You’d Know If Your Closest Friend Was Having a Secret Affair, Right?

Not necessarily.

You won’t know. Not if that friend keeps their secrets well hidden. You can’t know what you’re not told.

Here’s the truth. Even best friends withhold information from each other. They really do.

One of my closest girlfriends was extremely secretive when it came to dating. She was highly superstitious. Nina believed that if she made an announcement about dating a new man too soon then it’d spoil things, ruining the chances of the relationship blossoming into something wonderful. I’d never hear about one until it was long over.

Superstition aside, too many ruined relationships in her past kept her silent. It allowed her to save face when they finally failed — and they often did.

There was another close friend who kept good secrets. Her story is a little different.

Linda entered my life by way of an accident. We soon became the best of friends. Our souring marriages unified us. We’d sip coffee on Wednesdays and bitch about our partners until it made us feel better. I came to know everything about her.

Almost everything.

A year later, out of the blue, she calls me in tears. She confesses to a long-term affair she’d been having with a married man. She kept her secrets close for all that time because she didn’t want to admit to being an adulteress. She was working on the principle that if she didn’t talk about it, then it wasn’t really happening to her.

Funny things occur when people tell lies. Little gaps start to appear in their lives. It’s when they say they’re going to be at one place to do one thing but go somewhere different to do something else. I call them grey zones. They are both wonderful and dangerous places to be. Anything can happen at this junction of indifference. The opposing forces provide a place of opportunity for someone like me.

The police questioned Linda’s husband about her unexplained and lengthy absence. Statistically speaking, spouses are likely to be the perpetrators of domestic crime. There were cracks in their marriage and police would’ve found them right away. Investigators might’ve even discovered Linda’s other life. Jealousy can make us do awful things to one another. Terrible tragedies come from insane jealousy.

Nina’s grey zones were larger than Linda’s. That’s because she didn’t have to answer to a spouse.

As a recent divorcee, her time was her own. She rebuilt her life in a safe, cosy place away from the disaster she’d left behind. Threats of retribution had followed Nina to her new home. Ongoing financial battles kept her in touch with the man she tried to poison and he wasn’t a happy man over both of those issues.

You could say her wish to start a relationship with a new guy was anticipated. Her ex-husband had found someone and she wanted happiness too. But she didn’t tell anyone about it when it finally happened. Her superstitious nature accompanied her decision making. She told people she was doing one thing but she did something else. Grey zones appeared. Opportunities were taken.

The trick afterward was to keep calm and let her natural history take charge of the investigatory narrative.

Someone will pay for her death but it won’t be me.

As I said, lies produce grey areas that are both wonderful and dangerous. If the heat of an intense, new relationship keeps lovers coming back for more of what burns most, more secrets will be required to support them. When I’m around, those lies will encourage something more dangerous than wonderful.

No. You won’t know for sure if a close friend is having an affair — at least not until her body shows up.

Originally published at https://michaelformanevil.substack.com.