The Other Side of Love: My Life as the Woman in the Shadows

“You do know you’re not allowed to park here, right?” The security guard’s words sliced through the silence, and I jumped, startled, clutching my phone so tightly my knuckles turned white. My pulse thudded in my ears. I was parked on the far side of the Kroger parking lot, the one spot where the evening sun couldn’t find me, and where—every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.—I waited for him.

I rolled my window down, managing a tight smile. “Sorry, I’m just waiting for someone. I’ll be gone soon.”

He grunted, unconvinced, but moved on. My hands were shaking. I checked my phone again: 6:41 p.m. Maybe he wasn’t coming. Maybe Teresa, his wife, had found out. Maybe this was the week everything crumbled.

I should have known better. I was thirty-three years old and, until last year, I’d never even been in love. Not really. My marriage to Ben had ended quietly, like a show that gets canceled mid-season and no one notices. We’d signed the divorce papers over burnt coffee at the kitchen table, and he’d moved out by noon. No kids. No fights. No reason to stay. My friends said I was lucky, that I’d gotten out before things turned ugly. But loneliness is its own kind of ugly.

I met Jack at the hospital where we both worked—me as a nurse, him as an ER doctor. I didn’t know he was married at first. He never wore a ring. He’d flirted with me in the break room, made me laugh when my feet ached and my heart felt like it had grown calluses. It wasn’t until the night he kissed me in the parking lot, his hands trembling like mine were now, that he told me. “I’m married. I have a son. I never meant for this to happen.”

I should’ve walked away.

But I didn’t. Instead, I found myself living for Wednesdays, for the stolen hours before he went home to his family. We’d meet in his car or sneak into a cheap motel room, and he’d tell me, “You make me feel alive, Eve. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“What about your wife?” I’d asked once, my voice hardly more than a whisper.

He’d looked away. “She hasn’t looked at me like that in years.”

I pretended that was enough. That the way he touched me, the way he made me laugh, could fill the gap where his love for her should have ended. But every night, I watched him walk away, and every morning, I woke up alone.

My mother called me every Sunday. She always asked if I was seeing anyone. “You’re not getting any younger, Eve.”

“I know, Mom,” I’d say, lying through my teeth. “I’m just focusing on work right now.”

If she’d known the truth, she would have prayed for my soul. My sister, married with three kids by twenty-nine, sent me pictures from her perfect suburban life. I’d stare at the images of birthday cakes and soccer games, feeling like a visitor at the window of my own life.

One night, after Jack left, I sat on my bathroom floor, knees hugged to my chest, and cried so hard I thought my ribs would crack. I wasn’t the villain. And I wasn’t the victim, either. I was just… stuck. Stuck loving a man who would never choose me. Stuck lying to everyone, even myself.

“Why do you do this?” my friend Amanda asked one Friday night over margaritas, her brow furrowed in concern. “You deserve better than being someone’s secret.”

“It’s not that simple,” I said. But it was, really. I was terrified of being alone again. Terrified that this—these scraps of affection, these half-promises—were all I’d ever get.

Months passed. The seasons changed. I got used to the ache, the constant waiting, the way my phone’s silence sometimes screamed louder than any argument ever could. Jack never promised to leave his wife, but he never left me, either. He lived in the space between, and I let him.

Then, one Wednesday, I waited in the parking lot, but he never came. No call, no text. I sat there until the sun went down, until my car felt like a coffin. I drove home on autopilot, the radio playing some country song about broken hearts. When I got home, I found a message from him at last.

“Teresa found out. I’m sorry, Eve. I can’t see you anymore. Please don’t call.”

That was it. Fourteen words. Three years of my life, gone like smoke through my fingers.

I didn’t get out of bed for two days. I called in sick, ignored my mother’s calls, let Amanda’s texts pile up. Finally, I forced myself to shower, looked at my reflection in the foggy mirror, and didn’t recognize the woman staring back at me.

I started going to therapy. I told my therapist, “I don’t know who I am without him.”

She said, “Maybe now is the time to find out.”

It’s been a year since Jack left. I don’t wait in parking lots anymore. I work extra shifts, take myself out to dinner, go to movies alone. I’m learning to be enough for myself. But sometimes, in the quiet, I still wonder what might have been if I’d walked away sooner—or if he’d chosen me. I still flinch when I see a black SUV like his on Main Street. I still feel the ache. But it’s fading, day by day.

So here’s my question: Why do we settle for being someone’s secret, someone’s second choice? And when we finally step out of the shadows, can we ever really forgive ourselves for the part we played in our own heartbreak?