the affair actually maintains the marriage.”
“Unbelievable,” you whisper. You try to shake off the image of your partner banging someone else, to satisfy their sexual needs so that they can maintain your marriage. “That hardly sounds like ‘saving’ a marriage. It sounds more like encouraging the couple to avoid their problems. And if their problems truly are unsolvable, they should break up rather than to keep lying to themselves.”
Your partner shrugs. “Sometimes relationships aren’t as straightforward as that.”
You grumble, because everything your partner says is so upsetting. You push your feet farther under the covers. “Maybe you can stop lying to yourself, too. Did you cheat on me or at least consider it?”
Your partner looks like they’ve been slapped. “Excuse me?” they cry. “Why the hell would I cheat? Sure, we have our arguments, like we are now. But I wouldn’t stray.”
“Were you never even tempted to sleep with other people?” you press, staring at their face to gauge any sign of deception.
Your partner peers at you carefully. “What are you implying?”
For a while, the two of you glare at each other. You are the first to break eye contact, however, and you clear your throat. “About Vacation Roulette, though, are you sure you want to go?”
Your partner still looks wary, but now, they seem more concerned than distrustful. “Um…”
Before either of you can say another word, your partner’s phone rings. It’s from an unknown number.
