7. Selene
— ? —
Selene
The weeks leading up to the Academy Awards pass in a blur of hollow routines and careful silences.
Dylan has been trying. I’ll give him that much.
He comes home earlier than before. Ten o’clock instead of midnight.
He makes a point of asking about my day, even though his eyes glaze over halfway through my answer.
He brings me flowers twice, the same generic bouquet from the same upscale florist, and each time I arrange them in a vase and watch them slowly die on the kitchen counter.
I move through the mansion, going through the motions of being a wife while my mind calculates exit strategies.
Irish Tiu’s office called to confirm our consultation. The meeting was brief, clinical, devastating in its efficiency. She explained the process, the timeline, the likely division of assets. She asked if I wanted to proceed, and I told her to prepare the paperwork.
Just in case, I said. I want to be prepared.
She didn’t judge. She just nodded and made notes and told me the documents would be ready within the week.
They’ve been sitting in a locked drawer of my vanity ever since, waiting for me to decide whether to use them.
Tonight is the night that will make that decision for me.
My stylist arrives at noon with three gown options, and I choose the black one without much deliberation. It’s elegant, understated, the kind of dress that says I belong here without demanding attention. A dress for standing beside a man in the spotlight, not for commanding one of my own.
How fitting.
“You look stunning, Mrs. Riego.” My stylist steps back to admire her work, and I study my reflection in the full-length mirror. Hair swept into an elegant updo. Makeup flawless and camera-ready. Diamond drops in my ears, a gift from Dylan for our fifth anniversary.
I look like a woman who has everything.
The reflection doesn’t show the hollow ache where my heart used to be.
“What time is Mr. Riego picking you up?” my stylist asks, gathering her supplies.
“He should be here any minute.” I check my phone. Nothing. “We need to leave by four to make the red carpet timing.”
Four o’clock comes and goes.
Four fifteen. Four thirty.
At four forty-five, forty-five minutes past when we should have left, my phone finally buzzes with a message.
I don’t need to read it to know what it says.
I can’t drive you to the venue. I’ll have someone fetch you and then I’ll meet you there. Sorry babe, last minute crisis at the studio. Love you.
Staring at the message for a long moment, I watch the words blur and sharpen as my vision swims with tears I refuse to shed.
I’ll meet you there.
Just like he was supposed to meet me at the restaurant on our anniversary. Just like he’s supposed to meet me everywhere, always arriving late or not at all, always with an excuse and an apology and a promise to do better next time.
I type back a reply, Fine. I’ll book a ride myself, so don’t worry about it.
Then I call for a car and finish getting ready alone.
The red carpet is chaos.
Limousines stretch in a line that extends beyond what I can see, each one disgorging perfectly polished celebrities into a gauntlet of photographers and journalists.
The noise is overwhelming. There are shouted questions, the mechanical click of thousands of cameras, the constant murmur of handlers coordinating their clients’ movements.
I step out of my car and into the fray, alone.
“Selene! Selene, over here!”
“Mrs. Riego, where’s Dylan tonight?”
“Selene, are the rumors true about trouble in your marriage?”
The questions leave me feeling cold, but I keep my expression serene, my smile fixed in place. Years of red carpet training have taught me how to project confidence I don’t feel, how to deflect invasive questions with practiced grace.
“Dylan will be joining me inside.” I pose for the photographers, angling my body the way I’ve been taught, letting the dress do its work. “He had some last-minute obligations to handle.”
“Will he be walking the carpet with you?”
“I’m sure he’ll be here any moment.”
But the moments stretch into minutes, and Dylan doesn’t appear. I work my way down the carpet alone, stopping at each photo station, answering the same questions over and over while scanning the crowd for any sign of my husband.
He promised, I remind myself. He promised he’d be here. He promised he wouldn’t leave my side.
The familiar weight of disappointment settles into my chest, but I push through it. Maybe he’s already inside. Maybe he took a different entrance to avoid the press chaos. Maybe, for once, there’s a reasonable explanation that doesn’t involve me being abandoned.
I’m about twenty minutes into the carpet, nearing the entrance to the theater, when the photographers go wild.
Cameras swing toward a point behind me, and the shouted questions take on a new urgency.
“Dylan! Dylan, over here!”
“Mr. Riego, who are you wearing tonight?”
“Dylan, where’s your wife?”
I turn, my heart lifting despite everything, ready to see my husband fighting through the crowd to reach me.
What I see instead makes my blood run cold.
Dylan is walking the red carpet, looking devastating in a perfectly tailored tuxedo, his smile confident and alluring.
And on his arm is Claudette.
My stepsister is wearing a silver gown that catches the light with every movement, her dark hair cascading over her shoulders in waves that perfectly complement Dylan’s sharp lines. She’s laughing at something he said, her hand resting possessively on his forearm, and they look…
They look like a couple.
The photographers are going insane. Flashes explode in a continuous strobe, and the shouted questions have shifted tone entirely.
“Dylan, is this your new collaborator?”
“Claudette, tell us about working with Dylan!”
“Are you two dating?”
I stand frozen at the edge of the carpet, watching my husband parade another woman past the press while I hover like an afterthought.
The cameras that were focused on me have all swung toward them, and I can feel the weight of everyone’s attention shifting, dismissing me in favor of this shinier, newer story.
Claudette catches my eye over Dylan’s shoulder.
She smiles.
It’s a small, private smile, the kind that says I win.
The last thread holding me together snaps. Not dramatically, not with a crash or a scream. Just a quiet, final fracture that I’ve been waiting for without even knowing it.
I turn and walk into the theater without waiting for them.
The auditorium is already filling when I reach our designated table. I sink into my chair and reach for the water glass with trembling hands, forcing myself to take slow, measured sips while I wait for my heart rate to return to normal.
He came with her. He walked the red carpet with her. He let the whole world see them together while I stood alone, a discarded prop.
The thoughts circle endlessly, each repetition cutting deeper.
I check my phone. Social media is already exploding with photos of Dylan and Claudette’s arrival. The headlines write themselves:
Dylan Riego Brings New Muse to Academy Awards
Trouble in Paradise? Selene Riego Walks Carpet Solo While Husband Arrives with Co-Producer
Who Is the Mystery Woman on Dylan Riego’s Arm?
Mystery woman. As if Claudette is some glamorous stranger he met at a party, not my stepsister, not the woman who’s been slowly replacing me in my husband’s life for months.
“Baby.”
Dylan’s voice comes from behind me, and then he’s sliding into the seat beside me, pressing a quick kiss to my cheek like nothing is wrong.
“Sorry I’m late.” He adjusts his cuffs, checks his phone, barely looks at me. “We had to fix something at the studio first. You know how it is.”
We. Not I. We.
“I saw.” My voice comes out flat. Controlled. The voice of a woman who has stopped feeling anything at all. “You walked the carpet with Claudette.”
“The photographers wanted shots of the production team.” He waves a dismissive hand. “It wasn’t a big deal. Just industry stuff.”
Just industry stuff. My husband walking another woman down the red carpet of the biggest night in Hollywood while his wife stood alone is just industry stuff.
“You promised you’d be by my side tonight.”
“I am by your side.” He finally looks at me, frowning slightly like I’m being unreasonable. “I’m here, aren’t I? We’re sitting together. Everything’s fine.”
Everything is not fine. Nothing has been fine for a very long time. But I don’t have the energy to explain that to him, not here, not now, not surrounded by a thousand industry professionals who would love nothing more than to watch Selene Riego’s marriage implode in real time.
“Fine,” I say, echoing the text I sent earlier. “Everything’s fine.”
Dylan squeezes my hand briefly before turning to greet someone at a nearby table, and I’m left sitting beside him, invisible, wondering if I was ever anything more than an accessory to his success.
The ceremony begins, and I try to lose myself in the spectacle of it.
The host delivers jokes that land with varying success. Awards are given, speeches are made, montages roll across the enormous screen at the front of the auditorium. Under normal circumstances, I would be engaged, interested, caught up in the celebration of the art form I’ve dedicated my life to.
Tonight, I just feel numb.
Dylan barely speaks to me. He’s distracted, checking his phone under the table, glancing toward the door like he’s waiting for someone. When Claudette appears at our table between awards, sliding into the empty chair on his other side, he lights up in a way he hasn’t lit up for me in months.
“Did you see the early numbers from the pre-show coverage?” Claudette leans in close, her voice carrying just enough for me to hear. “The industry buzz is incredible. Everyone’s talking about us.”
“Us” meaning her and Dylan. Not “us” meaning my husband and me.
Dylan laughs at something she says, and it sounds warm, the laugh of a man who’s genuinely enjoying himself. It’s been so long since I heard him laugh like that around me that I almost don’t recognize it.