“Tell him to handle it himself for now. He’s competent enough.”
More typing, more casual management of my life. I watch him work and realize that in some ways, he’s better at this than I am. More patient with people’s anxieties, more diplomatic in his responses. If he weren’t completely insane, he’d make an excellent personal assistant.
“Your gym membership is about to expire,” he informs me. “Should I renew it?”
“Sure, whatever.”
He pauses in his typing, looking at me with those impossibly blue eyes. “You know, you could set up a proper home gym in our new house. Much more convenient than traveling across town every time you want to work out. Plus, I could spot you.”
The casual way he mentions our imaginary future home makes my chest do something complicated. He talks about it like it’s inevitable, like we’ve already picked out curtains and chosen paint colors for the nursery.
A new notification pops up on the screen, and Ginni opens it with the same casual efficiency he’s shown with everything else. But then his face changes. The color drains from his cheeks, his breathing becomes shallow and rapid, and the phone flies from his hands like it’s burned him, falling onto the blankets like a yeeted scorpion.
I crane my neck to see the screen, catching a glimpse of the contact name before Ginni scrambles to flip the phone face-down.
Crystal.
Fuck.
Crystal. Dancer at my club, all long legs and blonde hair and the kind of practiced sensuality that comes with years of performing for men with money. Our hookups over the past months have been nothing serious, just convenient stress relief when I needed it. She’s beautiful, skilled, and completely uncomplicated. No emotional demands, no expectations beyond what we explicitly agreed to.
Ginni opening that message thread means he has seen everything. The arrangements to meet after closing. The explicit messages about what we wanted to do to each other. Months of casual sexting and hookup coordination that would obliterate any illusion that I’m some devoted romantic who’s been pining for him in secret. It would have smashed any notion that I’m his loving husband.
The look on Ginni’s face is devastating. Like something precious inside him has just shattered beyond repair. He’s wrapped his arms around himself, shoulders hunched, staring at nothing with wide, unseeing eyes.
“Ginni,” I start, though I don’t know what I could possibly say to fix this.
A rational part of me is screaming that I shouldn’t care, that this isn’t my fault. I haven’t cheated, and I’m not responsible for the well-being of a maniac. But it is a small part of me, and easily drowned out by my deep concern.
Ginni shudders, a full-body tremor that seems to start in his bones and ripple outward. When he looks at me, there’s no manic brightness in his eyes, no carefully constructed joy. Just raw, devastating awareness. A startling lucidity that is so full ofpain that suddenly I’d sell my soul to see that delusional gleam return.
“I know you don’t love me,” he says quietly, his voice stripped of all its usual music. “Nobody does.”
All the oxygen whooshes out of my lungs. Ginni sounds so lost. So utterly alone. So broken.
I didn’t know he was capable of moments of clarity, and it’s a shock to discover how much I hate it.
“But the fantasy was so alluring, I... I couldn’t resist it. I’m so sorry.”
The words are crushing. They fill me with ice and pain. This isn’t the Ginni who’s been planning our future with manic enthusiasm. This is a broken boy who’s just had his dreams destroyed by the harsh weight of reality.
It’s awful. I can’t stand it. I want happy Ginni back.
He climbs off the bed with movements that seem to take enormous effort, like he’s fighting gravity itself. There’s something defeated in his posture, something that makes alarm bells start clanging in my head.
“Where are you going?” I demand, pulling against the restraints.
“I need to...” He trails off, shaking his head like he’s trying to clear it. “I need to… to make this stop.”
The way he says it, with that flat, hopeless tone, makes my blood run cold. This isn’t someone going to make a cup of tea and have a good cry. This is someone who’s decided they’re too much trouble, too broken to exist.
He’s moving toward the door with that same defeated shuffle, and panic floods my system like ice water.
“Get your fucking ass back here this instant or I swear to God I’ll spank you so hard you won’t sit down for a week!” I roar, lunging against the chains with enough force to make the metal bite into my wrists.
The words tear out of me with desperate fury, part command and part plea. There’s nothing calculated about it, nothing thought through. Just pure, animalistic terror at the thought of losing him.
Ginni stops in the doorway, turning back to look at me with wide, startled eyes. Like he can’t quite believe what he just heard.
