8. Selene #2
Dylan didn’t value my sacrifice. He barely noticed it. The moment someone else stepped into the creative space I’d vacated, he welcomed her without a second thought. He didn’t miss my input because he’d never really needed it, he’d just been tolerating it until someone better came along.
I wasn’t his partner. I was his placeholder.
And now that he has Claudette to fill the role I used to play, I’m not even that anymore.
The engine turns over with a smooth purr, and I back out of the garage slowly, carefully, as if afraid of waking someone who isn’t here.
The driveway stretches before me, lined with the same expensive landscaping that Dylan’s decorator chose years ago. I’ve never liked it, but I never said anything. What was the point? This was his house, his vision, his life. I was just living in it.
Not anymore.
I make it to the end of the driveway before I have to stop.
My hands are shaking on the steering wheel, and my breath is coming in short, sharp gasps that I can’t seem to control. The reality of what I’m doing is finally hitting me, breaking through the numbness that’s been protecting me all night.
I’m leaving my husband.
I’m leaving the man I’ve loved for seven years, the man I built my entire life around, the man I sacrificed everything for.
I’m leaving, and I’m not planning to reach out. Not to explain, not to give him another chance, not to do any of the things that a good wife would do.
For five years, I was a good wife. I was patient and understanding and endlessly accommodating. I swallowed my disappointment and my loneliness and my slowly dying dreams, and I told myself it was worth it because I loved him.
But love isn’t supposed to feel like this.
Love isn’t supposed to make you invisible.
I think about the woman I was before I met Dylan. The actress who commanded screens. The producer who shaped narratives. The creative force who never would have tolerated being treated like an afterthought.
Where did she go?
I let her die, that’s where. I let her starve, bit by bit, feeding all her energy and ambition into Dylan’s dreams until there was nothing left for her own. I became so focused on being the perfect wife that I forgot how to be a person.
And tonight, watching my husband thank another woman for everything I used to give him, the depth of what I’d lost became undeniable.
Not just my marriage. Not just my creative partnership.
Myself.
I lost myself somewhere along the way, and I’m not going to find her again by staying in this house, in this life, in this marriage that stopped serving me years ago.
The tears are building behind my eyes, threatening to burst, but I refuse to. Not yet. Not here.
If I start crying now, I’ll never stop. I’ll sit in this driveway and sob until Dylan comes home and finds me, and then he’ll apologize and make promises and beg me to stay, and some weak, desperate part of me will want to believe him.
I can’t let that happen.
I’ve believed his promises for too long already.
So I take a deep breath, and then another, until my hands stop shaking and my vision clears. I wipe my eyes before any tears can escape and grip the steering wheel with renewed determination.
I can cry later. I can fall apart later. Right now, I need to get out of this city, away from this life, somewhere Dylan can’t find me and convince me to come back.
I need to become someone new.
Or maybe, finally, I need to remember who I was all along.
The gate at the end of the driveway opens automatically, and I pull through without looking back.
The Hollywood Hills stretch out before me, all those glittering mansions full of people living their complicated, beautiful, terrible lives. Somewhere out there, Dylan is probably celebrating his victory, surrounded by admirers who think he has everything.
He doesn’t know yet that he’s lost the only thing that ever really mattered.
Or maybe he does know, and he just doesn’t care.
Either way, it’s not my problem anymore.
I turn onto the main road and head toward the freeway, toward anywhere that isn’t here. I don’t have a destination in mind, just a direction. Away from the mansion. Away from the marriage. Away from the woman I became when I stopped believing I deserved more than crumbs.
The city lights blur past my windows, familiar landmarks I’ve passed a thousand times without really seeing.
Tonight, I see everything in a different lens.
The restaurants where Dylan and I used to have dinner, back when he still made time for me.
The studio lots where I used to work, before I gave it all up to support his career.
The billboards advertising films I had nothing to do with, starring actors who probably don’t remember my name.
This city made me.
And then it slowly, systematically, unmade me.
But I’m still here. Underneath all the damage, underneath all the compromise, the woman I used to be is still breathing. Faint, but present. Waiting for me to finally choose her over everyone else.
That’s what I’m doing tonight. I’m choosing myself.
For the first time in years, I’m putting my own needs first.
It feels terrifying. It feels necessary. It feels like the only option left.
The freeway entrance appears ahead, and I merge into traffic with a steadiness I don’t entirely feel.
My phone buzzes in my purse, and I already know it’s Dylan. Probably texting to tell me what time he’ll be home. Probably expecting me to be there waiting, as always, ready to listen to him celebrate his triumph while I pretend his acceptance speech didn’t shatter what was left of my heart.
I don’t check the message.
I don’t owe him anything anymore.
The divorce papers are on the table. My rings are on top of them. My explanation is there in the silence I’m leaving behind, in the messy closet and the missing journals and the wife-shaped hole where I used to be.
If Dylan wants to understand what happened, he can look at those papers and find all the answers he needs.
I’m done doing this. Done waiting. Done shrinking. Just done.
The city lights recede in my rearview mirror as I press harder on the gas. The freeway endlessly stretches out before me, leading toward a future I can’t see but am finally ready to face.
My eyes are burning. My throat is tight. The tears are right there, pressing against my lashes, desperate to fall.
But I won’t let them.
Not yet.
I made myself a promise when I walked out that door. I would not cry until I was out of the city. Until I was free of Dylan’s orbit. Until I was far enough away that going back felt impossible.
So I drive.
I drive past the exit for the studio where my husband is probably still celebrating.
I drive past the neighborhood where we had our first apartment, before the success and the distance and the slow erosion of everything we used to be.
I drive past all the landmarks of the life I’m leaving behind, watching them shrink in my mirrors until they disappear entirely.
The city limit sign appears in my headlights.
Now Leaving Los Angeles
Come Back Soon!
I won’t be coming back soon.
I might not be coming back at all.
The sign fades behind me, and I’m finally, officially, out.
The tears come then, sudden and overwhelming, tracking down my cheeks in silent streams. I let them fall without trying to stop them. I’ve earned these tears. I’ve earned this grief. I’ve earned the right to mourn the life I’m leaving behind, even if it was slowly killing me.
I cry for the woman I used to be, the one who had dreams and ambition and fire.
For the marriage I thought I had, the partnership that turned out to be an illusion.
All the years I wasted, all the chances I missed, all the versions of myself I sacrificed on the altar of someone else’s success.
And then, slowly, the tears begin to stop.
Because underneath the grief, a new feeling is emerging. Thousands of possibilities. Freedom. The first full breath I’ve taken in years.
I don’t know where I’m going.
I don’t know who I’m going to become.
But for the first time in years, the future feels like a decision I get to make.
And that’s enough.
For now, that’s enough.