chapter 2
The kitchen light cast a warm glow on his broad shoulders. He looked so domestic, so caring.
I watched Marcus, clumsy and unfamiliar, rinsing vegetables in the sink. Water splashed onto his designer shirt, a garment worth more than my first car, but he didn't notice. His eyes were shining. This wasn't the bored, dismissive performance he always gave me.
In all our years together, Marcus had never lifted a finger in the kitchen. He accepted my care, my cooking, my devotion, as if it were his due. Even intimacy felt like a favor he was granting me.
He took it all for granted.
Id tried, of course. Id begged him playfully to cook for me just once. He always had an excuse. Too busy with work. Had to watch his diet for a role.
Only once, when I was doubled over with cramps so bad I couldnt stand, hed brought me a heating pad and a cup of tea.
I had been so ridiculously happy.
In that moment, I truly believed people could change.
And they can. I see that now. The person they change for just wasn't me.
I remember once, I accidentally saw a text chain between him and a friend.
"You're still with that girl?" the friend had asked.
Marcus's reply was casual, devastating. "It's easy. No drama. And she's clean."
My family has money, but we weren't in his league. Not Hollywood royalty. From the moment I first saw him, I was lost.
He was a star of impossible magnitude. The number of wealthy, beautiful women chasing him was endless. By comparison, I was a nobody.
I got his number through a mutual acquaintance, added him, and then stared at his name at the top of my contacts, too terrified to say anything. I just watched his life through his rare posts, and it was enough.
He was my god.
So when he agreed to be my boyfriend, I was filled with more terror than joy.
I couldn't understand why he would choose me. The entertainment industry was overflowing with goddesses. I was pretty, maybe, but in that world, I was plain.
It happened at a booth in that same club. I was playing dice with friends when he walked over. The colored lights caught the planes of his face, and for a second, I felt like my god had descended from on high, just for me. I couldn't speak.
He smiled and held out his hand.
"Want to be my girlfriend?"
My friends knew about my crush. They also knew the scene. A proposal like that, in a place like this, was a hundred-percent a dare. A joke.
But even knowing that, I reached out and took his hand.
And with that one gesture, I stepped into a hell I could never escape.
Cassandra finished her pasta. They cuddled on the couch for a while, but they didn't go all the way.
Watching them touch made my non-existent stomach churn.
This had always been my space, my home. Now they were tangled up in the bed I bought, on the sheets I chose, making love in the one place I had to hide from the world. They wouldn't even leave me that.
In every sense of the word, Cassandra was using the man I loved. And when she was done, shed whisper, "Tell me you love me."
The phantom headache Id died with intensified.
Marcuss phone was buzzing constantly. Being famous meant being a permanent resident of the trending topics page.
After Cassandra fell asleep, he slipped out onto the balcony for a cigarette, not wanting the smoke to bother her. The phone's blue light cast his face in an eerie, melancholic glow.
I drifted closer to see the screen. The hashtags were all about me. #Homewrecker. #CloutChaser. #Desperate.
There were also forwarded messages from his friends. Screenshots of the video from the club with chains of laughing emojis and comments like, "LMAOOOO this bitch is pathetic."
I watched him scroll through it all, his expression unreadable. Then he closed the app and opened his call log. He frowned when he saw there were no missed calls from me. His face grew darker.
Of course there weren't.
I'm dead.
He called his publicist. I heard him ask why the story was still trending, why it hadn't been taken down.
His publicist laughed. "I thought you didn't care about this one? Don't worry, the fans know the drill. Last time"
"Take it down," Marcus cut him off. "I don't want Cassandra to see it and get upset."
"Got it," the publicist said, his tone shifting immediately. "True love, huh? Makes a guy different. I'll handle it."
Marcus took a long, deep drag from his cigarette and said nothing.
"By the way," the publicist asked, "has she been bothering you again?"
"No," Marcus answered quickly. "Gotta go."
A tiny, familiar pang of pain echoed within me.
I knew it. How could it ever be about me?
Of course, it was because Cassandra was back. He needed to scrub his life clean of any inconvenient attachments.
I won't bother you again, Marcus.
Never again.