3. Andy #2
Eight o'clock. I'm alone in a dark house, wearing a black dress and wine-red nails and three-inch heels for no one.
My husband's phone has been off for two hours, and somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice that sounds like my mother is telling me that men don't just disappear on their wedding anniversaries unless something is very, very wrong.
When my phone finally buzzes at eight-oh-five, I grab it so fast I nearly drop it, expecting to see Jameson's name and some explanation that will make this all make sense.
Instead, Ellie's contact photo fills the screen — a silly selfie we took last time she visited, both of us making faces at the camera.
Her text loads slowly, each word appearing like a small knife:
"Girl, how are you holding up? Say the word and I'll drive out to you."
I read it twice, then three times, my brain struggling to process what it means.
Holding up from what? This isn't a text about a missed dinner or a husband running late.
This is the kind of message Ellie sends during emergencies, during breakups, during the kind of crisis that requires a four-hour drive and a friend who will sit with you while everything falls apart.
Before I can type a response, my phone rings.
My mom's number flashes on the screen, and something cold settles in my stomach.
They don't call at eight o'clock unless something is wrong.
I stare at their names until the call goes to voicemail, afraid to hear whatever they think they need to tell me.
The voicemail notification appears, followed immediately by a text from my mom:
"Baby, do you need us there? Or do you want to come home?"
My hands start shaking — not a tremor, but full shaking, like my body knows something my brain hasn't caught up to yet. Everyone I love is reaching out at the same time, and they all know something I don't.
Whatever it is, it's bad enough for my best friend and my parents to coordinate their concern, bad enough to interrupt my anniversary dinner that isn't happening.
With fingers that won't cooperate, I open Instagram.
The app loads slowly, and for a moment I think maybe my internet is down, maybe there's some innocent explanation for why everyone is treating me like I'm in crisis.
But then the feed refreshes, and the first post makes my thumb freeze mid-scroll.
It's from one of those gossip accounts with millions of followers, the kind that posts paparazzi photos with captions designed to start conversations and drive engagement.
The photo loads in pieces — first the background, a parking lot at night, then two figures pressed close together, and finally the faces that make my stomach drop through the floor.
Jameson and Selena. Her arms around him, face buried in his neck, their bodies pressed together with no space between them.
The caption reads something about an "intimate moment" and "trouble in paradise," but I can't focus on the words because I recognize his shirt.
The gray button-down with the sleeves rolled up, the one he was wearing last night when he had dinner with the producers.
Last night, when I drove home alone and cried in my car because he couldn't walk me to the parking lot.
He was wearing that shirt while another woman clung to him like she belonged there.
I scroll down and there are more photos from different angles, all of the same moment. The comments are already multiplying — speculation about their relationship, jokes about his marriage, people taking sides in a drama they know nothing about.
But it's the video that appears next that stops my breathing completely.
It's grainy, shot from across a street or through a car window, but I know those shoulders, that walk, the angle of his jaw even when half his face is hidden by a baseball cap.
Jameson leaving a five-star hotel downtown, Selena beside him, both of them trying to be inconspicuous and failing.
He's in a different outfit now — sweatshirt, jeans, the cap pulled low — but I could pick him out of any crowd, in any disguise.
Five years of marriage teaches you to recognize someone from nothing more than the way they hold their shoulders.
The timestamp on the video places it at evening.
Seven-thirty, maybe. The exact time I was sitting in our dark bedroom, calling his voicemail and wondering why my husband had disappeared on our anniversary.
While I was wearing the dress I picked out for him and the nails I got done for our dinner, he was leaving a hotel with Selena, both of them covering their faces like people with something to hide.
I watch the video loop once, twice, three times, each viewing driving the knife deeper.
This isn't a work meeting. This isn't a coincidence. This is my husband sneaking out of a hotel with another woman on our wedding anniversary, trying not to be recognized, while I sat alone in our house waiting for him to keep a promise he never intended to keep.
The phone slips from my hands and hits the hardwood floor with a crack that might be the screen or might be something breaking inside me.
My legs stop working, and suddenly I'm on the floor too, the black dress spread around me like spilled ink, and the crying that comes is worse than anything I've ever felt.