I turned back to the room. “The bar is open. The catering is paid for. And as for my husband and his ‘beautiful’ guest… the Uber is waiting outside. Your bags are already in the trunk, Charlie. I packed them while you were ‘at work’ this afternoon.”
Charlie tried to speak, but Sarah stepped in his way. Two of my other friends, guys who had played poker with Charlie for years, just shook their heads. There’s no coming back from a public audit of the soul.
He and Jessica left together—not as lovers escaping into the sunset, but as two people who had just realized they deserved each other’s toxicity. She was screaming at him about her “brand” before they even hit the elevator.
I stayed.
I drank the martini. I laughed with my friends. I looked at the photos of myself on the walls—not as a “revenge” tool, but as a map.
I had been so worried about him commenting on someone else’s beauty that I had forgotten I was the one who owned the gallery.
When the last guest left, the photographer came up to me. “So,” she said, “what do we do with the prints?”
I looked at the woman in the red dress on the screen. She looked back at me, fierce and final.
