There’s a specific night that plays on a loop in my head, a silent movie of my own making, starring me as the villain. It’s the night I showed my true colors, a shade so ugly it stained everything that came after, and irrevocably changed the course of two lives. Ours.
We were that couple. The one everyone envied. The one with the perfect Instagram feed, if we’d been that kind of couple. We didn’t need to post it; everyone just knew. We met young, grew up together, built a life that felt like a fairytale. Even our arguments were gentle, resolved with quiet talks and understanding. Or so it seemed. Only I knew the cracks beneath the surface, the gnawing insecurity that whispered I wasn’t enough, that this perfect life was always one step away from shattering. I loved them with an intensity that bordered on obsession, a desperate need to keep them close, to keep this dream alive.
Then came the job offer. Not just any job. The job. The kind of opportunity that only comes once in a lifetime, a chance to truly soar, to reach for a future we’d only ever vaguely dreamt about. The catch? It was on the other side of the country. A different time zone, a different life. For them, it was everything. For me, it felt like a countdown to my own undoing. My biggest fear, abandonment, roared to life, a primal scream in my chest. I couldn’t breathe at the thought of them leaving. Of losing this. Of losing them.
Diane Keaton and Keanu Reeves during the 92nd Annual Academy Awards on February 9, 2020 I tried to be supportive, to plaster on a brave face, but every congratulatory word I uttered felt like ash in my mouth. My mind raced. How could I stop it? How could I keep them here without revealing the depth of my terror, the bottomless pit of need that threatened to swallow me whole? I convinced myself I was doing it for us. That this distance would kill our love, that I was simply protecting our beautiful, fragile thing. I told myself I was saving us, but the truth was, I was just saving myself from the pain of an imagined loss.
The plan formed slowly, sickeningly, in the dead of night. It wasn’t grand or dramatic. It was insidious. I knew their habits, their processes. A crucial email, with a final deadline for a portfolio submission, somehow ended up in the spam folder, unseen until it was too late. A reference check, usually a glowing testament, received a carefully worded, ambiguous response from a mutual friend I subtly manipulated into casting just a hint of doubt. Just enough. Just a tiny seed of uncertainty. I rationalized it as a minor setback, something they could recover from. It wouldn’t stop them entirely, just… delay it. Make them see what they were giving up. Make them choose me.
The call came two weeks later. They didn’t get it. They were devastated. Crushed. I held them as they wept, a perfect liar, stroking their hair, murmuring comforting words. My own heart was a tangled mess of relief and self-loathing. The relief felt dirty, like I’d stolen something precious. The silence of their disappointment, the slow, deflating slump of their shoulders, was louder than any accusation. I had won, but the victory tasted like poison. I promised them we’d find another way, another opportunity, something closer. They nodded, lost in their grief.
We stayed. Life resumed, but everything was tainted. My partner slowly, subtly, lost a certain sparkle. Their dreams seemed to shrink, confined to the smaller world I had meticulously built around us. They never spoke of that job again, not really. I carried the secret like a lead weight, a constant, dull ache beneath my ribs. Every loving touch felt like a lie. Every shared laugh felt forced, a betrayal of the purest trust. I watched them, day in and day out, haunted by the “what ifs” of the life I had stolen from them. Guilt became my constant companion, a silent, unforgiving judge. We built a life, a beautiful home, but it was all built on my unforgivable lie. I was a good partner, outwardly, but inside, I was rotting.
Richard Gere and Diane Keaton in a scene from “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” circa 1977 | Source: Getty Images
Years passed. We eventually married. The ceremony was beautiful, the promises heartfelt. Or mine were, at least. I loved them, still, with that same desperate, all-consuming fear. But the shadow of that night never lifted. It was always there, a whisper in the quiet moments, a chilling reminder of the monster I truly was, the depth of my selfishness. I often wondered if they knew, if some instinct had told them. But they never said anything. And I never confessed. How could I? To destroy everything we had built, to confirm their quiet suspicions that I was not the person they thought I was.
Then, just a few months ago, while cleaning out an old box of their college things, preparing for a garage sale, I found it. Tucked beneath old textbooks and faded photographs, a small, leather-bound journal. Their journal. My heart pounded. I shouldn’t look. I really shouldn’t. But a lifetime of guilt, mixed with an unbearable curiosity, won out. I opened it to a random page, then another, my eyes scanning, searching for something, anything.
And then I saw the date. Weeks, almost a month, before that job offer ever came through. My breath hitched. The entry was long, raw, filled with pain I never knew they felt. It spoke of feeling trapped, of a quiet suffocation, of a relationship that had become too comfortable, too expected, too much about my needs and not enough about theirs. It spoke of a desperate longing for freedom, for a fresh start, for a life that was truly their own. It detailed their profound unhappiness with me, their feeling trapped, their quiet, agonizing plan to end things.
The job offer, that incredible, life-changing opportunity that I had so cruelly sabotaged, wasn’t a threat to our perfect life. It was, for them, a lifeline. A convenient, non-confrontational way out. They were already leaving me. My monstrous act didn’t save us; it merely trapped them, and me, in a lie built on my insecurity. It didn’t keep them here because they wanted to be. It kept them here, out of a sense of obligation, out of a quiet resignation born from the loss of their one chance for escape. My “true colors” weren’t just selfish; they were tragically, utterly pointless. I had stolen their freedom, and mine, all for nothing. I had made myself a monster for a relationship that was already dying. And the most heartbreaking part? I still couldn’t tell them. I still couldn’t face the consequences of my own doing, the ultimate proof of my own betrayal. I live in a prison of my own making, with the ghost of a life I stole, and the knowledge that I alone am to blame.
Richard Gere and Diane Keaton on stage at the 61st Annual Golden Globe Awards on January 25, 2004 | Source: Getty Images
