JULIE
I'm wearingthedress.You know the one. Every woman has one. The little black number that makes you feel like you could stop traffic or start wars or at least make your husband forget his own name for a few blessed seconds. It's Valentino and I love it. The neckline dips just low enough to be interesting. The hem stops just high enough to be dangerous.
My hair is pinned up the way Asher likes it, that deliberately messy updo that took fifteen minutes and ten bobby pins to look like I just twisted it up without thinking. I'm wearing a pair of Louboutins that are sexy as hell and I'm also wearing his favorite perfume. I’m even wearing my engagement ring, though I normally don’t because it’s not me and it makes me uncomfortable. But this is me, trying to be the ideal wife. Probably for the last time.
The table is perfect. White tablecloth without a single imperfection. Candlelight doing that thing where it makes everything look soft and romantic. There's a bottle of expensive champagne sweating in an ice bucket, waiting to be poured. A small plate of chocolate-covered strawberries sits between theempty champagne flutes. The entire scene screams class and romance.
Too bad I’m alone.
It’s a beautiful restaurant. Upscale Italian, the kind of place where the waiters have accents that may or may not be real and the pasta costs more than my weekly grocery spend. Soft lighting. Intimate booths. The kind of place where marriage proposals happen, where anniversaries are celebrated, where people come to remember why they fell in love in the first place.
I check my phone. Again. He's twenty-three minutes late. I wish I was surprised. I'm not. At all. Asher says he loves me. I used to believe that. Things have changed. And now the things that used to say love read like something else entirely. Like maybe I attached value to things I shouldn't have.
History shows a different map. A truer one. A series of stops and starts, paths taken, words said and things done that all add up to show a fuller narrative than what I took as truth back then. And since Devon moved in and everything went sideways, I see things differently. The map has a different shape.
At first, I understood. A big, out of the blue loss like that is the kind of trauma that breaks people. I understood why she was stand-offish and why my husband felt obligated to be there for her, even though she was a virtual stranger to us both.
But now is not then. And this is not okay. He’s chosen his stepsister over me, time and time again. Anytime I say anything along those lines, Asher goes on the attack. The things he says are hateful and vile.
I doubt myself a lot now, and I hate it because it takes me straight back to childhood, watching my father walk out on my mother, my sister Jamie, and me without a backward glance. He wanted a family, but not one that included us.
I used to scroll through his wife's social media to see the photos of my father with my half-siblings, Michael junior andMorgan. We’ve never met. I have no idea if they even know my sister and I exist.
He’s still married to their mom, which means he gave that family the version of himself he couldn't be bothered to give Jamie and me. And I understand the message clearly: we were the problem. We were the family he needed to escape from. We were his regret.
It infuriates me that after completing years of therapy and finally finding a way to deal with that, I'm right back to suspecting that I'm someone's regret. That nothing about me makes my husband happy.
The waiter approaches for the third time, his smile professionally sympathetic. "Would you like to order an appetizer while you wait?"
"No, thank you. He'll be here soon."
The waiter nods like he believes me. I don’t think he does, though. Hell, I don't believe me. I take a sip of water and try not to think about how I spent two hours getting ready for this. How I closed the shop early, leaving Jamie to handle the last-minute orders. Tonight was supposed to be special. Our second anniversary. We promised we’d always remember to celebrate the milestones.
Seems like only one of us is keeping that promise right now. I'm about to text him that I'm leaving when the door opens and there he is.
He's wearing the dark blue suit that makes his shoulders look impossibly broad. His blonde hair is perfectly mussed, as always. I notice a few women and several men at tables around me have stopped what they’re doing to watch him. His eyes scan the restaurant and when they land on me, I wait.
He smiles and strides through the room to me. "Sorry I'm late, got held up at work," he says, sliding into the seat across from me. "You look great. The dress is perfect."
"You like it?"
"Like it? I'm going to have a hard time making it through dinner without dragging you out of here."
I laugh, but the sound comes out wrong—forced, brittle at the edges. He won't touch me. I'd bet my engagement ring on it.
The waiter materializes with perfect timing. I bet he’s surprised that my husband is actually here. If there was a wager back in the kitchen that I was being stood up, he lost.
"Good evening, sir. Would you like to start with the champagne?"
"Absolutely," Asher says. He's still looking at me.
The waiter pops the cork with a flourish and pours two glasses. The bubbles rise like tiny prayers. We lift our glasses and Asher's eyes are warm. For the first time in weeks, I allow myself to hope. He made it to dinner, and that’s something.
"To us," he says.
"To us."
We drink. The champagne is perfect—crisp and cold and expensive. His phone rings. It's not a normal ring. It's the specific ringtone he set for Devon. I watch his face change. He’s gone in a blink, his eyes are no longer warm.
