2. Skye
— ? —
Skye
I stand in front of the bathroom mirror in a dress that cost more than my parents’ first car, applying makeup with the precision of someone who has learned that presentation is armor. My hair is perfect. My jewelry is perfect. My smile, when I practice it, is perfect.
My husband doesn’t know I’m going out tonight.
I found out about the premiere from Instagram.
Not from him. Not from Miranda, his assistant, who usually remembers to loop me in.
From a fan account that posted the red carpet schedule, and there was my husband’s name, and there was a date I didn’t recognize, and there was a premiere I’d never heard of.
For a film his studio produced.
Without me.
“It’s fine,” I tell my reflection. “You’ll surprise him. He loves surprises.”
I used to believe that.
I catch my reflection in the glass and remember a different version of this moment.
Not so long ago. A different premiere. I was getting ready in this same bathroom - same marble, same gold fixtures, same stupidly flattering lighting - and Jayden walked in behind me.
He didn’t say anything. He just stopped in the doorway and watched me drag color across my mouth with this look in his eyes.
Hungry. Focused. Like the rest of the house had gone dark and I was the only thing left on.
I felt it on my skin before I even turned. That look. It used to arrive in a room ahead of him.
“We’re going to be late,” I said, and I was smiling when I said it, because I already knew what late meant.
He came up behind me. I watched him do it in the glass: the slow close of distance, the way his gaze dropped from my mouth to my throat to the zipper he hadn’t even touched yet.
His hands settled on the counter on either side of my hips, caging me in without crowding, and his mouth found the place just below my ear that has always been a problem.
“We’re going to be very late.”
I should have told him no. There were cameras outside. A red carpet. A car in the driveway already running. Instead I watched my own eyes go dark in the mirror as he kissed my neck like he had all night and nowhere else to be.
He pressed me against that counter.
The marble was cold through my dress; his hands were not.
One slid up my thigh, gathering silk as it went, and the sound I made would have embarrassed me if he’d been anyone else.
He hiked the dress to my hips and looked at me in the mirror while he did it - made me watch.
Made me see the woman he was looking at. Flushed. Wanted. His.
“Don’t smudge the lipstick,” I whispered, which was a lie. I wanted it smudged. I wanted proof.
“Then don’t make that sound again,” he said against my mouth, and then he kissed me anyway, and I made it again, and the lipstick was a lost cause before he even got the dress the rest of the way out of his way.
We were impossibly late.
I had to redo my makeup entirely. My mouth was ruined.
My hair had his hands in it. There was a faint red shape on my throat that concealer only half-hid, and every time I caught it in a camera flash later I felt it like a secret I was still wearing.
I didn’t care. I didn’t care about the carpet or the questions or the look the driver gave us when we finally came downstairs.
I didn’t care about anything except the way he had looked at me.
Like I was the premiere. Like I was the main event. Like the night could wait in the driveway until he was finished reminding me I belonged to someone who couldn’t keep his hands off me for the length of a lipstick.
I can’t remember the last time he looked at me like that.
Now the bathroom is just a bathroom. The lighting is just lighting.
I finish the same mouth in the same mirror and there is no one in the doorway.
When I came in here he was in the bedroom with his phone, thumb moving, jaw set the way it gets when the numbers aren’t behaving.
He glanced up when I walked past. He did not follow.
Now he looks at his phone. At spreadsheets. At the door, calculating how quickly he can leave.
I lean closer to the glass and try to find her.
The woman from that night. The one who got devoured against this counter.
The one who felt the air change when he entered a room.
The one who was late on purpose and walked a red carpet with his fingerprints still on her hips and did not apologize for any of it.
She is in the mirror somewhere, under this makeup, under this dress, under the version of me who has learned to get ready alone.
I finish my lipstick and blot it carefully, like it matters, like anyone is going to kiss it off.
She feels very far away tonight.
The premiere is at the TCL Chinese Theatre, and I take my own car because showing up in an Uber would raise questions I don’t want to answer. The traffic on Sunset is a nightmare, which gives me time to rehearse what I’ll say when I see him.
Surprise! I thought I’d crash the party.
Did your assistant forget to tell me, or did you?
When were you planning to mention this?
By the time I reach Hollywood, I’ve discarded all of them.
I’ll just walk in, find him, slip my arm through his, and pretend everything is normal.
That’s what I always do. That’s what I’ve become an expert at - pretending.
Pretending I’m not lonely. Pretending I’m not invisible.
Pretending that the woman I’ve become is the woman I wanted to be.
The carpet is chaos when I arrive. Photographers screaming names. Publicists herding clients. Studio executives air-kissing people they’ll stab in the back tomorrow. I know most of them by face, some by name, all by reputation.
I scan the crowd for my husband.
I find him near the step-and-repeat.
He’s standing with a woman I don’t recognize.
She’s tall and dark-haired and wearing a red dress that photographs beautifully. She’s laughing at something Jayden said, her hand resting on his arm with the easy familiarity of someone who has touched him many times before.
Jayden is smiling. Not his photo smile, the one he uses for cameras and investors. His real smile. The one I haven’t seen in months.
A photographer calls out: “Mr. Rowland! Over here! You and Adriana!”
Jayden turns. The woman turns with him. Their bodies align automatically, comfortable, practiced.
The flashbulbs explode.
I stand frozen at the edge of the carpet, watching my husband pose with another woman like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like she belongs there. Like I never did.
The world narrows to a tunnel. Sound goes fuzzy. I watch them smile for the cameras, watch her lean into him, watch him let her, and something inside me cracks.
I don’t cry. Not yet. I’m too numb for crying.
I walk back to my car on autopilot, heels clicking against the sidewalk, and don’t remember the drive home. The mansion is dark when I arrive. Empty. Echoing with the kind of silence that feels like an accusation.
I sit on the couch and call Ellen.
“Hello?”
“I need you to come over.”
A pause. Ellen knows me too well to need more. “I’m on my way. Twenty minutes.”
“Make it fifteen.”
I hang up and stare at the ceiling. The house is silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the distant crash of waves outside. This is my life now. A prison with ocean views. A gilded cage I walked into willingly because I loved the man holding the key.
Ellen doesn’t knock. She just walks straight in, finds me still on the couch in my premiere dress, and doesn’t say a word. Just sits down beside me and waits.
“You killed Gerald,” I say, pointing at a brown crispy thing on the windowsill that I’m suddenly, irrationally focused on.
Ellen gave me those plants as a housewarming gift, promising they were “impossible to kill.” She was wrong about that.
Gerald is the last of the graveyard, still hanging on out of spite.
“Gerald was weak. He didn’t want to live.”
“You gave me plants like they were pets and then never asked how they were doing. That’s negligent horticulture.”
“You keep them for the aesthetic. I supplied the aesthetic.”
“The aesthetic of death?”
“The aesthetic of trying. I tried. Gerald gave up.” She shoves a pillow aside to make room for herself. “Now stop deflecting and tell me what happened.”
This is why I called her. Ellen has always had wine and opinions. Usually the opinions are wrong, but they’re delivered with such confidence that I believe them anyway.
“I’m fantastic,” I say finally. “Living the dream. The American dream where your husband forgets you exist.”
“What happened?”
So I tell her. The Instagram post. The premiere I wasn’t invited to. The woman in red with her hand on Jayden’s arm.
“Was he kissing her?”
“No.”
“Touching her inappropriately?”
“No. They were just… posing. Together. Like they belonged together.” My voice cracks despite my best efforts to keep it steady. “Like I was the one who didn’t belong.”
Ellen is quiet for a moment. “Maybe she’s someone from work. A colleague. You can’t jump to conclusions until you talk to him.”
“I know.”
“Skye.”
“I know, okay? I know I’m probably overreacting.
I know there’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation.
I know I should wait and talk to him like a rational adult.
” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “I also know that he didn’t tell me about this premiere.
He didn’t invite me. He didn’t even text. ”
“When did things change?”
The question hits harder than it should. Because I know the answer. I’ve known it for months, maybe years, and I’ve been too scared to say it out loud.
“I don’t know. Gradually, I guess. We used to be…
God, Ellen, we used to be inseparable. Eighteen years together.
High school sweethearts. Prom king and queen.
The whole cliché. Twelve years of marriage and I can’t remember the last time he looked at me like I was the only person in the room.
” I swipe at my eyes, smearing my carefully applied mascara.
“But it’s not like that anymore. He works constantly.
He’s never home. And when he is home, he’s on his phone, or in his office, or already thinking about the next meeting.
We don’t talk. We don’t laugh. We don’t even… ”
I trail off.
“Don’t even what?”
“Make love. Not really. Not like we used to. It’s like… checking a box. Something on his to-do list between conference calls.”
Ellen takes my hand. Her grip is warm and firm, an anchor in the storm.
“Oh, Skye.”
“I’ve been making excuses for so long. He’s stressed. He’s busy. He’s building an empire. But when does the empire become more important than us? When did I become less important than a quarterly earnings report?”
Ellen leaves eventually. Work tomorrow. A life that doesn’t stop just because mine is falling apart.
My phone shows three missed calls from my mother in Arizona. I can’t call her back. Can’t hear the worry in her voice, can’t explain how her daughter’s perfect life just detonated on national television. She’s been fragile since Dad’s heart attack two years ago. This would break her.
I text instead: I’m okay. It’s not true. Will call when I can. Don’t watch the news.
Her response comes immediately: I know it’s not true. You’re my daughter. Call when you’re ready. I love you.
I cry harder, then change out of my dress and into sweatpants. A glass of wine gets poured, but I don’t even drink it. Instead, I simply sit on the couch and wait for my husband. Sometime in the small hours, sleep takes over, and I wake later, disoriented, my neck stiff from the awkward angle.
The other side of the couch is still empty. Jayden’s side of the bed is still cold.
I reach for my phone and dial his number.
But it doesn’t ring. Straight to voicemail.
I stare at the phone in my hand, the screen glow illuminating my face in the dark living room, and realize I don’t know where my husband is. I don’t know who he’s with. I don’t know when he stopped telling me these things. I don’t know him anymore.