At three in the morning, having smoked through the night, I sit on the edge of the bed. My wife’s toes brush mine; it feels like a strand of cold wire grazing the skin. Last night, in a hotel elevator, this woman undid another man’s shirt buttons. Now she exhales beside me.
Why am I still lying in this bed?
A week has passed since I learned of the betrayal. I secretly waited—for her to fall to her knees, begging forgiveness, or to walk away without looking back. Instead, she simply slept. A heavier sleep than usual. In her breathing I sensed neither shame nor excitement. The void was so cold I tapped her shoulder with the back of my hand. No response. The hotter something inside me grew. It was unjust: on this very bed she deceived me, yet my body still remembers her. When the temperature my fingertips recall clashes with the silhouette my mind holds, I find myself gasping in the middle of the night for the first time.
Rewind the CCTV and we travel six months back. Tuesday, 7 p.m.—the day she “signed up at the gym.” Inside the elevator on the screen stand my wife and the trainer. Not a word is spoken; her fingertips graze the back of his hand. 0.7 seconds, the monitor flickers. After that I waited every Tuesday at 7 p.m. in front of the massage parlor. A white sports car, the man opening the passenger door, a brief burst of laughter inside. The thought she is happy now lodged like a scalpel beneath my fingernail. That night, the moment I closed my eyes, her laughter echoed behind my ears.
September 2019, Haeundae, Busan. We were on our honeymoon. The photos on the beach still sit at the top of my phone’s gallery. Back then she said she truly loved me. Two years later, a photo from the same spot appeared on social media—this time with a man who wasn’t me. Hashtagged #ReturnVisit #OurLittleSecret. I boarded the KTX to Busan the instant I saw it. Three and a half hours: every patch of green outside the window looked like my wife’s pupils. I reached Busan Station at 10 p.m. On the second-floor balcony of a guesthouse she was kissing someone. The light made the scene so vivid that for the first time I realized, Ah, I have already left her.
After betrayal, a bed becomes a time bomb. One side: a heart threatening to burst. The other: someone sleeping with eyes closed. The temperature difference is addictive. Why stay when you’ve already left? The boundary between instinct and reason is as thin as ice. When the body plots revenge, the mind has already drawn the map of retribution. Yet by next morning I open the refrigerator and ask, Shall we have breakfast before you go? Perhaps it is the faint warmth left in those words that keeps me from abandoning this bed.
For you who cannot sleep, the breathing of the person beside you sounds thunderous. The wrist you hold is still warm; why, then, do you feel chilled? The fact that you remain in this bed even after your wife’s betrayal asks why—though your heart has left her—your body still lingers. Tonight, what will you recall while listening to her breath? Or rather, what will you recall that you can no longer recall? On this cold bed, only her breathing remains. And I still cradle that sound.