One day, shortly after I had ended my seven-year marriage, my best friend sent a group e-mail and I noticed that her brother’s e-mail address was on there.
Her brother and I had been attracted to each other since the age of 15 and flirted outrageously whenever we saw each other. I decided to send a “reply all” e-mail back to the group and sure enough, he responded in about two seconds, saying hi and how he had heard about my divorce.
We quickly made plans to go to an art gallery and shyly flirted throughout the day. I got an e-mail on the Monday at work telling me how he’d had such a terrific time and would like to cook me dinner.
I went over to his place and there was no dinner that night! Instead we ended up in bed. This kept happening over about a six-month period and every time we considered telling his sister/my best friend, we chickened out. On top of that, her husband had been diagnosed with cancer and we didn’t think it was the right time.
Well, her husband passed away and at the funeral we couldn’t share our grief with each other and pretended we didn’t know each other.
It got to the point where I couldn’t take it any more and wanted to tell her. He didn’t!
I booked a ticket to go overseas to get away from everything and actually deal with the fact that my marriage had ended and that the new “love of my life” didn’t want to come out of the closet with our relationship. We had spent close to eight months hiding out in his apartment; not going out or, if we did, walking to the shops — five metres apart.
The night before I left to go overseas, I went to my girlfriend’s house for dinner. We both got quite drunk and I blurted out the truth about my clandestine relationship with her brother.
She was absolutely devastated and felt betrayed — not only by her best friend but by her closest sibling. We had consumed about three bottles of wine and she threw me out of the house hysterically, not being able to believe that the two people closest to her had betrayed her in such a way.
When I came back from my holiday we tried to remain friends, but it was never the same.
I hear through mutual friends that she moved to Adelaide and is remarried with two children.
I think about our friendship occasionally, which had spanned almost two decades, and regret not telling her earlier.
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