I work at an advertising agency—long hours, high pressure, polished smiles. The kind of job where your reputation is currency and your personal life is supposed to stay neat and invisible.
That’s part of why I said yes to marriage when I shouldn’t have.
I was thirty-one. Exhausted. Lonely in the way a big city can make you lonely even when you’re surrounded by people. And my husband—back then—didn’t feel like a trap.
He felt like stability.
Larry was introduced to me by Eric, a manager at a newspaper company—one of those “nice guy” networkers who always thinks he’s doing you a favor.
“You’ll like him,” Eric said. “He’s serious. He’s family-oriented. He’s looking for something real.”
And because I was in a weak moment of my life, I let myself believe it.
Five months later, I was standing in a courthouse with a bouquet of supermarket roses, signing my name to a marriage license that would quietly rearrange my whole existence.
Larry’s mother—Olivia—was there that day, hugging me tightly, calling me “sweetheart,” telling everyone she was thrilled to finally have a daughter.
Her eyes were warm.
Her voice was gentle.
Her smile was flawless.
And it was a mask.