The Anniversary He Missed (On His Knees #1)

1. Andy

Andy

Isee my husband kissing another woman, and I don't see red.

Something heavy settles in my stomach instead, thick and cold like swallowing concrete.

My limbs turn to ice water. My knees threaten to buckle right here on the soundstage floor, and it takes superhuman effort not to let the tears fall.

I wasn't supposed to be here for this. I've gotten good at avoiding set visits during his intimate scenes. This time, I miscalculated.

The trick is the teeth. I press my molars together, not hard enough to crack a filling but hard enough that the pressure gives my face something to do besides fall apart.

Then I pick a spot — not his face, God, not his face — and I stare at it until my vision softens and what's happening in front of me becomes a painting instead of my life.

I pick the boom mic. It's slightly off-center, black foam windscreen catching the studio lights. I focus on that until her hand on his jaw becomes background noise. Almost.

Cameras roll. The reality of being married to a household name hits me fresh every time — every expression I make is public property. A photo of me scowling becomes a headline. Trouble in Paradise? Jameson Rivers's Wife Looks Less Than Thrilled. God forbid a woman has facial expressions.

Over the years, I've become an expert at burying my feelings so deep they practically need archaeology equipment to find them. My face does not betray me. This is just another performance, and I've gotten scary good at it. But my gums ache from gritting my teeth.

"Cut!"

The director's voice cuts through the fog in my brain, but the cameras don't stop rolling. Behind-the-scenes "leaks" are already scheduled for the official social media accounts.

Everything is content. Everything is marketing. Even this moment where I watch my husband's mouth move against someone else's.

Jameson pulls away from Selena May, and his gaze swings to me across the set. Those gray eyes I've been looking into for years find mine, and for half a second, I see something flicker there — recognition, maybe guilt.

His black hair is mussed from the scene, and his hands — hands that used to trace my face in the dark of our old apartment — are still resting on Selena's waist.

I know the exact weight of those hands. I know how they feel when they cup my face, when they pull me close, when they used to reach for me first thing in the morning.

Now they belong to a scene with another woman.

He holds my gaze for three seconds. Then he turns back to Selena and laughs at something she says, that big, easy laugh that used to be just mine.

Two crew members stand behind me, voices pitched low but not low enough.

"God, the chemistry."

"I know, right? You'd think he wasn't married."

"His wife is one strong soldier. I'd cry if I saw my husband having a hot scene with another woman."

"Can't blame him, though. Selena is stunning. His wife is pretty enough."

Pretty enough. Not stunning, not beautiful, not even striking — pretty enough, like I'm a consolation prize standing next to the real thing.

Never mind that I was the one reheating leftover pasta at midnight because he was too wired after an audition to sleep. Never mind that I learned how to read a script so I could run lines with him in the kitchen while our landlord banged on the wall for quiet.

Never mind that I was there when we had to eat the same meal for a week because we were broke, when he got his first real paycheck, when he called me crying because he booked his breakout role.

None of that counts now. What counts is that Selena May has blue eyes and a publicist, and I have a loyalty card to a coffee shop that doesn't exist anymore.

My thumbnail finds the pad of my index finger and presses until the sting cuts through everything else. Pain I can control. Pain with a clear source and an easy solution — just lift my thumb. If only the rest of it worked that way.

Jameson starts walking toward me, and for a moment, my chest loosens. He's coming over. He remembers I exist. We have dinner plans tonight.

Before he reaches me, Selena grabs his arm.

"Hey, there's that staff dinner with the producers tonight."

Her hand rests on his bicep like it belongs there. Casual. Comfortable. Proprietary. She doesn't look at me when she says it, doesn't acknowledge that plans involving my husband might affect his wife. She speaks to him like I'm part of the furniture.

"No, I'm going with my wife."

The words hit me like oxygen after holding my breath underwater.

For half a second, my whole body relaxes.

He said it. He chose me. This is the old Jameson, the one who would have grabbed my hand and walked out without looking back.

The one who used to text me from set just to tell me he missed me.

For half a second, I remember what it feels like to come first.

"But the producers will be there."

Selena's voice carries that specific authority of someone who's used to getting what she wants. She turns to me then, blue eyes moving over my face in a quick assessment. Already decided. Already dismissed.

"You can come, but it'll be boring. It's really just the staff. No plus-ones."

She speaks directly to me now, not to Jameson. Making the call about my evening, about my marriage, about whether I'm worth including. My eyes move to my husband.

This is the hinge. All he has to do is say: no, we have plans. My wife comes with me. We're having dinner. Anything. One sentence from the man I married.

I wait. He stares at me. The boom mic catches a piece of overhead conversation about lighting adjustments. Someone laughs in the distance. The set smells like coffee and that particular staleness of recycled air and too many people in an enclosed space.

He says nothing.

The smile I paste on could teach masterclasses in performance art. Every muscle in my face pulls tight, arranging itself into something pleasant and accommodating. The kind of expression that says I'm fine and Of course and Whatever works best for everyone else.

"Sure. I'll wait at home."

The words taste like sawdust, but I deliver them with the same brightness I'd use to order coffee. I'm giving him another opening here. I'll wait at home is practically a plea for him to say: no, come with me. Don't wait. Be with me instead.

I know what I'm doing. I'm handing him a second chance to choose me, gift-wrapped and served on a silver platter.

"No, don't wait up. The dinner might run late."

Selena answers before Jameson can. She makes the decision about my evening like she's already his wife, like she's the one who gets to decide what I do with my night.

My eyes find Jameson again. My husband. The man who promised to love and cherish me, who vowed to put me first. All I need is one sentence from him. Just one word of pushback. Just one moment where he acts like my feelings matter.

He stays quiet. Again.

The silence stretches between us like a chasm, and I'm the only one who seems to notice we're all standing on the edge of it.

Jameson's jaw works like he's chewing on words he won't say.

Selena checks her phone, already moving on to the next thing, the next decision she'll make about someone else's life.

My smile stays perfectly in place while something crumbles behind my ribs.

I turn around and walk toward the exit, spine straight, steps measured.

I don't run. I don't look back. I walk like a woman who's done this before, because I have.

I've been walking away from conversations where I don't get to speak for three years now.

The parking lot air hits my face, warmer than the air-conditioned set but not warm enough to explain why my skin feels flushed.

I make it to my car, slide into the driver's seat, and pull out of the lot with my hands steady on the wheel.

Model behavior. Perfect wife performance. I even remember to check my mirrors.

I make it two blocks before my hands start shaking.

Three blocks before I have to pull over because I can't see the road through the blur of tears that have been building behind my eyes since the moment I watched my husband's mouth on someone else's.

The car is parked crooked — half on the curb, half off — and I sit there with the engine running and my forehead against the steering wheel and just let it come.

All of it. The ugly, hiccupping kind of crying that doesn't look like anything you'd see in a movie. Which is ironic, I guess, considering.

This is what it's been like for three years now. People telling me what to do, when to shut up — which is most of the time — how to react, where to stand, what to wear.

Jameson's manager, Vinny, gives me actual lists whenever I have to appear in public with my husband. Numbered points about my behavior, my clothes, my facial expressions. When to smile, when to fade into the background so I don't accidentally steal focus from the real star.

Now even his co-star gets to decide what my evening looks like. Even Selena May has more say in my marriage than I do.

The tears come harder, and I let them. My mascara is probably a disaster, and my nose is running, and I have to use my sleeves as tissues because I forgot to put any in my purse.

This is not the kind of crying they show in romantic movies — this is the messy, snotty, face-swelling kind that leaves you looking like you went three rounds with life and lost.

Gone is the guy who made me laugh until my stomach hurt.

Who laughed at my stupid jokes, even the ones that weren't funny.

Who made eating ramen on the floor of our studio apartment feel romantic because we were together and that was enough.

Gone is the guy who used to check on me throughout his day, who wanted to hear about my day, who told me about his dreams and fears and the weird things that happened during auditions.

Now I'm lucky if I can get an hour of his attention when he's not exhausted or distracted or thinking about the next role, the next meeting, the next thing that matters more than I do.

He comes home late from shoots, drops into bed like a stone, and by the time I wake up, he's already gone. I live with a ghost who looks like my husband and sounds like my husband but who forgot somewhere along the way that I'm supposed to matter.

But tomorrow. Tomorrow is our anniversary.

Five years married, and he promised me dinner at that new place downtown, the one with the impossible reservation list and the chef who used to work in Paris.

He looked at me when he said it, really looked at me, and for a moment I saw the man I fell in love with.

The one who used to fix broken sinks in community theaters and drive me home after late rehearsals and tell me I was going to be something special.

I hold onto that promise like a lifeline. Maybe tomorrow will be different. Maybe tomorrow he'll remember that I exist, that I matter, that I used to be the most important person in his world.

I wipe my face with my sleeve and check the rearview mirror.

My eyes are red and swollen, my cheeks blotchy.

I look like exactly what I am — a woman who just cried in her car because her husband couldn't be bothered to stand up for her.

I take a deep breath, put the car in drive, and pull back onto the road.

Home to wait, just like Selena told me to.

Five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a kitchen with a wine fridge I never asked for, and the only light on is the one that runs on a timer.

The neighbors are mostly film industry too, some tech money scattered in. People whose net worth has more digits than I can count on both hands.

This is my life now — I don't want for anything material. I don't have to work, don't have to worry about stretching paychecks or eating the same meal for a week. I can go where I want, when I want, and know it won't break the bank.

But none of that means anything when I'm walking through rooms that echo with emptiness.

I drop my keys on the kitchen island and the sound bounces off every surface — marble countertops, stainless steel appliances, windows that overlook a pool I never swim in.

The foyer light is on a timer. It clicks on at six and off at eleven, which means no one has to be home for the house to pretend someone lives here. The refrigerator hums in the quiet. The air conditioning cycles on with a mechanical whisper.

This house has everything. Walk-in closets full of clothes I bought alone.

A master bathroom with a soaking tub I never use.

A wine fridge still stocked with bottles from a housewarming party three years ago that I attended by myself because Jameson had a table read.

Guest bedrooms for guests who never come.

A home office for the career I don't have.

I walk through rooms that cost more than most people's houses and feel the weight of all that emptiness pressing against my chest.

This is the life I'm supposed to be grateful for. This is what I traded my small town for, my dance career for, my independence for. A beautiful, expensive, hollow shell that looks perfect from the outside and feels like nothing from the inside.

I have never felt so alone.