1. Hannah
— ? —
Hannah
Today is our fifth wedding anniversary.
Last night, I mentioned it again while he was half-asleep with his laptop still open on his chest. I’d crawled into bed beside him, careful not to jostle the computer, and pressed a kiss to his shoulder because it was the only part of him not buried in spreadsheets.
“Tomorrow’s the anniversary dinner,” I said, keeping my voice light and casual, not at all like a woman who’d been planning this for weeks. “Seven o’clock. You’ll be there, right?”
“Of course, babe.” He didn’t look up, didn’t turn his head, his fingers still moving across the keyboard. “Don’t worry.”
Don’t worry. Famous last words from a man who hasn’t made me feel secure in years.
It’s 9:15 p.m. now. The reservation died forty-five minutes ago. I’ve been sitting in our living room in the red dress he bought me in Paris, back when he still noticed what I wore, watching the candles I lit burn down to puddles of wax.
I’ve called him four times and each call went straight to voicemail. His phone is probably dead because Cameron is careless about charging it and always has been, but knowing the reason doesn’t make the silence any easier to bear.
The humiliating part is that I’m not even surprised. This is the third dinner he’s missed this month, the fourth if you count my charity gala, which he swore he’d attend and then didn’t because something came up at the office. Something always comes up at the office.
I try the office line too, the main number, but it’s after hours and the call rings through to a recording about business hours. Wherever he is in that building, nobody is picking up a phone for me tonight.
I set my phone down and sit there, staring at the candles, trying to decide if I want to cry or scream or throw my wine glass at the wall. One of them gutters and dies while I watch. In the end I don’t do any of those things. I just pour myself another glass and wait, because that’s what I do now.
At 11:40 p.m., I hear his car in the driveway.
My heart does a stupid little jump, some Pavlovian response I can’t train out of myself no matter how many times I get disappointed. I hear the garage door open, the car pulling in, the engine cutting off. Then footsteps in the hallway, that familiar heavy tread I used to love hearing.
Cameron appears in the living room doorway.
I let myself look at him, really look, the way I haven’t in months because it hurts too much to see what he’s become. He’s still beautiful, and that’s the cruel thing about all of this. The same sharp jaw shadowed with stubble, the same broad shoulders that used to make me feel safe.
But his tie is loosened and his hair is wrecked from running his fingers through it during stressful calls. He looks exhausted, like a man who’s been running on fumes for months.
He doesn’t look like a man who remembers what today is.
“Hey.” He crosses to where I’m sitting and drops a kiss on my forehead, already moving past me toward the stairs. “Long day. The Meridian deal is killing me. I’m gonna shower and crash, okay?”
“Cameron.”
The way I say his name makes him stop. He turns, and I watch his gaze travel over me: the dress, the melted candles, the wine glass clutched in my white-knuckled grip. I watch him take in the scene and do the math in his head.
I watch him realize he forgot.
“Shit.” He rubs his face with both hands. “The anniversary. Hannah, I’m so sorry, I completely lost track of time. My phone died around six and I asked Violet to send you a message letting you know I’d be late, I don’t know why she didn’t-”
“Yeah, right. Are you saying she simply forgot?”
The words come out sharper than I intended. He flinches slightly, which gives me a grim satisfaction I’m not proud of.
“I guess she must have. Look, I know this is bad, I know I should have found another way to reach you, but we were in the middle of this thing with the overseas team and I couldn’t just-”
“Cam, this is the third dinner you’ve missed this month.
” I set down my wine glass because I am itching to just throw it.
“You’ve been coming home past midnight every single night.
You missed my charity gala. You missed your godson’s birthday party.
And now you’ve missed our anniversary because your phone died and your assistant forgot to call me. ”
“I’m building something, Hannah.” His voice sharpens, goes defensive. “The company needs me right now, we’re on the verge of something that could change everything. Do you have any idea how much pressure I’m under?”
“And I’m building something too. You’re not the only one who’s busy, Cam. I have my foundation work, my teaching, the software I’ve been coding at night for years-”
“That’s different. I’m doing something important.”
His words land on me like a punch to the gut.
For a moment I can’t breathe. I just stare at him, at this man I married, this man who used to leave board dinners mid-sentence because I sent him a sad emoji. This man who sat on our kitchen floor on our first anniversary and told me I would always come first.
“Different how?” My voice comes out quiet and dangerous.
“I didn’t-” He stops, rubs his eyes, and when he speaks again his voice is softer, more careful.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that my work affects thousands of employees, the economy, there are so many people depending on me to get this right.
I’m not saying what you do isn’t important, I’m just saying the scale is different. ”
“So what I do doesn’t matter because it doesn’t make as much money?
Because I’m not negotiating billion-dollar deals?
I’m teaching people who never got a fair shot at education how to read, Cameron.
I’m helping disabled kids get access to resources they need.
That matters. That matters just as much as your deals. ”
“I know it matters, I know, I’m sorry.” He moves toward me, tries to take my hands. “I shouldn’t have said it like that. I’m exhausted and I’m not thinking straight and I know that’s not an excuse but I swear I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”
“You always have an excuse.” I pull my hands back before he can touch them.
“You always want to talk about it tomorrow. You always want to make it up to me later. And then later never comes, Cameron, because there’s always another deal and always another deadline and always something more important than me. ”
“That’s not fair.”
“Do you know what’s not fair? Sitting here in a dress I put on because I thought you’d notice, watching candles burn down for four hours, calling your cell and your office and getting nothing but voicemail and a recording. That’s what’s not fair.”
“I didn’t forget about you, Hannah. I forgot about the dinner. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” I stand up, and the movement feels shaky and unsteady.
“Because from where I’m standing, it feels exactly the same.
I feel like a roommate, Cameron. I feel like I exist in the spaces between your real life, and your real life is the office and the deals and Violet keeping your calendar straight.
I don’t feel like your wife anymore. I feel like I’m optional in my own marriage. ”
He flinches at that. Good. I wanted him to flinch.
“You’re not optional. Hannah, you’re not - I love you. You know I love you.”
“I know you say you love me. I know you think you mean it when you say it. But love isn’t just words, Cam.
Love is showing up. Love is choosing me over the meeting sometimes, the way you used to.
” I take a breath that shakes more than I want it to.
“Do you remember that? Do you remember walking out of your father’s investor dinner because I sent you a sad emoji? ”
“Of course I remember.”
“When was the last time you chose me over work? When was the last time you came home early just because you wanted to see me?”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Can’t answer.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Hannah, please.” He sounds desperate now, and part of me is glad this is finally landing on him.
“I know I’ve been absent. I know I’ve been fucking this up.
But the Meridian deal closes next month, and after that things will calm down, I promise.
We can take a trip somewhere, just the two of us.
I just need you to hang on a little longer. ”
“You said that about the last deal and the deal before that. There’s always another deal. There’s always another reason why I have to wait.”
“This one is different.”
“They’re all different and they’re all exactly the same.
” I pick up my wine glass, drain what’s left, set it down harder than necessary.
“I’m going to bed. You can shower and crash like you wanted.
We can talk about it tomorrow, or we can not talk about it at all and you can go back to pretending everything’s fine, which seems to be what you prefer. ”
“Hannah-”
“Goodnight, Cameron.”
I walk past him toward the stairs. He doesn’t try to stop me.
Upstairs, I take off the red dress and hang it in the back of the closet where I won’t have to look at it. I wash my face, brush my teeth, go through all the motions of a normal night even though nothing about this night is normal.
By the time Cameron comes upstairs, showered and subdued, I’m already in bed with my back to his side. He slides in beside me and lies there for a moment, and I can feel him searching for words, wanting to reach for me.
“I’m sorry about tonight,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry about the dinner and what I said about your work. I didn’t mean it. I know what you do matters. You matter.”
I don’t answer. I keep my breathing slow and even, pretending to be asleep, and after a while he sighs and rolls over and the room goes quiet.
But I don’t sleep. I lie there in the dark, staring at the wall, listening to his breathing even out as he drifts off without me.
Around one in the morning, his phone lights up on the nightstand. VIOLET - URGENT.
I stare at the screen until it fades to black.
She texts him in the middle of the night. She remembers his moods, his schedule, his preferences. She probably remembers that today was our anniversary, too, even if she conveniently forgot to tell me he’d be late.
He says I’m imagining things whenever I bring her up: that she’s just dedicated, just professional, that I only think she stands too close, that her hand doesn’t linger on his arm when she talks to him.
But I’m not imagining things.
A woman knows when another woman is circling her husband. A woman always fucking knows.