Have a good night.

"Have a good night, I'll see you tomorrow." I couldn't quite bring myself to express how attracted I was to her.

"Ok, you have a good rest of the night, too. See you tomorrow." Eloise smiled at me and headed out the door. I watched her get into her car and drive away.

I sighed. "Well, it's probably for the best. I AM married, after all. What business do I even have looking at other women?" I thought to myself.

That night, as I pulled into our driveway next to my wife's car, I thought of how happy she had been when she bought it, which happened during our courtship. I remembered how in love we had been. It wasn't as if either of us had chosen to fall out of love, or, really, even that we had. The spark had just slowly faded.

Unfortunately, I couldn't talk to my wife, my only true friend in the world, about any of this. I couldn't just imagine the pain that she would feel, I remembered it keenly. The time that she told me she couldn't have children, and what pain that caused her, the hours of tears through which I had comforted her. I remembered how sad she had been when telling me how she had turned down her doctor's recommendation to increase the dosage of the medication to treat her depression because even the low dose she was on had lowered her sex drive to virtually nothing.

I told myself... "You love her... that will have to be enough to get you through..."

And I hope it will be.