1 The System told me I had to save my depressed husband. I told it to go to hell. When he held a blade to his arm, I didn’t rush over to tear it away. I didn’t scream or beg. Instead, I marched over to the balcony, threw the window open, and wailed at the top of my lungs to the quiet, upscale suburban street below. “My limited-edition Louboutins! The heel just snapped! God above, why even bother living anymore?” Gavin froze. He looked at the blade, then at me, then at the neighbors’ windows across the street. Fearing a scene more than his own inner demons, he sighed, put the knife down, and walked over to guide me back inside. “Stop crying, Sandy,” he muttered, his voice raspy from disuse. “We’ll go to the city tomorrow. I’ll buy you a new pair.” At 3:00 AM, when he tried to slip out of bed to find some lonely bridge or quiet train track to vanish on, I didn’t offer a hug or a therapy session. I simply shoved my ice-cold feet directly into the small of his back, right under his silk pajamas. “I’m freezing to death, Gavin. Be a man and warm me up.” He jolted, a shudder running through his frame as my frozen toes made contact with his skin. He frowned, his brow furrowing in the dark, but he eventually turned around and wrapped his hands around my feet, pulling the duvet tighter around us both. After months of this, he was still miserable, and I still acted like I didn’t care. “Fine,” I said one morning over coffee. “If you’re so hell-bent on dying, let’s get a divorce first.” Gavin blinked, looking genuinely stunned. “Is a divorce a prerequisite for suicide now?” I rolled my eyes. “Duh. I’m only trapped in this miserable house because I’m legally tied to you. Once we’re divorced, I can finally get the hell out of here and start my real life.” Suddenly, his grip on my hand tightened. He pulled me toward him, his eyes flickering with a sudden, sharp anxiety. “Then I’m not doing it. I’m not divorcing you.” I was the unlucky soul chosen by “The Program”—a cosmic glitch or a high-tech system, I wasn’t sure—to inhabit the body of Sandy Miller, the wife of Gavin Miller. Gavin was the quintessential “brooding, tortured artist” type. Rich, handsome, and deeply, darkly depressed. The System had used a tone of divine burden when it first briefed me: [Ms. Miller, in this narrative, the only way you can return to your original world is by successfully redeeming your broken husband.] I had responded by ripping open the heavy, blackout curtains of our master suite, squinting at the sunlight. “Why me? I spent my real life working ten-hour shifts like a dog. Now I’m supposed to come here and play therapist for a man who has everything but can’t find a reason to wake up? I’m the one who wants to quit life, thanks.” So, whenever Gavin tried to end it, I played the role of the oblivious, demanding wife. After several failed attempts by the System to “guide” me toward a more nurturing approach, it finally gave up. [Fine. If you can be this cold-hearted toward a man that gorgeous, Sandy, you’re on your own. Good luck.] Without the System’s nagging, I truly stopped giving a damn about his “redemption.” Gavin was a “trust-fund baby” in the truest sense. His father had left him a fortune, meaning he didn’t have to work a single day in his life. He was the poster child for the “I don’t need money, I just need love” demographic. Too much money, too little purpose. Hence, the depression. Meanwhile, back in the real world, I had been a corporate drone, a marketing strategist who measured my life in coffee cups and spreadsheets. Being dragged into this world to “save” a sad prince was the height of irony. In my book, a commoner’s life was just as valuable. If he was my husband, he was going to be useful. I wasn’t about to play the doting martyr while he sulked in the shadows. Today, he was doing his usual routine: locked in his studio, refusing to come out. I pounded on the door with zero grace. Fed up with the noise, he cracked the door open an inch. A single, dark, brooding eye stared out at me. “What?” his voice was flat, cold. “I’m hungry,” I snapped, my tone even worse than his. “Go make dinner.” “No.” He started to shut the door, but I jammed my foot in the frame and shoved. Gavin stood there, six-foot-one of wasted potential, staring at me with a blank expression. His hair had grown too long, covering his eyes, leaving only the sharp, pale line of his jaw visible. Looking at him, my annoyance flared. “Make dinner, then go downstairs and cut that hair. You look like a Victorian ghost. It’s depressing.” He was naturally pale, and with the long hair, he looked more like a specter than a man. Gavin didn’t move. I lost my patience. I grabbed his wrist and yanked him forward. He stumbled, falling slightly into me, looking startled and vulnerable. “Are you insane?” he whispered. I brushed the hair out of his face and took a pink, plastic cartoon clip from my own hair, pinning his bangs back. Seeing his handsome face fully revealed, my anger softened just a fraction. “Sweetie,” I said, my voice dropping to a faux-tender hum. “You’re my husband. I’m hungry. If you don’t take care of me, who will?” He froze, a flicker of logic seemingly piercing through his fog. He straightened his rumpled shirt, pulled down his sleeves to hide the scars on his wrists, and walked toward the kitchen. He tied an apron around his waist without another word. “The usual? Braised short ribs?” he asked quietly after a moment. I flopped onto the sofa. “Yeah. That’ll do.” How do you live with someone who’s “broken”? You treat them like they’re normal. After dinner, while he was finishing the dishes, I stood in the doorway holding his coat. “Dishes are done. Can I go back to my room now?” he asked, still cold, but the pink cartoon clip in his hair made the whole “dark prince” act look ridiculous. I couldn’t help it. I snorted. Then I laughed. “What?” His brow furrowed. “Nothing. You’re just… surprisingly cute sometimes,” I said honestly. He opened his mouth to retort, but I pressed a finger to his lips. “Shh. We’re going to the barber. I refuse to share a house with a ghost.” 2 Gavin was pissed. After the haircut, he stormed out of the salon and thrust the pink hair clip back at me. “Take it.” I looked at him—clean-cut, striking, looking like he belonged on a billboard—and couldn’t understand what he was so moody about. But if he wanted to give me the cold shoulder, fine. I wasn’t going to chase him. The gated community was quiet at night. We walked home with enough distance between us to fit an entire freight train. He marched ahead, while I lingered behind, distracted by the shadows. “Psst! Hey, sweetie. Come here, babies.” A perfectly clean Tortoiseshell cat and a scruffy, mud-caked Samoyed were huddled near a hedge. One looked like a long-time stray; the other looked like it had been dumped an hour ago. In the world of strays, the rule is “finders keepers.” My luck was peaking. I was going home with a full set of pets. The Samoyed’s tail started whipping like a helicopter blade, and the cat began rubbing its face against my leggings. I let out a giddy laugh that echoed through the quiet street. Gavin stopped. Without the hair in his eyes, he looked like a high-end model just standing there in his overcoat. “Why are you moving so slow?” he asked, his voice stiff. I tilted my head, pretending not to hear. “What was that? You’re too far away, I can’t hear you over all this cuteness!” He took a few long strides back toward me, looking ready to snap, but then he saw the animals. His eyes lit up. He reached out to pet the cat. I swatted his hand away. “This cat belongs to me.” He tried to pet the dog. I blocked him again. “The dog is mine, too. Priority of discovery. Know your laws, Gavin.” His lips thinned. He struggled for a comeback for a solid ten seconds before finally catching on to my game. “We’re married,” he blurted out, his face flushing. “Community property!” “Oh? So we’re married now?” I drawled, leaning into the words. “Funny. I didn’t think married couples walked half a mile apart on their way home.” He tried to argue, but he just ended up flustered and red-faced. The System really picked the wrong person for a “healing” story. I wasn’t here to heal him; I was here to win. The Samoyed—who I decided to call Cooper—was shedding enough fur to make a new dog. I was crouched in the bathtub, exhausted from scrubbing him, while Gavin was having one of his “episodes” upstairs. Usually, when he hit a low point, even my badgering didn’t work. Dog hair was flying everywhere. I screamed for him to come down and help, but he ignored me. Then, the floor became a soap-slicked death trap. My left foot slipped, my right foot stayed put, and I landed in a brutal, accidental split on the marble tile. “Mother—!” I let out a string of curses that would make a sailor blush. Finally, a head poked out from the second-floor railing. Gavin’s eyes searched the room. “Sandy?” I couldn’t even answer. The pain was so sharp I couldn’t breathe. Cooper paced around me, whining and nudging me with his wet nose. Gavin finally panicked. He sprinted down the stairs in his socks and burst into the bathroom. “I think… I think I broke my hip,” I wheezed. He didn’t hesitate. He reached down and lifted me into his arms. Gavin might have been mentally ready to die, but I was currently facing a physical expiration. 3:00 AM. The orthopedic wing of the hospital. Gavin looked haggard, sitting in a plastic chair with a giant white dog sitting at his feet (the nurses let it slide because the hospital was empty). I was tucked into a bed, my leg elevated and casted. “Ow…” I’ve always been a wimp when it comes to pain. The tears started leaking out. But every time I took a shaky breath, it pulled on the muscles near the injury, making it worse. “Gavin, please… tell me a joke. Anything. Just make me stop crying.” He stared at me, paralyzed for a second. Then he pulled out his phone, frantically Googling, and started reading aloud with the most robotic, serious voice I’d ever heard: “A man is walking in the woods in winter. He finds a frozen snake. He feels bad, so he puts it inside his shirt to warm it up. The next morning, the man puts a sign on the tree that says: ‘No Shitting Under the Trees.’” The room went silent. I stared at him. He stared back. Then, a laugh erupted from my chest like a thunderclap. Which, of course, hurt like hell. “Ow! Okay, okay… I’m good. I’m stopping.” Gavin looked genuinely confused. “I don’t get it. Why is that funny?” I wiped my eyes, grimacing through the pain. “The ‘snake’ was a frozen… never mind. He picked up a frozen turd, Gavin.” “Oh.” He went silent. Three minutes later, a loud, genuine bark of a laugh filled the room. This time, it wasn’t me. 3 While my leg was in a cast, I sent my medical leave to my boss and spent my days sleeping. Gavin, however, no longer had the luxury of being idle. Every morning at 6:00 AM sharp, Cooper would sit outside Gavin’s door and howl. The dog was smart; he knew I was out of commission. Whenever Gavin walked past my room to take the dog out, I could feel the waves of resentment radiating off him. But when I saw him later, brushing the dog’s fur, he had a tiny, unconscious smile on his face. He wanted the affection; he just didn’t want the responsibility. Too bad. Life doesn’t work that way. I rolled over in my warm blankets and drifted back to sleep. Between the dog’s energy and the cat’s demands, the man who used to suffer from chronic insomnia was now passing out the moment his head hit the pillow. Six months into this “redemption” gig, and my progress bar was still at zero. The System’s suggested tasks—cooking for him, heart-to-heart talks, emotional breakthroughs—I ignored them all. Instead, I let Gavin cook for me. Occasionally, when he was doing laundry, I’d toss my sweaters into his basket. Eventually, he just started asking if I had anything that needed washing. He was settling into the role of a husband, even if it was a disgruntled one. The house felt different now. A cat, a dog, and a noisy wife. It was no longer a mausoleum. Since Gavin didn’t work, his only hobby was painting. He used to hide in his studio for days. Now, because the cat and dog wanted to be near people, he moved his entire setup—easel, canvases, paints—into the living room. Every day when I “woke up” from my naps, I’d see him there. He was beautiful, in a tragic, haunted sort of way. And I’m only human. Sometimes, I couldn’t help myself.
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