𝙎𝙐𝙉𝙎𝙀𝙏 𝘽𝙊𝙐𝙇𝙀𝙑𝘼𝙍𝘿 // 𝙍𝙊𝙎𝙀́ 𝙓 𝙍𝙀𝘼𝘿𝙀𝙍

𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙏𝙬𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙮 𝙊𝙣𝙚 - 𝙋𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙎𝙤 𝘽𝙚𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙛𝙪𝙡, 𝙄𝙩 𝙈𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨

New York, Present Day

Irene Holt stares at me in disbelief.

Over the course of a few months, Irene and I have gotten close. She's the daughter I never had and I'm the mother she wish stayed. I'm no longer surprised when she gushes about me and tells me how much her father adored my fashion sense when she was growing up. I know I'm an icon. A music icon, a fashion icon. I'm no stranger to doing interviews that look back on my most iconic looks. I've walked runways and I've designed my own clothes. I've sold out stadiums and I've written albums that have gone platinum. I know Irene Holt is a fan of mine but there was never any indication that she was also a fan of my wife until now.

I've exposed some of my dirtiest secrets to Irene for the sake of her time piece that was centred around my decades long marriage with my wife before she passed away and my biography, yet she's never shown such disdain for my poor life choices until now.

Her mouth is slightly agape with the bottle of wine that she was nursing now completely forgotten. She has this look in her eyes that makes me want to run away and hide, like I've been caught with my hand in the cookie jar. It's the same exact look that Y/N gave me when she found out about my affair.

The look that makes your gut churn and your heart squeeze.

I feel almost embarrassed.

"That was all it took? A visit to your dressing room?" Irene has the look of a child of divorce. She looks just as betrayed like Y/N did all those years ago. It's still a look that haunts my deepest memories. She's no longer here with me but that look of hers from nearly sixty years ago still follows me every where I go.

Y/N forgave me but that was the hardest road I had to trek. I nearly lost her to another woman.

"Evan and I connected on a different level. He understood the struggles that Y/N couldn't." Even decades later, I still don't have an answer as to why I had an affair with Evan Mock. There wasn't anything wrong with the way Y/N loved me, she loved me fully and beyond. She was everything I could've asked for but it still wasn't enough for me that I had to go look for something in someone else. Maybe it was the thrill? The thrill of being someone's dirty secret? Or maybe it's the insecurities and issues that I had fooled myself into believing I had overcome just because I married a successful and insanely attractive woman. The issues and faults were still there even after reaching success and I couldn't understand why it had still followed me all the way to stardom.

I always thought successful people weren't prone to mistakes and hurt. I thought I was doing something wrong when I kept fucking up while Y/N was perfect the way she was.

Maybe I was envious of my own wife for being so fucking perfect all the time. It felt like she had no flaws and as much as I worshipped her perfection, I hated it. When I found another successful person who hadn't seemed as perfect, I jumped on the opportunity to sleep with them to make myself feel better. I was thrilled over the way there was another person who didn't have their shit together despite having money all around them.

I thought Evan Mock understood me in ways that Y/N never could but it was me who couldn't understand myself. Y/N was just there for me to pick apart when I was tired of picking myself apart. Unconsciously, I started to resent how perfect Y/N seemingly was that she became a punching bag that I was okay hurting.

"And that makes it okay to cheat on your spouse?" Irene counters back at the edge of her seat. "Of course not," I look away ashamed. "I had issues, Irene. Deep rooted issues that fucked me up in so many ways-"

"Everyone has issues Roseanne but that does not make it an excuse to hurt other people."

"I know that, sweetheart," I lay a comforting hand on her knees and I breathe a sigh of relief when she doesn't back away from my touch like I'm something filthy. "I didn't know this would affect you so much, were you a fan of my wife?" I try to lighten the mood but she doesn't budge. "My father was always so envious of your marriage when I was little. He praised how much Y/N loved you and wished that he had someone who could love him as much as she did with you. To hear that you broke her heart continuously but she never left you creates this....this anger in my chest because Y/N deserved better."