It started as an innocent smile.

Then again, so does everything.

The one, single, bone-chilling look that assures one that everything, from this point on, will be fucked up.

I knew two things from the first moment, and both are shameful.

Number one, he was falling in love with me – one look and I knew that.

Number two, he was married – that had come from things I'd heard about him.

It was terrible, but I simply laughed off my guilt. I laughed until he became smitten with my laugh, and my eyes, and my easy way of doing things. "You're so refreshing," he'd say to me. "I've never met another woman like you."

Which meant, of course, that I was nothing like his wife.

I pretended to be blind to the reason he wouldn't be able to see me during the day; the fact that he never brought me back to his place; the way his lunch was packed with a feminine touch.

Truth is, I was in love with him too – and not the girlish, head-over-heels love I was used to. Still, it wasn't full of respect for him – I really did think he was an asshole pretty much the whole time. It was the joy of lusting after someone, of being held and complimented. I should have been used to it, but the way he singled me out, so unlike other men – it was exciting, mysterious, and I felt special.

I was the Other Woman. The bitch who ruins families for fun. The woman who can seduce a man with her evil charms but doesn't have enough self-confidence to stand on her own two feet.

But I wasn't like that. I was beautiful, self-assured – Draco Malfoy once asked me on a date, and as the reigning prince of the Slytherin house at that time, that was a major ego-booster.

I had nothing against happy families – I thought men should be faithful, and, for that matter, so should women.

Every Other Woman isn't a bitch. She's not insecure.

You can't control whom you fall for, and who falls for you. I looked at him that day and knew that he was falling in love with me, and I didn't do a damn thing to stop it.

But I am a coward. There's a reason I was a Slytherin through-and-through, why when I wondered about Gryffindor the Hat laughed at me. I was so mean for a reason – I was afraid that if I stopped, people would be mean to me.

I was Daphne Greengrass, perfect, charming, who can impress a guy's mother and get drunk simultaneously.

But that affair with that particular man – it shattered all that.

I never even met his mother.

And so, when I was in too deep to break it off, but my guilt consumed me and my jealousy ruined me, I packed up and left. I quit my excellent job at the Ministry. I didn't say goodbye to anyone – not my sister, not my friends, not him, especially.

I moved to fucking Sweden, because I didn't know a single soul there.

More importantly, they didn't know me.

Doubtless my sister went mad trying to find me, those five years I was out of contact, mysteriously missing.

Doubtless my friends filled my spot quickly, with a wannabee girl who would never be as perfect as the Daphne Greengrass.

Doubtless he tried to forget about me, give his whole self to his marriage, because he was just that kind of man.

I don't know what went on at home during those five years that I saw no one.

All I know is that in Sweden, things were easier. There was nothing to hide – I reinvented myself. I was still Daphne Greengrass, who charmed mothers and sons alike, but I knew that everything had to have strings attached.

I didn't have a single relationship for the five years I was gone. Not one. Not a fling, nothing serious. It was the simplest five years of my life – nothing was hard anymore.

Then I went back to England, but I kept in contact with my Swedish friends – men and women alike. I Apparated to Astoria's door and knocked as if it was a regular day, and when she opened it, she didn't smack me like she should have. She began to sob and hugged me, oh-so-tightly, and I realized that I had missed her – something I hadn't thought about when my life was simple.

My friends didn't really except me back into my old circle – they were all getting married, or having children. I was single, happy, but they thought I was a scandalous bitch who ran away from her life.

The last part was true. I was a bitch who ran when she was afraid.

But then I came back – and I saw him again, about six months after I was back in England. He greeted me coolly – "Daphne. How…surprising."

And I didn't smile, didn't laugh. I responded with a simple, "Hello. And how are you?"

He told me that he had children, now – three little angels, all girls. I congratulated him on that, and then I left, and I never once met his eyes.

And I knew that he couldn't fall in love with that again, couldn't hear my laugh, couldn't be with me.

He had daughters, a wife – a life.

And I was starting over.

A/N: For the Affair and Running Away challenges.