Not well--they're both pissed off

The power was back on and my cell phone was charged and staring right at me. Three missed calls from Sonya. I felt awful. For a moment, I considered picking it up and calling her back right then and there, but she was probably asleep and I still hadn't figured out how on earth I was going to explain things to her.

I hadn't let things go THAT far with Tami, but I had still betrayed my girlfriend's trust. I had, to whatever degree, been unfaithful for the first time in my life, and it was killing me inside.

I knew I needed to tell Sonya. No twisting things around to make me sound like the victim, either. But that would come later, when we could actually have a conversation. For the time being, I sent her a quick text explaining about the power outage and promised to call her after work.

Which sucked.

For the first half of the day, Claire barely acknowledged my existence, always finding something incredibly pressing to busy herself with whenever I tried to explain what had happened. She was professional, but dismissive.

Tami, on the other hand, just tried to avoid me altogether. I had hurt her more than I'd realized, and she seemed too embarrassed to even look me in the eye. Since I couldn't exactly talk to her with all the other people around the office, I had the bright idea of writing her a discreet letter of apology, explaining that I thought she was great, and I was so sorry that I had hurt her feelings.

She tossed it in the waste basket without even reading the thing.

I spent about 10 hours at the office that day, and every second of it was so awkward it felt more like 10 weeks.