26. Dean
Dean
He'd been refreshing @missfionasays obsessively for three days now. Not commenting—Christ, he wasn't that pathetic—but checking. Always checking. Like somehow her posts could tell him if she was okay, if she was eating enough, if she was warm at night in Emma's guest room.
Her latest post had gone up an hour ago, and he'd already read it seventeen times.
I'm learning how much things actually cost. Not just rent and groceries, but independence. Dignity. The right to be yourself without wondering if someone's taking notes for later.
That was him. He was the someone. He was the reason she had to wonder, had to second-guess every moment.
He scrolled through the comments. Strangers telling his wife she was brave. Strangers offering support and solidarity. Strangers giving her what he should have given her all along.
you're braver than you know
She was. God, she was so much braver than he'd ever been. Here she was, rebuilding her entire life from scratch, sharing her struggles with the world, helping other people while she was barely keeping herself afloat.
Dean's chest tightened. She was helping people. Even now, even while she was scared and struggling and eating peanut butter for dinner—fuck, was she really eating peanut butter for dinner?—she was still thinking about others. Still trying to make the world softer.
That was Fiona. That was the woman he'd married. The woman he'd lost.
He was so fucking proud of her.
And so completely, hopelessly, pathetically in love with the woman who didn't need him anymore.
The woman who was better off without him.
The woman who was finally, finally free.
Dean's laptop was already open before he'd consciously decided to move. He logged into his account. The one that he’d considered both of theirs but had never bothered to put in her name.
His most recent paycheck sat there. Untouched. Bigger than usual because of the quarterly bonus.
Fiona's personal account information was saved in his contacts from years of birthday transfers and surprise deposits. Back when putting money in her account meant flowers or a weekend trip, not survival.
The transfer screen loaded. He typed in the amount without hesitation. All of it. Every penny from this month.
His finger hovered over the confirm button for exactly two seconds.
She was considering eating peanut butter for dinner.
He clicked confirm.
The transaction processed immediately. A green checkmark. Done.
Dean closed the laptop and sat back. Maybe she’d see it as pity or control or another violation of her boundaries.
But she was doing spreadsheets at 6 AM, calculating whether she could afford to live in the same city as her job. She was choosing between rent and groceries while he sat in an apartment that was supposed to be both of theirs.
She could hate him for it later. Right now, she needed to not be scared about money.
He'd deal with her fury when it came. Right now, all that mattered was that she was comfortable.
She’d left him, but giving her this was his right. His privilege of being her husband.
The conference room was all glass and ego.
Dean sat at the oval table, forcing himself to focus on the quarterly projections instead of the mess he’d made of his marriage.
Look at you, Dean thought. Sitting here like you belong. Like you're not a parasitic piece of shit who fed his wife to the wolves for likes.
Around him, twelve other account directors and senior VPs nodded along as Richard droned through engagement metrics.
"Speaking of viral content strategies," Richard said, clicking to the next slide, "I have to give a shout-out to one of our own."
Dean's blood turned to ice.
"Dean's personal brand work has been absolutely chef's kiss —brilliant. Let me pull this up as an example."
Richard's fingers flew across his laptop. The projector screen flickered, and suddenly there it was, blown up for everyone to see: @shitfionasays. Fiona's strawberry socks filled the massive screen. The caption underneath in crisp, corporate-presentation clarity.
A few knowing chuckles around the table. Dean felt the shame burn through him.
" Genius . Absolutely genius." Richard's smile was predatory as he gestured toward the giant display. "Twenty-three thousand followers and climbing, right?"
The account sat there on the 85-inch screen, larger than life. Fiona's private confession—her sleepy, trusting vulnerability—displayed like a PowerPoint slide for a room full of sharks.
How had he ever thought that this was ok?
You sick fuck, Dean thought about himself. You turned your wife into a joke.
"The engagement rates are insane ," added Jared, practically salivating as he looked at the screen.
Dean stared at the screen—at Fiona's socks, at his own words describing her like a specimen. His throat felt like he'd swallowed glass.
"And the comments section !" Richard scrolled down, revealing the responses in huge font for everyone to admire. "People are absolutely obsessed . You've tapped into something really primal here—that voyeuristic fascination with watching someone be completely unaware of how ridiculous they are."
They think I’m clever, Dean realized with a dull sense of horror. They think I’m a genius for destroying the person I claimed to love.
"The wife doesn't know about it, right?" This from James, one of the junior account managers, practically licking his lips as he gestured toward the screen. "That's what makes it so perfect . It's like... emotional trafficking."
More laughter. All while Fiona's most private moment glowed on the screen above them.
Dean wanted to crawl out of his own skin. These people— his people—were describing his marriage like a hunting expedition while his wife's trust was literally displayed like a trophy.
"She knows about it now," Dean said quietly.
"Oh, did you finally tell her?" Melissa's laugh was sharp. "How did she take it? I bet she was flattered . Who wouldn't want to be internet famous? Did she ask you to post more content?"
I destroyed her, Dean thought, staring at the projection. I served her up to these vultures and smiled while they picked her bones clean.
The room was looking at him expectantly. Twelve faces waiting for the punchline, the funny story about his wife's reaction to learning she'd been performing for strangers.
"She left me," Dean said quietly.
The laughter died like a switched-off radio. The account still glowed on the screen.
"My wife left me. Over the account."
Uncomfortable glances ricocheted around the table while Fiona's private moment continued to loom over them. Someone cleared their throat.
"Oh," Melissa said, but her tone suggested this was merely an inconvenient plot twist. "Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but honestly? If she couldn't handle a little harmless?—"
"It wasn't harmless." Dean's voice cracked as he looked up at the screen. "It was cruel. It was a sustained campaign of public humiliation."
Dean's voice was getting louder, steadier, even as Fiona's vulnerability blazed on the wall behind him.
"I took the kindest person I've ever known and I served her to you like meat.
I turned my wife's vulnerability into your entertainment.
I let you laugh at her while she sat at dinner tables thinking you were her friends. "
The silence was deafening. The account still filled the screen—a monument to his betrayal.
"The account was the work of a sociopath. And anyone who thinks it's 'genius' is exactly the kind of soulless parasite who shouldn't be in charge of a fucking stapler, let alone client relationships."
Richard scrambled for his laptop, finally closing the presentation.
The promotion was gone. Had been gone the moment he'd chosen to stand up for his wife. For once.
Good, Dean thought. You don't deserve success. You deserve to lose everything she lost, and more.
"The quarterly projections look great," Dean said, standing up. "I'll be in my office if anyone needs me to explain the difference between marketing and sociopathy."
Dean sat in his office with the door closed, staring at his computer screen without seeing it. Outside, the hallways hummed with their usual urgency—people rushing to meetings, chasing deadlines, building careers. Inside, everything felt hollow.
His phone had been silent for two hours. No meeting invitations. No urgent emails asking for his input. No casual drop-ins from colleagues wanting to bounce ideas around.
Word traveled fast in an office this size.
He'd torched his reputation in a single conference room meltdown, called his boss and half the senior staff sociopaths to their faces. The promotion he'd been angling for—the one that would've meant corner office, bigger clients, influencer parties—was gone. Permanently.
They wouldn't fire him. Companies like this didn't fire people for having personal breakdowns.
They just... redirected them. Gave them the accounts nobody wanted.
The clients who complained about everything and paid late.
The projects that were thankless slogs with impossible deadlines and microscopic budgets.
Dean almost laughed.
It was exactly what he deserved.
He leaned back in his chair and looked around his office.
Sleek furniture, expensive art prints, awards lined up on the bookshelf like little golden soldiers.
The view that had once made him feel like he was on top of the world.
All of it paid for by his ability to read rooms, to give people what they wanted to hear, to turn everything—even his own marriage—into content that served his ambitions.
The worst part wasn't losing the promotion. It wasn't even the professional humiliation.
The worst part was realizing how relieved he felt.
For the first time in years, he'd told the truth. Messy, career-destroying, brutal truth. And it had felt like breathing after being underwater.
He thought about the money. He didn’t need a promotion to have enough money to make sure Fiona lived a comfortable life.
He opened a new browser tab and, almost without thinking, typed in @missfionasays.
Dean's chest tightened. Even in her pain, even while struggling to rebuild from the wreckage he'd made of their life together, she was helping people. The comments were full of support, encouragement, people sharing their own stories of starting over.
She was creating something beautiful from the ashes of what he'd destroyed.
Meanwhile, he sat in his empty life, surrounded by the trappings of a success that suddenly felt meaningless.
Dean closed the laptop.
He looked at his awards again. Account Executive of the Year. Rising Star in Creative Strategy. All those little gold statues celebrating his ability to manipulate emotions for profit.
He'd been so proud of them once.
Now they just looked like participation trophies for being a functioning sociopath.
For the first time in his adult life, he wasn't interested in climbing ladders or leveraging connections or turning his personal disasters into professional advantages.
He just wanted to figure out how to be a person Fiona might have been proud to know.
Even if she'd never know it.
Even if it was too late.