9. Dylan #2
But that’s just it. I never knew I was choosing.
I never realized that every late night at the studio was a choice.
Every missed dinner was a choice. Every time I put the production ahead of Selene, every time I let Claudette occupy spaces that used to belong to my wife, every time I took her presence for granted because I assumed she would always be there…
Choice after choice after choice, adding up to this moment. This empty bedroom. These cold rings in my palm.
I uncurl my fingers and stare at them, the engagement ring I designed, the wedding band that matches mine. They look so small. So insignificant. Just metal and stone, worth a fortune but meaning nothing without the woman who was supposed to wear them.
I think about the day I proposed.
We were at Sunset’s Soiree, on that candlelit terrace with the city spread out below us.
I was so nervous I could barely speak, fumbling through a speech I’d practiced a hundred times.
And Selene… God, the way she looked at me when I pulled out the ring.
As if I was offering her the entire world, and she was thrilled to accept it.
She said yes before I even finished asking.
I promised to love her forever, and she believed me.
And somewhere along the way, I stopped keeping that promise without even noticing I was breaking it.
The closet draws me back.
I stand in the doorway of Selene’s side, surveying the damage. She didn’t take much, most of the expensive pieces are still here, the designer gowns and couture dresses that cost more than some cars. The jewelry case is full. The shoes are mostly present.
What’s missing is harder to identify at first. The comfortable clothes she actually liked wearing. The old t-shirts she stole from me years ago. The few personal items that weren’t purchased with my money or selected by some stylist trying to mold her into a certain image.
She took herself and left everything else behind.
I reach for one of the dresses, some designer piece I bought her for a premiere last year.
The fabric is slippery under my fingers, completely impersonal.
She never wore this. Or if she did, I wasn’t paying attention.
I don’t remember if she liked it or just accepted it because that’s what she did back then, accepted whatever I gave her, grateful and slowly disappearing.
My hand moves to the next hanger, and the next, searching for anything that still holds a trace of her.
At the back of the closet, shoved behind boxes I don’t recognize, I find a scarf.
It’s nothing special, just a simple cashmere wrap in a deep blue that always made her eyes look even more striking. She used to wear it all the time when we first started dating, wrapping it around her shoulders when we took late-night walks, letting me borrow it when I forgot a jacket.
I haven’t seen her wear it in years.
I press it to my face, and her scent engulfs me immediately. Warm jasmine and amber, the fragrance she’s worn since before I met her, the smell I’ve fallen asleep to for seven years.
The smell I might never breathe in again.
The tears come suddenly, forcing their way past every defense I thought I had. I sink back down to the floor, clutching that scarf as if it’s my lifeline, and I let myself fall apart.
I cry for Selene. For the woman I married, the woman I drove away, and the woman I took for granted until she had no choice but to leave.
For the partnership we used to have, the dreams we used to share, the future we mapped out together that I systematically dismantled without even realizing it.
For myself, the man I became somewhere along the way, so consumed by his own ambition that he forgot what actually mattered.
And I cry for the award sitting downstairs, the trophy I traded my marriage for, the validation that tastes stale in my mouth now that I understand what it cost.
Eventually, the tears run dry.
I’m left sitting on the floor of my wife’s empty closet, surrounded by expensive clothes she didn’t want and memories I can’t escape. The scarf is damp from my tears, but I can’t make myself let go of it.
It’s all I have left of her.
This scarf, and those rings, and the divorce papers waiting on the table, ready to sever everything.
I should sign them. That’s what she wants, to be free of me, to escape the cage we keep binding ourselves into. I read her words over and over, trying to find hope between the lines, some indication that this isn’t final, that there’s still a chance.
But the note is careful. Measured. Written by someone who made peace with this decision before she put pen to paper.
She’s not coming back.
And I have no one to blame but myself.
Dawn breaks fully, filling the bedroom with pale golden light that feels obscene given the circumstances.
I force myself to stand, my body aching from hours on the hard floor. The scarf is still clutched in my hands, and I can’t bring myself to put it down. I carry it with me as I move through the house, checking each room again like Selene might have materialized while I wasn’t looking.
She hasn’t.
The mansion is still empty. Still silent. Still full of expensive furniture and carefully curated artwork and absolutely nothing that matters.
In the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of water I don’t drink.
In the living room, I sit on the couch where we used to watch movies together, back when I still made time for things like that.
In my office, I stare at the awards on my shelves and wonder when I started valuing recognition from strangers more than love from my wife.
The new award is still on the entry table.
I pick it up, feeling its weight, and for a moment I consider throwing it. Watching it shatter against the marble floor, destroying the symbol of everything I sacrificed my marriage for.
But that won’t bring Selene back.
Nothing will bring my Selene back.
I set the award down carefully and return to the bedroom.
The divorce papers are still spread across the table, my wife’s note sitting among them like an accusation. I gather everything into a stack and carry it to the bed, where I sit with the documents in my lap and Selene’s scarf pressed against my chest.
Let us free ourselves from the cage we keep binding ourselves into.
A cage. She called our marriage a cage.
And the worst part is, I can’t even argue with her. I built that cage, bar by bar, with every choice I made that put my career ahead of her. I locked her inside with my neglect and my assumptions and my complete failure to see what was happening right in front of me.
I was so busy building my empire that I didn’t notice my wife was suffocating.
And now she’s gone, and I’m left alone in this beautiful house that never felt like home, with an award that means nothing and a scarf that smells like everything I’ve lost.
I don’t remember falling asleep.
One moment I’m sitting on the bed, staring at divorce papers that blur through fresh tears. The next, I’m opening my eyes to harsh afternoon sunlight, still clutching the scarf, still alone.
The papers have scattered across the mattress while I slept. Selene’s note has fallen to the floor. My phone is somewhere in the room, probably dead, certainly still full of unanswered calls and undelivered messages.
I lie there for a long time, watching dust motes drift through the sunlight, feeling the weight of my new reality pressing down on my chest.
I won an Academy Award last night.
And I lost my wife.
The award will go on a shelf with all the others, another piece of evidence that Dylan Riego is a success, a visionary, a man who achieved everything he set out to achieve.
But Selene won’t be here to see it.
She won’t be here when I come home late, won’t be waiting to ask about my day, won’t be the quiet constant presence I took for granted for so long.
I traded her for applause.
I traded the most important person in my life for a standing ovation from strangers who don’t know me, will never know me, who will forget I exist the moment someone shinier comes along.
The scarf still carries her scent, but already it seems fainter than before. Already she’s slipping away, becoming a memory instead of a presence, leaving me with nothing but regret and these cold, empty rooms.
I press the fabric to my face and breathe in what remains of her, and I make a promise to the silence.
I will find her.
I don’t know how. I don’t know if she’ll let me. But I will find her, and I will apologize, and I will spend the rest of my life earning her forgiveness if she’ll let me.
Because a life without Selene isn’t a life I want to live.
The award downstairs can gather dust. The career can crumble. None of it matters without her.
I just pray it’s not too late to make her believe that.