3. Andy #3
The first sob pulls everything else loose, every grief I've been swallowing for the past three years. I cry for the ballet company that wanted me, the spot I turned down because Jameson's career was just starting and I thought that's what love meant — choosing someone else's dream over yours.
And that pulls me deeper, to the town I left behind, the streets where everyone knew my name because I'd grown up there, not because it appeared next to his on magazine covers.
And that leads me to the girl I used to be, the one with plans and opinions and a future that belonged to her, before she learned to make herself small enough to fit in someone else's spotlight.
And underneath all of it, running through everything like a crack in the foundation, I cry for my marriage — for the Jameson who used to eat with me on the floor and look at me like I was the only person in any room, who promised me dinner tonight and meant it, who would never have let another woman hang on him while his wife waited at home.
The sobs wrack through me until my chest hurts and my throat is raw and my face is a swollen mess of tears and snot. I cry until my body runs out of water, until the well is empty and all that's left is the hollow ache of everything I've lost without even realizing I was losing it.
When the tears finally stop, I lie on the floor staring at the ceiling, breathing like I've run a marathon.
The house is completely silent around me except for the sound of my own ragged breathing and the distant hum of the refrigerator downstairs.
My phone lies beside me, screen cracked but still glowing, probably full of more messages from people who know what I just found out.
I don't check them. I don't want to see the sympathy or the outrage or the I-told-you-sos.
I don't want to hear from anyone who has opinions about my marriage or advice about what I should do next.
What I should do next is so clear it doesn't require thought or planning or consultation with friends and family.
I can't stay here.
The realization doesn't come as an epiphany or a moment of strength. It's just a flat, simple truth that settles into place with the weight of something that's been inevitable for longer than I want to admit.
I cannot stay in this house, in this life, with this man who disappears on our anniversary to be with someone else. I cannot keep being the wife who waits in dark rooms for a husband who doesn't come.
Standing up takes effort. My legs shake, and I have to brace myself against the bed to get vertical.
The woman in the dresser mirror looks like she's been hit by a truck — hair disheveled, makeup smeared, the black dress wrinkled from lying on the floor.
But her eyes are clear in a way they haven't been in years. Clear and empty and decided.
The suitcase is under the bed, the small one I use for weekend trips.
I drag it out and set it on the mattress, unzipping it with movements that feel automatic, like I'm following a script I didn't know I'd memorized.
Jeans first, then T-shirts, underwear, bras.
The basics, the things that actually belong to me.
I pack like I'm catching a flight I don't care about — efficient, methodical, without sentiment.
In the bathroom, I grab my toothbrush, face wash, the moisturizer I've been using since college. I leave the expensive serums and creams, the products recommended by stylists for red carpet events. Those belong to Jameson Rivers's wife, and I'm done being her.
Back in the bedroom, I zip the suitcase closed and set it by the door.
The cocktail dresses still hang in their garment bags, untouched.
The designer heels line the shoe rack in perfect rows.
The jewelry Jameson gave me for birthdays and Christmases sits in its velvet-lined box — earrings and necklaces, gifts that were supposed to mean something but never felt like mine.
None of it comes with me. None of it was ever really mine anyway. I was just borrowing someone else's life, wearing someone else's clothes, playing someone else's part. And now I'm giving it all back.
I walk through the house one last time — down the hallway past rooms I rarely enter, through the kitchen, past the living room with its white furniture that's too expensive to actually sit on.
Each room is spacious and decorated and empty, a showpiece designed to impress people who don't live here. I look at it all the way you look at a hotel room before checkout — one last scan to make sure you haven't forgotten anything important.
I haven't. Nothing in this house belongs to me. Nothing in this house was ever mine.
At the front door, I set down my suitcase and take one last look back. The hallway stretches behind me, dark except for the timer light that will click on whether I'm here or not. Bigger than my childhood home — all of it empty now, all of it waiting for someone who isn't coming back.
I step outside into the night air and lock the door behind me, and with it, the life I no longer want.