Page 4 of A Song for Another Woman

Then the broadcast cuts away. The crowd keeps cheering.

By the time the show ends, my program is confetti in my clutch. People stand, hug, take selfies, and congratulate each other. The whole arena smells like perfume, sweat, hairspray, spilled beer, and hot lights. Everyone is shiny with the afterglow of spectacle.

I stay in my seat for a moment too long because my knees aren't entirely trustworthy.

Duke appears at the end of the row. “Car’s waiting for you at the south exit.”

I look past him, toward the stage where Cade is being swallowed by handlers, cameras, and Melody’s white dress. “Is Cade?—”

“He’s got press,” Duke says. “You know how it is.”

I do. That's the problem.

My phone buzzes in my clutch. For one wild second, I think it might be Cade. It isn't. It's June.

I don’t open the message. I can’t. My sister will know from whatever I type back. She'll hear blood in punctuation.

The phone buzzes again. Then again.

A cold feeling moves through me. I take it out and glance down.

Two texts from June:

Do not look at Twitter.

I mean it. Call me when you’re out of there.

I stand in the aisle while industry people stream around me, laughing and glowing. Because I'm apparently the kind of woman who touches a bruise to confirm it hurts, I open the app.

The first clip is already everywhere. Not the performance, and not the win. Me. My face on the jumbotron while Cade thanks Melody like sunrise and me like a line item.

The caption has thousands of likes:THE WILDFIRE WIFE CAM.

Another one beneath it:Somebody check on Mrs. Tyler.

Another:Her face when he said Melody brought the fire. I would simply pass away.

My thumb stops moving. There I am again, replayed in a loop. Smile fixed. Eyes too still. The exact second my bodyunderstood something my heart has been refusing to say out loud.

A younger girl squeezes past me in the row behind, phone in hand. She glances up, recognizes me, and looks away too fast.

Pity is worse than cruelty. Cruelty has the decency to show its teeth.

I turn my wedding ring back around until the diamond faces outward. There. Correct. Marketable. Wife-shaped.

Across the arena, Cade laughs at something Melody says. Someone photographs it, and Duke stands nearby, pleased. No one looks for me.

The certainty arrives without drama. Not anger. Not yet. Just a clean, private cold.

I've become a prop in my own marriage. Not all at once, since that would've been easier to fight. It happened by inches: a missed dinner, a backstage pass that stopped working, a stylist choosing my dress, a publicist coaching my face, a song the whole world thinks belongs to another woman, and my husband thanking me like a habit and her like a revelation.

I look down at the phone again. The clip restarts. My face. My smile. My humiliation, bright enough for every living room in America.

The whole country is watching my marriage die in real time. And I'm standing here in a champagne dress, holding the shredded remains of a program, realizing I haven't even admitted it's dying until now.

Chapter Two

CADE