9. Shawn
— ? —
Shawn
I go to my mother’s house with a speech prepared.
Boundaries. Respect. The word “apologize” appears three times. I’ve practiced in the car, rehearsed every sentence until the words feel worn smooth in my mouth. Everything I should have said years ago. Everything I was too much of a coward to say while it still mattered.
I should have fought. I should have walked out.
I should have grabbed my mother by the shoulders and told her that Brittney was the best thing that ever happened to me, that she was wrong about everything, that I’d rather lose the company and the name and every dollar I’d ever earn than spend another second pretending my wife was anything less than extraordinary.
Instead, I sighed. I rubbed my eyes. I said “maybe that’s what has to happen” like letting Brittney go was a reasonable option. Like she was a line item that wasn’t performing and could be cut from the budget.
I will never forgive myself for that.
She meets me in the foyer with her phone already in hand, a press statement glowing on the screen.
“Darling, perfect timing.” She doesn’t look up. “The quarterly dinner is tomorrow and I need you to confirm your attendance. The Hendersons are coming - important for the Milan transition.”
“That’s not why I’m here.” My voice is steady. I practiced this part too. “I need to talk to you about how you’ve treated Brittney.”
She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t even pause.
“Of course. Let me just send this.”
She pours herself a drink with one hand, thumb still hovering over the screen with the other. Her movements are precise, unhurried. She’s not dismissing me - she’s establishing the order of operations. Her business first. My feelings somewhere further down the list.
This is how it’s always been. This is how I was trained to be.
And I did the same thing to Brittney, didn’t I? “Not now.” “We’ll talk later.” “Can’t this wait?” I learned from the best. I learned from the woman standing in front of me, and I turned around and used every lesson on the woman I was supposed to protect.
I give my speech anyway. Boundaries. Respect. An apology for the pearls, for the corridor conversation, for every moment I let her make my wife feel small.
The words feel hollow as they leave my mouth. Because I’m not apologizing for what my mother did. I’m apologizing for what I didn’t do. For every time I should have stopped her and didn’t. For every time I chose peace with my mother over loyalty to my wife.
She listens. Nods in all the right places. Her expression is attentive, concerned, maternal. Then she holds up her phone.
“The statement goes out in an hour. ‘The Ross family wishes Brittney well in her future endeavors.’ I need you to approve it before the afternoon cycle.”
Approve it. Like erasing my wife from our public narrative is a line item that needs my signature. Like her entire existence in my life can be reduced to nineteen words and a press release.
I should walk out. Should grab the phone and throw it. Should be the man Brittney needed me to be.
My father’s watch feels heavy on my wrist. I touch it without thinking - the way I always do when I’m under pressure, when I’m looking for guidance, when I need to be reminded of what’s expected of me.
But what’s expected isn’t what’s right. It never was.
“I need time to think about it,” I say.
It’s not a refusal. It’s not the blazing defiance I should be capable of. It’s just… a delay. A coward’s compromise.
My mother smiles. She knows she’s won this round.
“Take the night, darling. But the statement goes out by noon tomorrow, with or without your approval.”
I leave.
In the car, I sit in the driveway for twenty minutes. Hands shaking on the steering wheel. Hating myself with a clarity I’ve spent my whole life avoiding.
This is who I am. A man who prepares speeches and folds anyway. A man who knows the right thing and chooses the easy thing. A man whose wife had to leave him to make him see what he’d become.
I drive to Mom’s neighborhood and park at the end of the block. One step at a time. That’s all I have.
***
Brittney
The Ross family wishes Brittney well in her future endeavors.
Fern reads it off his phone at four in the afternoon, and then looks up at me like he’s not sure whether to keep going.
Nineteen words. That’s what years of my life is worth in a press release - nineteen words and a verb tense that puts me in the past.
I don’t cry about it. I go back to my drawings and I finish the elevation I’ve been fighting all week, and when I look up again the office is empty and the light through the windows has gone amber.
Good exhaustion tonight - the kind that comes from solving problems, from seeing something take shape on paper.
Ink on my fingers. A solution in my head. For a few hours, I forgot to be sad.
Then I see him.
Shawn. Across the street. Hands in his pockets. Looking like he’s been waiting for hours, like waiting is all he knows how to do anymore.
He steps forward when he sees me. Hands visible now, palms up, the universal gesture of I’m not a threat.
“Britt.” My name cracks in his mouth. “I saw the article. You were incredible. Can we talk? Please.”
I keep walking. “Your mother sent out a statement this afternoon. Did you know that?”
He falls into step beside me. Not touching. Not pushing. Just present.
“Then let me say something.”
He looks terrible. Three days of stubble at least. Eyes red, shadowed underneath. Suit wrinkled in a way that says he slept in it, or didn’t sleep at all. The man who used to spend twenty minutes selecting a tie can’t even button his shirt straight.
Good, I think. Let him fall apart.
But there’s another voice, softer: He came. He’s here. He’s trying.
“I’m sorry.” His voice breaks on the second word. “God, I’m so-” He presses his hands against his face, and his shoulders shake, and I realize he’s crying. Actually crying. In public. Where anyone could see.
“Every speech I prepared sounds like bullshit because it is bullshit. I keep trying to find the right words and there aren’t any.”
I don’t help him. Don’t move. Let him flounder.
“You deserved someone who showed up. Every day. Without being asked.” He wipes his face with his sleeve, doesn’t even pretend to be dignified about it.
“And I just kept thinking there would be time. That you’d still be there when I figured my shit out.
” His voice cracks again. He lets it. “You weren’t supposed to leave.
And I know - I know - that’s the most selfish thing I could say.
But I don’t know how to be a person who isn’t selfish yet.
I’m trying to learn. I don’t know how, but I’m trying. ”
He looks up at me. His eyes are red and wet and desperate.
“I was too blind to see what I had. I’m so sorry. That’s all I have. I’m sorry.”
I watch him fall apart on a public sidewalk. The man who never showed weakness. The man whose mother trained him to smile through earthquakes. The man who could sit through a board meeting about hostile takeovers and not break a sweat. He’s crying in front of strangers. For me.
Something cracks in my chest. Not forgiveness - not yet. But something.
“I believe that you’re sorry.” My voice comes out quieter than I intended. “I don’t believe you’ve changed. Those are different things.”
His head comes up. Hope and fear in equal measure.
“What do I do? Tell me what to do.”
“I can’t.” I shake my head. “That’s the whole point. If I tell you, it doesn’t count. You have to figure it out yourself.”
He reaches for my hand.
I should pull away. That’s the smart thing, the safe thing, the thing my brain is screaming at me to do. I let him hold it.
His palm is warm. Familiar in a way that aches. Callused now in places it wasn’t before - he’s been working with his hands, doing something physical. That’s new.
My whole body remembers what it felt like to be touched by him. Every nerve ending wakes up at once, and I hate it. Hate how much I want more.
His thumb traces a small circle on my palm. Unconscious. The way he used to when we were first dating, sitting in coffee shops, pretending we weren’t desperate to be alone together.
“Britt.” His voice is rough. “I miss you so much I can’t breathe.”
I pull away. My hand feels cold without his. I curl my fingers into my palm, trying to hold onto the warmth.
“Goodbye, Shawn.”
“Can I see you again?”
“I don’t know.”
I walk away. Don’t look back. But I can still feel the ghost of his hand in mine. Can still feel the echo of his thumb tracing circles. Can still feel the way my whole body leaned toward him without permission.
Stop it, I tell myself. He doesn’t get to touch you and make everything okay.
But my body isn’t listening. My body wants to turn around. My body wants to close the distance and let him hold me until the ache goes away.
I keep walking.
The ache doesn’t go away. It’s still there when I get home. Still there when I climb into bed. Still there when I wake up reaching for the wrong side of the mattress.
Damn him, I think. Damn him for finally showing up now. When I was almost okay.
Fern finds me at my desk the next morning, staring at my phone.
“You okay?”
I flip the phone over. “Fine. Why?”
He raises an eyebrow and turns his screen toward me.
The video is already everywhere. Someone filmed the whole thing - Shawn falling apart on the sidewalk, me standing there with my arms crossed, the tears, the desperate words, the moment I let him hold my hand.
Billionaire Husband Breaks Down Outside Architecture Firm.
The comments are brutal. The headlines are worse. But it’s Elise’s statement that makes my stomach turn:
My son is under immense stress. We ask for privacy during this difficult time.
She’s spinning it. Making him the victim. Making me the cold wife who walked away from a broken man.
I watch the video three times. He looks destroyed. Wrecked. Like someone carved out everything inside him and left just the shell.
Good, I tell myself. Let him feel it.
But something aches anyway.