For a full two minutes, I’m simply fuming with anger. I can’t think of anything else, except what a fucking bastard!

He didn’t even stay to help me get another dress.

In the end, I decide, though, that a million dollars is worth it… in the sense that I’m going to do whatever it takes to look presentable and get downstairs to meet the guests and to pretend to be the perfect wife for David Masters.

The first thing I do is fix my hair, which is not a complete mess, but it’s come undone. Fortunately, this doesn’t take me that long.

The next thing is the dress, which is still awkwardly bunched up around my thighs.

I do my best to pull it down and flatten it out. It looks a little strange, though. I hunt through the closet looking for something else… but there’s nothing here that looks remotely like a gown.

The best I could do is maybe dress myself like I dress for work, but that’s certainly going to seem strange at a dinner party.

I can’t risk giving David the slightest excuse to say that I haven’t been fulfilling my end of the bargain, presenting myself to the world as the perfect wife.

Tears well in my eyes as I look at myself in the mirror.

Looking down at it, the skirt of the gown looks more or less OK, but in the mirror it looks really awful.

What am I going to do?

There’s a knock on the door.

“I’m not ready, Nancy,” I call out, my voice cracking with distress. “Maybe you should just tell David I’m not going to be able to do it… I can’t do this. I just can’t.”

“Can I come in?” says a soft feminine voice that sounds nothing like Nancy’s.

“Sure,” I say, although I’m not sure why I agree, except that the woman sounds nice.

The door opens and a young woman enters. She’s about my age, maybe a year older or younger. It’s hard to tell.

She has gorgeous hair and innocently beautiful features.

Her figure isn’t unlike mine. She’s wearing a gown similar to the one I have on, although, of course, hers isn’t destroyed.

The first impression I get from her is that in different circumstances, we might have been friends. There’s just something pleasant and understanding about the vibe she gives off…

“Hi,” she says. “I’m Lily.”

“Hi,” I say, my eyes about to burst with tears.

“I’m the wife of one of your husband’s friends,” she says, her voice kind as she looks at me. “Maybe David has talked about him, Ryan Hudson.”

“I think so,” I say, my voice quavering.

There’s no way I can go through with this. I can’t go downstairs looking like this, no matter how nice this woman is.

“You were taking a long time to come downstairs, so I suggested that I come up to see if I could help,” says Lily. “Men just don’t understand how much harder it is for us women to get ready.”

I shrug. “I guess not.”

“Oh my,” says Lily, moving so that she can see my full reflection in the tall mirror. “What happened to this beautiful gown?”

“Well,” I say, deciding for some reason to tell the truth. I just implicitly trust this woman. “We had sex just a moment ago, and then he didn’t… he didn’t do anything to help me with this gown. And it just makes me so sad, seeing this happen…”

“I’m sorry,” says Lily, putting her hand on my shoulder in a comforting way.

Her present is calming, and I don’t feel like I’m going to burst into tears.

“Men can be… difficult. Especially our men. David is just like Ryan, in a lot of ways. Why don’t I see if I can get you something else to wear? I have a back up dress in the car.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I say. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“What do you mean?”

I do trust her, but I can’t tell her that this is a fake marriage.

“I don’t think I can do this party,” I say. “There’s too much pressure.”

“You’ve just gotten married, right?” says Lily. “I’m sorry we couldn’t come to the wedding. Ryan had an important conference to give… and it was very last minute. How long have you and David known each other?”

“Just a few days before we got married,” I say, telling the truth.

“That’s not very much time,” says Lily. “Well, if David’s as much like Ryan as I think he is, you’re going to need to give him some… time to sort things out.”

“What do you mean?” I say.

Lily tells me about how she met Ryan, how they worked together. It sounds vaguely similar to my story with David. Except my story has more complications, more deception, more disappointment.

Lily tells me how Ryan would have sex with her and then just ignore her, focusing instead on his code. She tells me how Ryan had to figure out how to open up a part of himself that he had been hiding away. And it was then that she and Ryan really understood each other and got to where they are now, which is very, very happy with each other.

“I don’t know,” I say. “That does sound a lot like David. I feel like there’s a part of him that’s… beautiful, but it just won’t come out. Or when it does come out… when we’re, um, making love for instance, it’s gone so soon… it just disappears.”

Lily nods understandingly.

“You know,” she says. “I wasn’t with anyone before Ryan.”

“You mean, you were a…?”

“Yeah,” says Lily, giggling a little nervously. “So it wasn’t just Ryan who had to do some work. I had to come out of my shell a little, too.”

I nod. “I’d never done… you know, before either. I’d never had sex.”

Lily smiles at me. “It seems like we’re more similar than we would have thought,” she says. “Honestly, I was just expecting this party to be full of some stuck up women, but I’m glad you’re here.”

I nod. “I’m glad I met you,” I say. “And thanks for telling me all that… it’s not like you needed to.”

“But I wanted to.”

“Thanks,” I say. “We’re similar in a lot of ways, but my situation is… more complicated.”

“It can’t be that complicated,” says Lily.

“I can’t explain it. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

“Why don’t I go to the car and bring up that dress that I have,” says Lily. “I’m sure it’ll look great on you, and then you and I can chat at dinner, while our husbands talk about business and sports.”

I nod sadly, and Lily gets up and leaves the room.

The decision comes to me suddenly. There’s only one thing I can do, and it’s not going down to the dinner party.

No matter how nice the dress is that Lily brings me, I can’t face them. I can’t face them and pretend that everything is fine between me and David. And most of all, I can’t face David.

There’s no doubt in my mind I’m incredibly attracted to him. He does things to my body that I couldn’t have ever imagined, and he makes me feel… incredible.

There’s an attraction there, and it’s mutual.

But he’s such a dick. And he doesn’t seem willing to leave behind his arrogance, his complete indifference to me…. his apparent indifference.

If he doesn’t know how to express something, that’s his problem, not mine. I shouldn’t have to deal with it. It’s not my job to change him.

After all, I’m his fake wife, not his real wife.

This has just gotten completely out of control. I should have never slept with him.

If I walk away now, there goes my cool million.

But I don’t have any other choice. I just can’t do it.

Still wearing the ruined gown, I grab everything that I think is mine in the room and rush out the door.

I take the back staircase that leads to a spot downstairs very close to the garage.

I pause for a moment, listening to the booming voices in the dinning room.

“And then she said, ‘I can’t do that, sir, that’s a cocker spaniel, not a husky,’” comes David’s booming deep voice, apparently telling some joke.

Male and female laughs come from the dining room.

“Anyone know where Lily is?”

“I think she’s helping my wife. She may be having some wardrobe difficulties.”

“Hopefully not a wardrobe malfunction.”

“You know how women are.”

With tears in my eyes, I open the garage door and walk past David’s gleaming cars.

“I need your help, desperately,” I write into my phone, tapping away at the screen. “Can you pick me up at…?”

“Be right there,” writes back Sasha.

I sigh in relief as the garage door buckles open.

There’s a slew of cars parked in the driveway that leads to the garage, and a couple more on the street. They’re all fancy, but it’s not like I know anything about makes or models. It’s all the same to me. I’d be happy to just have a car.

But what I’m doing right now, running away, is going to ruin all my chances of owning a car in the next couple decades, considering the debts I need to pay off.

It’s going to be public transportation for me for the rest of my life.

But I’ve got to stick to what I think is right.

Lily is bent over, her head in the back seat of one of the larger cars.

I feel bad leaving her without saying goodbye. She’s the only one who was nice to me, except maybe David’s daughter, Laura. I feel about bad leaving her too.

Tears are welling in my eyes as I rush down the city street in my gown, my leather backpack slung over my shoulder, flapping against my back.

Sasha’s car comes barreling down the road towards me.

I’m walking right in the middle, like some crazy woman in distress, with a ruined dress and tears.

One of Sasha’s headlights is out, and the other is pointed at a strange angle.

Her car is at least a couple decades old, riding low to the ground because the suspension is completely busted. The car makes a horrible clanking sound. Coupled with a grinding sound, and the sound of a loud whistle, the car makes enough of a racket that as I look behind me, I see Lily looking up from her car to see what’s going on.

“Where are you going?” calls Lily after me, waving her hands for me to come back. She holds up the dress, and it looks gorgeous, perfect.

I’m standing here in the middle of the street, with Sasha’s car rushing towards me, with Lily behind me, holding the dress that will allow me to keep my million dollars.

All I have to do is dry my tears, change, and go to the dinner party. David Masters will never know the difference.

But I know what I have to do.

Sasha skids to a stop right in front of me, blaring her horn. She opens her door and rushes out to me, her face full of worry.

“Are you OK?” she says frantically, gripping my arms. “What happened?”

“I’m fine,” I say. “Can you take me home?”

“Get in,” says Sasha, trying to open the passenger door for me.

But it’s stuck.

Sasha lets go of me to give the door a good, solid kick right at the handle.

“It always sticks like this,” she says.

“Olivia!” cries Lily, from behind us.

“Who’s she?” asks Sasha.

“Nobody,” I say.

Finally, the door is open and I get inside, tossing my bag into the back seat.

“Let’s go,” I say.

Sasha jams her foot onto the gas pedal, turning the car around wildly on the empty street. I look into the mirror and see Lily, a symbol of the life I’m leaving behind.