5. Selene #2
My heart leaps into my throat as I snatch it up, but the hope dies just as quickly. It’s not Dylan. It’s a notification from my stylist, confirming my appointment for next week’s charity gala.
I set the phone back down and stare at it, willing it to light up with his name, his apology, any evidence at all that I matter enough to warrant an explanation.
It stays dark.
Eleven o’clock.
The food has gone cold. The candle has burned out entirely, leaving nothing but a puddle of hardened wax and a wisp of smoke. Most of the tables around me are empty now, and the staff has started giving me looks that are less sympathetic and more concerned.
I should leave. There’s no point in staying any longer. He’s not coming.
But I can’t make myself stand up.
If I leave, it becomes real. If I leave, I’m admitting that my husband forgot me, chose his work over me, let me sit here alone for three hours on our wedding anniversary while he did whatever was more important than showing up.
So I stay, staring at the view I used to love, and letting the silence fill up all the empty spaces inside me.
I think about the woman I used to be. The actress who commanded attention every time she walked into a room. The producer who built stories from nothing. The partner who stood beside Dylan as an equal, challenging him, pushing him, making him better.
When did I let her die?
I think about Claudette, hunched over Dylan’s shoulder in the editing suite, her handwriting all over his scripts, her voice in his ear at nine o’clock at night.
I think about how easily she stepped into the role I vacated, how seamlessly she became his creative partner while I became his… what? His decoration?
His trophy wife.
The phrase surfaces in my mind, and I finally understand what Claudette meant when she used it.
I’ve been polished and displayed and positioned to reflect well on him, but I’m not alive anymore.
I’m not creating or challenging or growing.
I’m just existing, maintaining the shine on his perfect life while my own dreams gather dust in abandoned notebooks.
The worst part is that I did this to myself.
I was so afraid of competing with Dylan that I stopped competing entirely.
I was so focused on supporting his career that I let mine disappear.
I shrunk myself smaller and smaller, convinced that my sacrifice was noble, necessary, the price of loving someone whose ambition burned brighter than my own.
But here’s the truth I’ve been avoiding: Dylan never asked me to shrink. He didn’t hold me back or tell me explicitly to stop working. He just… stopped seeing me. Stopped noticing when I gave things up. Stopped asking about my projects, my goals, my dreams.
And I let him.
I let him because it was easier than fighting.
Because every time I tried to bring up my frustrations, he was tired or stressed or in the middle of something important, and I told myself that a good wife supports her husband, a good wife doesn’t add to his burden, a good wife waits patiently for her turn.
But my turn never came.
And now I’m sitting alone in a restaurant where my husband proposed to me seven years ago, surrounded by the ghosts of all the dreams I surrendered, and I finally understand what Claudette was really saying last night.
She didn’t take my place. I gave it away.
Midnight.
The restaurant is closing. The ma?tre d’ approaches my table with the check and an expression of profound discomfort.
“Mrs. Riego, I’m so sorry, but we’ll be closing in about thirty minutes. Is there anything else I can get you before…?”
He trails off, uncertain how to finish the sentence. Before you leave? Before you admit defeat? Before you stop pretending your husband is coming?
“Just the check.” My voice sounds strange to my own ears. Flat. Distant. Like it’s coming from very far away.
He sets it down and retreats quickly, clearly relieved to escape the awkwardness. I don’t blame him. I’d want to escape me too.
I sign the check without looking at the total and finish the last of my wine. The bottle is empty now. I drank the whole thing myself, saving nothing for Dylan because there’s nothing left to save.
Through the window, the city lights twinkle on, oblivious to my heartbreak. All those people down there, living their lives, loving their partners, being loved in return. How many of them are sitting alone right now, waiting for someone who isn’t coming?
I should go home. There’s no point staying any longer.
But home is that cold, empty mansion where I’ll wander from room to room, surrounded by evidence of Dylan’s success and my own slow erasure.
Home is the bed we share that always feels empty, even when he’s in it.
Home is the future I can no longer see because I’ve spent so long focused on him that I forgot to build my own.
So I stay. Until the staff starts putting chairs on tables around me, until I’m the only diner left in the entire restaurant, until the city below me starts to go dark as even the most dedicated night owls finally give up and go to bed.
Leaving feels impossible because… Where else would I go?
It’s almost three o’clock in the morning.
The manager granted me extra time even though they had already closed the restaurant, saying they could leave a few staff to accompany me for a while.
I’m still sitting at the table when commotion erupts at the entrance.
Raised voices. The ma?tre d’ protesting that they’re closed. A familiar baritone cutting through the objections.
“I need to see my wife. She’s still here, right? Please, I know she’s still here.”
Dylan bursts through the entrance, his eyes frantically searching across the room.
His suit is disheveled, his tie loosened, his hair sticking up like he’s been running his hands through it for hours. There’s a slight unsteadiness in his step; I can hear his words slur together at the edges.
He spots me, his face crumples with what might be relief or guilt, or both.
“Selene.” He’s across the restaurant in seconds, sliding into the chair across from me, reaching for my hands.
I can smell the alcohol on him. “Baby, I’m so sorry.
Production ran late, and then there was an issue with the footage, and Claudette said we needed to review everything before tomorrow’s shoot, and I just…
I lost track of time. I’m so, so sorry.”
I don’t pull my hands away, but I don’t respond to his touch either. My fingers lie limp in his grip, cold and unresponsive.
“There was this bar near the studio,” Dylan continues, the words tumbling out in a desperate rush. “Some of the crew wanted to celebrate finishing the night scenes, and I thought I’d just stay for one drink, but then one drink turned into a few, and by the time I checked my phone-”
He stops. Swallows hard. His thumb traces circles on my palm, a gesture that used to comfort me.
Now it just feels like another empty promise.
“I know I messed up.” His voice cracks. “I know this was our anniversary, and I should have been here. There’s no excuse. I’m sorry, baby. Please, tell me how to fix this.”
I should be angry. I should be screaming, throwing things, demanding answers. Hours ago, I would have been. But somewhere between ten o’clock and midnight, the anger burned itself out, leaving nothing but ash and a bone-deep exhaustion that makes everything feel muted and far away.
Slowly, I turn my head to look at him.
He looks terrible. Guilt is written across his features in stark, unmistakable lines. His eyes are red-rimmed, from alcohol or emotion, I can’t tell. His hands are shaking slightly where they grip mine.
This is the man I married. The man I gave up everything for. The man whose dreams I placed above my own because I loved him, because I believed in him, because I thought that was what love meant.
I look at him, and feel… nothing.
Not anger. Nor grief. Not even disappointment.
Just a vast, hollow emptiness where my heart used to be.
“Production ran late,” I repeat, my voice sounding distant even to my own ears. “And there was an issue with the footage. And Claudette said you needed to review everything.”