The audience sighs, charmed.
And I sit there, gutted, knowing better.
We’re not Papageno and Papagena.
We’re a pretty lie.
I didn’t even know her name.
11
COLD RUIN (JOY)
The car hums through the dark. Streetlights climb the windshield, spill across his jaw, and slide away again—the night can’t decide whether to show him off or spare him.
He hasn’t spoken since we left the city. His hands stay tight on the wheel, knuckles white; every few miles the car twitches under the pressure he won’t release.
I keep my gaze on the window—the highway, the Hudson, anything that isn’t us. I want to tell him that Josephine is only a costume, that Joy is who I am, that I can’t help where I come from. That what matters is what I choose to do with it.
My mouth won’t open.
This is why I hide. Why I don’t flaunt my name or heritage. Because when people see the lineage and the money, they stop seeingme.
And now he’s doing it too.
Exactly as I knew he would.
He walks me to the apartment. Neither of us speaks. The hall feels too bright, too clean for what’s burning between us.
When I turn the key, I stop. Face him.
“Wesley, please. Let me explain?—”
“Explain what?” His voice is cold. “Which part? That your uncle signs my paychecks? That your family name is on half of Manhattan? Or that your real name—youractualname—never came up in conversation?”
“I tried?—”
“When? When did you try?”
My throat closes. The Aurora. The packing. A dozen moments I could have told him and didn’t.
His voice cuts through the quiet—low, dangerous, threaded with hurt. “So we’re good now, Josephine?” The way he says it is a slap. “You got what you needed from your lumberjack?”
The words are a fist to the stomach. He thinks I used him. Thinks I’m some bored socialite who needed a rugged fling before returning to my privileged life.
When my mother called me Josephine, Wesley looked at me like I’d slapped him. And now, the sound of my name is scraping down my spine, desperation turning into fury. “I delivered exactly what we agreed on, Wesley. And yeah, we got carried away a bit. But it’s not like you didn’t enjoy it.”
“Tell me,Josephine—” he spits it again, and this time it cracks even deeper. “That trust you’re angling for, this isn’t a few hundred grand, is it?”
“And what does it matter to you?” My voice shakes as I shove the door open. He follows, the slam behind us echoing like a gunshot. “You’re not exactly poor either.” I whirl on him, heat rushing up my throat. “I’ve seen your numbers. You drive a Porsche. You’re not just some blue-collar saint chopping wood in Alaska. You make millions hitting a puck and posing shirtless for sponsors.”
He stiffens. “That’s not the same thing, and you know it.”
“No, it’s not,” I fire back. “I didn’t choose this. It was handed to me. It’s what I do with it that counts.” My throat tightens.“You think I’m chasing that trust to buy handbags? You have no idea what I’d use it for.”
He steps in, jaw tight. “Then tell me.”
I shake my head. “It makes no difference.” I laugh, sharp and bitter. “You sell an image. I sell one too. You play with a puck; I play a part.”
