8. Cassandra
— ? —
Cassandra
The next evening, the text comes while I’m pouring my third glass of sparkling apple juice - the fancy kind Odette brought, because she knows I’ve been cutting back on alcohol lately.
Running late again. Reshoots. Don’t wait up.
I stare at the message for a long moment, then set my phone face-down on the kitchen counter and reach for the bottle.
“That bad?” Odette asks from her perch on the barstool across from me, swirling her own juice.
“That predictable.” I top off her glass before refilling my own. The bubbles catch the light like champagne, even if it’s just fruit juice. “He was supposed to be home for dinner. Third time in the past week.”
“Third time in the past week, or third time you’ve told me about?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.” She takes a sip of her juice, watching me over the rim with those sharp eyes that never miss anything. “You look like hell, Cass. When’s the last time you slept properly?”
“Define properly.”
“More than four hours. Without crying.”
I don’t answer, which is answer enough.
Odette arrived from Milan this afternoon, unannounced and unapologetic, showing up at my door with several bottles of sparkling apple juice and a declaration that she was staging an intervention.
I tried to tell her I was fine - that word again, the lie I’ve been telling everyone including myself - but she just pushed past me into the villa and started opening cabinets until she found glasses.
“You’re not fine,” she’d said. “And I’m not leaving until you admit it.”
That was three hours ago. We’ve made significant progress on the juice - three bottles down, because apparently my feelings require industrial quantities of sparkling apple - and I’ve made significantly less progress on the admitting.
“Talk to me,” Odette says now, reaching across the counter to squeeze my hand. “Really talk to me. Not the surface stuff. The real stuff.”
“I don’t know what the real stuff is anymore.
” I pull my hand back, wrap it around my wine glass instead.
“I know I’m unhappy. I know this isn’t what I thought marriage would be.
I know I’ve been waiting for him to show up for a year and he keeps not showing up, and every time I think we’re turning a corner, he cancels dinner or leaves before dawn or proves that I’m still not the priority. ”
“Have you told him that?”
“In a hundred different ways.”
“And?”
“And he apologizes. He promises to do better. Sometimes he even means it.” I take a long sip of juice. “But the promises don’t stick. The apologies don’t change anything. I’m starting to think this is just… who he is now. Who we are.”
Odette is quiet for a moment, processing. She’s always been good at that - listening without rushing to judgment, letting silence do the work that words can’t.
“Do you remember,” she says finally, “when we used to talk about what we wanted? Back in LA, before everything got complicated?”
“We talked about a lot of things.”
“We talked about your atelier.” She gestures at the villa around us, the designer kitchen and the expensive fixtures and the hollow emptiness of a house that’s never felt like home.
“You had notebooks full of designs. You used to sketch on napkins at every brunch we ever had. What happened to all that?”
“I got married.”
“And marriage means giving up your dreams?”
“Marriage means compromise.”
“Compromise is you giving up something and him giving up something. This looks more like you giving up everything and him giving up nothing.”
The words land harder than they should, maybe because they’re true.
I did give up everything - my career, my city, my sense of self.
I traded the runways of LA for a villa in Rome and a husband who was supposed to be worth it.
And maybe he was, once. Maybe there was a version of this life that made sense.
But that version feels very far away right now.
“The notebooks are still in my studio,” I say quietly. “The one upstairs. I haven’t opened them in years.”
“Why not?”
“Because looking at them hurts. Because they remind me of the person I used to be, the things I used to want before I started wanting something else.” I think about the two years of trying, the hope that crumbled month after month, the way my body became a betrayal instead of a vessel.
“I wanted a baby. A family. I thought if I could give him that, maybe everything else would fall into place.”
“And when it didn’t happen?”
“When it didn’t happen, I just… stopped. Stopped trying for the baby. Stopped trying for the atelier. Stopped trying for anything except getting through each day without falling apart.”
Odette reaches across the counter again, and this time I let her take my hand.
“That’s not living, Cass. That’s surviving. And you deserve more than survival.”
I know she’s right. I’ve known it for months, probably longer. But knowing something and doing something about it are different skills, and I seem to have lost the ability to do anything except wait.
“What would you do?” I ask. “If you were me?”
“I’d remember that I’m a person with my own wants and needs and dreams. I’d stop waiting for him to show up and start building something that’s mine.” She squeezes my hand. “The atelier idea, Cass. It wasn’t just a fantasy. You had real plans. Real talent. You could still make it happen.”
“With what money? What time? What energy?”
“You have money - his money, sure, but it’s yours too. You’re his wife.” She says the word like it tastes bitter. “And time and energy have a way of appearing when you stop spending them on someone who doesn’t deserve them.”
My phone buzzes on the counter.
I ignore it. It’s probably another text from Antonio, another excuse, another promise that won’t mean anything tomorrow.
“At least look at the notebooks,” Odette says. “Tonight, after I leave. Pull them out and remember who you used to be before you became someone’s invisible wife.”
“I’m not invisible.”
“No? When’s the last time you walked into a room and had someone look at you - really look at you - instead of looking through you to get to him?”
I don’t have an answer for that.
My phone buzzes again.
“That might be important,” Odette says.
“It’s not.”
“Cass.”
“Fine.” I pick up the phone, expecting another cancelation, another apology, another text in the long string of disappointments that has become my marriage.
The message is from Antonio’s number, but it doesn’t sound like him.
Feeling unwell. On set. Can you come?
I read it twice.
“What is it?” Odette asks, reading my expression.
“Antonio. He says he’s sick. He wants me to come to set.”
“Since when does he want you at set?”
“Since never.” I stare at the message, trying to parse it.
Antonio has been protective of his work space since the beginning - not secretive exactly, but careful about keeping that world separate from our life together.
I’ve been to set maybe a dozen times in six years, always for specific events, never just because.
And he’s never asked me to come because he’s unwell. He’s the type to suffer in silence, to push through, to pretend everything is fine until it isn’t.
“Something’s wrong,” I say.
“Or he’s finally reaching out when he needs you.”
“That would be a first.”
But even as I say it, something in my chest loosens. He’s asking for me. After weeks of distance and canceled dinners and promises that didn’t stick, he’s asking for me to come.
Maybe this is the turning point. Maybe he’s finally ready to let me in.
“Go,” Odette says. “I’ll let myself out.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go take care of your husband.” She’s already standing, gathering her things. “And Cass? The notebooks. Promise me you’ll at least look at them.”
“I promise.”
I grab my keys and head for the door.