I scroll deeper into Jesika’s archive of photos, going back weeks and months in search of more shots of her mystery man. I find only one more, three months ago at a club inBrooklyn. She captioned the photo:Girls’ night out + a surprise drop-in from my favorite guy!
I cringe as I take in the photo. Three glasses of bubbly champagne toasting and a single glass of whisky. I imagine that it’s Dean’s favorite, Macallan. And again, there is the ring. Tears prick my eyelids as I realize what this means.
Dean has been cheating on me with my doppelgänger. My online persona. He’s fallen for the pretend me.
And I hate him for it. How could he be so cruel?
I think back to the day we sorted through headshots on the modeling agency’s website. How after dozens of girls, he’d singled one out. Her sleek, silver-blond hair and striking blue eyes struck him. It was because of his enthusiasm for that particular model that I’d chosen her. When we’d visited the modeling agency and signed the documents, he’d insisted on handling the paperwork. Now I know why.He’dchosen her, not us. He’d managed to replace me right in front of my own eyes. That was over a year ago, just about the time he’d grown distant and started spending more time at work and passing out on the sofa in his office instead of coming to our marriage bed.
I grit my teeth, killing the app before emptying the rest of the bottle of red wine into my glass. I finish the remainder in one swallow, the bitter sediment settled at the bottom of the glass causing me to cringe. I imagine posting hateful comments on her profile photos, calling her a home-wrecker or worse—a worthless, opportunistic whore—but then I realize it would be no better than name-calling myself. After all, isn’t that what I’d done? Found a successful man and uprooted him from his life and marriage for my own selfish benefit?
I hate her, but I hate him more.
I open the app again, wine settling like a thick fog in my mind as I view my own profile, Jesika’s smiling face beaming at the lens every handful of posts under the guise of Mia. Onimpulse, and with the urge to take control of the narrative of my life, I snap a candid shot of the wine bottle and my hand holding the empty wineglass. Without thinking, I type in the only caption that’s running through my head on a painful loop:My husband is dead to me.
I hit submit on the post, tears welling in my eyes as I realize I’ll have a lot of explaining to do in the morning, but right now, I only want to sleep. Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow, I’ll deal with the fallout. But tonight, I’ll let bitter tears stain my cheeks until I fall asleep.
Chapter Four
I’m pulled from my sweet sleep escape by the sound of notifications buzzing on my phone. With a groan, I roll over and swipe it off the coffee table. My back aches from sleeping on the couch, and the morning sun is splitting through the living room curtains, causing the slow throb of a headache to start behind my frontal lobe.
With sleep in my eyes, I glance at the screen of my cell and frown.
Praying for you.
Sending love.
RIP?
“What?” I murmur into the empty space. I swipe to open the Instagram app, but my phone instantly dies. In the haze of wine and heartache, I forgot to charge the battery. I groan, shooting off the couch and beelining for my Gucci bucket bag in the kitchen. I dig through the piles of my broken life in search of my charger, and when I find it, I shove it into the kitchen socket and plug in my phone and wait.
I could use a coffee. Normally, Dean would have had a freshly brewed pot waiting for me, but now I’m on my own.
What in the hell did I post last night that has garnered that kind of response?
Once the phone powers on, a hundred more notifications buzz to life. I have an inbox full of messages, and based on the comments, my post with the wine bottle and glass has apparently gone viral. I open the app quickly and swipe to my last post.
And then horror settles into my bones.
My caption from last night reads:My husband is dead
That’s it. I’d meant to postdead to me,but in my wine-soaked haze, my brain must’ve left off the rest of the caption. And as soon as I’d hit submit, I’d put down my phone and fallen asleep, eager to forget the last few hours of yesterday.
And now my followers think my husband is dead.
In all honesty, he is—to me.
As I rub my palms over my eyes, thoughts shuttle through my mind while I consider what steps to take next. Come clean? Tell them it was a drunken thumb-slip? Embarrassment colors my face as the shame of my mistake descends on me.
I scroll down through the comments. More than a thousand people are praying for me and wishing me well. One follower has even set up a GoFundMe page for funeral expenses.
“Oh. Dear. God.”
I can’t even begin to process how to undo the damage from this errant caption. I click over to the donation page link that my follower has posted and see that more than three hundred people have already donated more than five thousand dollars, and the donations are coming in fast. As I linger on the page, the live ticker of money received is moving up.
My heart sinks.
And then I think that the money could help with living expenses—after all, Dean has left me nothing. There is nothing to leave, and my brand relies more on free gifts than it doesactual cash. The truth remains; Deanisdead to me. And if I don’t figure out something fast, I’ll be on the streets. I add too much value to the daily lives of my followers to let that happen. And I have been mourning a death—only it’s the death of my marriage, not an actual, physical death.
