Only a Dream Left in This World

When I went to pick Diana Grant up, she just tossed the car keys toward me.

Dangling from the silver ring was a plush white bear pendant. I paused, knowing that she had never kept a keychain or a decorative charm on her keys.

Once I slid into the driver's seat, the entire alignment felt off. The seat had clearly been adjusted.

"Did you let someone else drive your car?" I asked, keeping my voice casual.

Dazed from the alcohol, she offered a dismissive shrug. "Yeah. I lent it to an employee for a quick business trip."

I didn't press further.

The next morning, the chime of the doorbell broke the silence of the house.

When I pulled the door open, a shy, clean-cut young guy was standing on the porch. He blinked, then forced a sheepish smile and handed over a cup of coffee.

"Hi," he stammered. "I'm just here to drop off a fresh coffee for Ms. Grant."

But my attention wasn't on the coffee. My gaze dropped to his left hand.

Twirling lazily around his index finger was a set of keys, and swinging from the metal loop was the same white bear pendant.

I took the coffee cup from his hand and quietly closed the door.

In the room, Diana's phone lit up on the table. A new notification flashed across the lock screen.

It was a message that read: [Diana, I just met your husband. He looks kind of scary. Coffee was delivered safely anyway. Try to drink less alcohol next time, okay?]

I picked up the phone and pulled up the video camera. With the recording running, I held the coffee cup over the kitchen sink and slowly poured the warm liquid down the drain.

Then I uploaded the recorded video to Diana's social media, broadcasting it to her entire social circle.

The caption read: [Thanks for the concern, but she doesn't drink coffee.]

Diana Grant had just woken up when she threw her phone at me, her face flushed with anger.

"Pierre, who gave you the right to touch my phone?" she barked. "That coffee was brought to me with genuine care. Can't you show a little decency?"

In all the years we had spent together, this was the first time she had ever lost her temper with me. All over a cup of coffee.

My eyes drifted to the screen. The top comment under the coffee video was a sad-face emoji from Tyler Bennett.

I turned back to the stove and poured the hangover soup I had been simmering.

My voice remained flat. "The last time you drank coffee, you ended up in the hospital. The doctor warned you that your caffeine allergy is severe. Did you forget?"

Diana blinked, her defensive momentum stalling for a fraction of a second. She swallowed hard, trying to regain her footing. "Even so, you shouldn't go through my phone without permission."

"You gave him our home address," I interrupted, my voice dropping. "You let him drive your car. You even have matching pendants on your keychains. Don't you think you owe me an explanation?"

Her expression shifted, but then, she laughed mockingly. "An explanation? You're getting this paranoid over a cup of coffee?"

Her eyes flickered as she continued, "He's just a barista at the coffee shop. Nothing is happening. Are you happy now?"

She snatched her coat from the sofa, pausing just long enough to deliver a final blow. "At least he has a real job. Unlike you, sitting around the house doing nothing all day."

The front door slammed shut with a force that made my chest physically ache. Her words echoed relentlessly in my mind.

"Doing nothing all day."

For as long as I could remember, Diana had occupied every corner of my existence.

My mother died from complications during childbirth; my father suffered from a severe mental illness and vanished, leaving me as an unwanted, unadoptable orphan.

Then Diana showed up, telling me I would be her big brother and the one she would love forever. As a kid, I didn't comprehend how long "forever" truly was. I only knew that I finally had a family.

For over 20 years, we were inseparable. But everything changed when she inherited her family's conglomerate.

"Pierre, quit your job at the law firm," she had pleaded back then. "Managing the company is exhausting. Can you stay home and take care of things for me?"

For that one request, I threw away my career to manage her daily routine. In return, I became the ultimate target of ridicule among her social circle.

They mocked me behind my back, calling me the gold standard of a kept husband.

My friends used to warn me, "Pierre, you can't surrender your career and identity just to revolve around Diana."

They had been right, but I had chosen to live on a diet of false hope.

By the time I pulled myself out of memories, the hangover soup on the counter had gone cold. Diana hadn't taken a single sip.

I poured the liquid down the drain, pulled out my phone, and looked up the café downstairs from her corporate headquarters. From there, it was easy to find Tyler's personal account.

He had amassed quite a following, and the first video was from three months ago. It was a shot of a cozy dinner with over 100,000 likes.

The caption read: [My sweet Diana learned how to cook just for me.]

The words hit me in the gut.

Diana had always been dependent on me. Because I took care of everything, she never stepped foot in the kitchen, let alone wore an apron.

She used to whine for ten minutes just to get me to peel an apple for her.

My fingers tightened around my phone as a memory from three months ago flashed in my mind. Diana had wrapped her arms around my waist when I was preparing dinner.

"Honey, teach me how to cook," she had cooed. "I don't want you to be so tired every day."

It hadn't been for me at all.

I closed the app and shut off the screen, a suffocating tightness blooming in my chest. I had lived under the assumption that while her life was full of endless possibilities, my life only had room for her.

I had been wrong from the very beginning.