A sleeve collapsed into glowing ash.
“Nathaniel?”
My voice barely existed.
He looked at me.
No surprise.
No embarrassment.
Nothing.
I ran toward the grill.
“What are you doing?”
I reached for the metal lid.
Nathaniel caught my forearm and forced me away from the heat.
I stumbled backward onto the damp grass.
“Don’t,” he said.
I stared at him from the ground.
“My dress.”
“It was cheap.”
The words hit harder than the fall.
“You burned my dress.”
Nathaniel placed the lighter fluid on the stone counter.
“It looked cheap, Clara.”
I pushed myself upright.
“We’re leaving in thirty minutes.”
“No.”
I thought I had misheard him.
“What?”
“We are not leaving in thirty minutes.”
He adjusted one cuff.
“I am.”
The fire crackled behind him.
I looked from Nathaniel to the flames.
“I don’t understand.”
His expression changed.
I had seen impatience from him before.
Stress.
Frustration.
Exhaustion.
But this was different.
This was embarrassment.
And somehow, impossibly, the embarrassment was directed at me.
“You really want me to explain it?”
“Yes.”
Nathaniel sighed.
“You would be uncomfortable there.”
“I’ve been to company dinners with you.”
“Not like this.”
“So?”
“So look at yourself.”
The backyard became completely still.
Nathaniel continued.
“Your hands look like you scrub floors.”
“I do scrub floors.”
“That’s exactly my point.”
My throat tightened.
He looked at my hair.
My shoes.
My old cardigan.
Every glance felt like he was taking inventory of defects.
“You don’t understand how these people think.”
“These people?”
“Executives. Directors. Investors. People who matter.”
I almost laughed.
Instead, I said, “And I don’t?”
He did not answer immediately.
That pause told me everything.
“Nathaniel.”
He exhaled.
“Clara, my world has changed.”
Our world.
He had spent seven years calling it our world.
Our struggle.
Our plan.
Our future.
Now, suddenly, success belonged only to him.
“I worked three jobs while you studied.”
“I know.”
“I sold my mother’s jewelry.”
“I know.”
“I paid the registration fee for the exam that got you into Vance.”
“You’ve mentioned that before.”
His tone was bored.
Something inside me cracked.
Not loudly.
Quietly.
“You promised me that when you made it, we made it.”
Nathaniel gave me a tired smile.
“That was before I understood what making it actually meant.”
The flames behind him were getting smaller.
My dress was becoming blackened fabric and ash.
“I don’t belong beside you anymore.”
He looked relieved that I had finally said it for him.
“There’s going to be photography tonight.”
I stared.
“That’s your answer?”
“It matters.”
“To whom?”
“To everyone.”
He stepped closer, lowering his voice as though granting me confidential advice.
“You are a good person, Clara. But good isn’t enough in my position.”
I could smell his expensive cologne.
I had bought him the first bottle of that cologne three Christmases earlier when we could barely afford groceries.
“I need someone polished beside me.”
I swallowed.
“Someone?”
Nathaniel’s eyes shifted away.
And suddenly I knew.
“Who?”
“It doesn’t matter.”