he messed up.

the dining room looked nothing like the careful illusion you had built for tonight. the tablecloth was dragged halfway to the floor, plates shattered, food smeared into meaningless shapes. wine bled across the wood, dark and sticky, soaking into the grain like it planned to stay forever. the bottle lay in pieces, green glass scattered like teeth. mixed in with it were the torn sheets of paper you had wrapped with such care, the ink blurred, the signatures ripped apart and drowned in red.

his birthday dinner. your last performance.

andrew was on his knees.

four long scrapes cut across the wooden floor where he had dropped, the sound of it still echoing in your head. his hands clung to your thighs as if they were the only solid thing left in his world. his forehead pressed hard against your right knee, his hair disheveled, greasy with sweat, his breath hot and uneven against your skin. his fingers dug into your hips, knuckles white, tendons standing out as though he might snap if he loosened his grip even a little.

you tried to push him away. once. twice.

he did not move.

instead, his arms slid tighter around you, desperate, crushing, like he could force your body to understand what his mouth could not say. he held you as if he could stitch you into him, erase the space between where you ended and where he began. his chest rose and fell in broken jerks. every breath hurt. the idea of you leaving tore at him from the inside out.

without you, there was nothing. no center. no reason.

his voice came out raw, hoarse, scraping up from somewhere ugly and deep. "i'm sorry," he said. "i'm so sorry."

he nods quickly, "i will change," he said, his words tumbling over each other. "i swear i will. i will not do it again. please. please?"

then, you said his name once. quiet. final.

but it was not enough.

he needed you to understand him. he needed you to feel what he felt, the terror, the love, the certainty that the world only worked when you revolved around him. he knew he had crossed lines. he knew what he had done. the knowledge did not loosen his grip. it only made him cling harder.

you were not nina. you were not millie.

you were his wife. his choice. his air.

"you can't leave me like this," he murmured. his voice softened, careful now, almost gentle, slightly delusional. "you can't."

slowly, he lifted his head.

his eyes were red and swollen, veins webbing through the whites. dark circles dragged his face downward, hollowing his cheeks. tears clung to his lashes and spilled freely, streaking down his skin. he looked wrecked. ruined. beautiful in the way broken things sometimes were.

once, that look would have worked.

not tonight.

you stepped back, finally pulling free of his grasp. andrew watched it then. the finality. the way your body had already left him.

something in his expression snapped.

"no," he said softly.

you turned toward the door.

he surged upward, faster than you expected, fingers closing around your throat. his grip was iron, familiar, intimate in the worst way. he slammed your back against the edge of the pillar, glass crunching underfoot.

"I SAID NO!"