1. Izzy #2
I’ve called him six times tonight. The first two calls, I made excuses for him. A meeting ran over. Some emergency. The time difference. By the fourth call the excuses sounded hollow even in my own head. By the sixth I stopped making them.
The villa is obscene. That’s the only word for it. A private island in the Maldives. An overwater bungalow with glass walls and water so blue it doesn’t look real. Our seventh anniversary trip. The one he swore he’d show up for.
“I’ll be there,” he said three weeks ago, when I reminded him for the fifth time. He was signing documents at his desk without looking up. “I promise. I’ll wrap up Tokyo early.”
“You said that about Hawaii last year.” I stayed in the doorway with my arms crossed. “And Tuscany the year before.”
“This is different.” He kept signing, his pen scratching across paper after paper.
“You always say that.”
I didn’t move any closer. I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome.
He looked up then. His face went soft. He crossed the room, pulled me into his arms, and buried his face in my neck.
“I mean it this time, Izzy.” He said it against my skin. “You and me. Three days. No phones. No emergencies that only I can handle. Just us. The way we used to be.”
I wanted to believe him so badly I could taste it.
I did believe him. I always believe him. That’s my problem.
The clock on the wall reads 12:07 AM. Midnight came and went seven minutes ago while I sat here alone in my red dress with my champagne going flat.
“Happy anniversary to us.” I raise my glass to the empty chair.
Nothing answers. The ocean moves under the floor. A candle flickers.
I say it again, louder, just to fill the silence. “Happy anniversary, Wilson.”
I should call him again. Keep calling until he picks up and explains whatever crisis pulled him away this time. Until he apologizes in that voice he uses when he knows he’s wrong. Until he promises to make it up to me with some gift that’s supposed to stand in for him actually being here.
Or I should go to bed. Take off the dress nobody saw. Wash off the makeup that took two hours. Climb into a bed built for two and sleep alone, the way I sleep alone most nights now.
When did this become normal? When did I start expecting him to disappoint me?
A candle drowns in its own wax and goes out.
My phone buzzes against the tablecloth.
I grab it so fast I almost knock over my wine glass. Hope hits me first. I hate myself for it.
Please be him. Please be him saying he’s on his way. Saying he’s sorry. Saying anything.
It’s not him.
It’s a news alert. One of those notifications I set up years ago, back when Wilson first started making headlines and I wanted to know what the world said about us. I almost swipe it away. Then I see my own name in the preview.
CARTER BILLIONAIRE CAUGHT IN INTIMATE EMbrACE WITH BURNHAM HEIRESS
I tap the screen. My fingers have gone numb.
There’s a photo.
Wilson in a Tokyo penthouse, the city lit up behind him through a wall of windows. He’s wearing the charcoal suit I helped him pick out last month. The one I said brought out the gray in his eyes.
There’s a woman pressed against him.
She’s blonde. Stunning. Her dress probably cost more than a year’s rent at our first apartment.
Her body curves into his like she’s stood that close to him a hundred times before.
His hand is on her waist, planted there, fingers spread across the silk of her dress.
Nobody’s hand lands like that by accident.
Her lips are at his ear. His head is tilted toward her, listening.
There’s a video.
I don’t want to press play. I want to throw the phone into the ocean and go back to the version of tonight where my husband missed our anniversary for work. Just work.
I press play anyway.
The footage is grainy, shot through a window from far away. But I can see everything. Her hand slides up his chest, easy, familiar. He pulls her closer. His arm tightens around her waist. She laughs at whatever he says, head thrown back.
Then she kisses the corner of his mouth.
He doesn’t pull away.
If I ever make you feel like you come second to the company, leave me. Promise me, Izzy.
The video loops. I didn’t tell it to. Six seconds of my marriage ending, over and over.
I watch it three times. Four. Five.
Then I call him.
One ring, then voicemail. His recorded voice tells me he’s unavailable. I hang up and call again. This time it doesn’t ring at all. Straight to silence. Like he saw my name and decided I could wait.
I always wait. That’s the other thing I do. I believe him, and I wait.
I think about the man in our old kitchen. Twenty-six years old, hands shaking on my face, begging me to leave him if he ever became this. He knew. Even back then, he knew. He saw it coming before I did.
The coffee cans on the fire escape. The sixty-dollar mattress. The radiator he never did fix, because there was always tomorrow.
The last candle dies. The room goes dark except for my phone screen. His hand is still on her waist. Her lips are still at his ear.
I pour myself another glass of champagne. My hands are steady. I drink it alone in the dark, and I don’t cry.
Crying would mean I’m surprised.
I’m not sure I am anymore.
Tomorrow I’ll figure out what comes next. Whether seven years of marriage is worth fighting for. Whether the man I married is even still in there.
Tonight I sit in a red dress nobody saw and watch the video loop.
He made me promise to leave if he ever made me feel like I came second.
I really don’t want to keep it.
But God, Wilson. You’re making it so hard to stay.