Behind The Wrong Mask

I decided three things before I even walked into that ballroom. One, I would not cry again tonight; my makeup had already suffered enough. Two, I would eat something, because heartbreak on an empty stomach makes terrible decisions, and I have a personal policy against terrible decisions on principle. Three, I would enjoy exactly one dance with Roman and then spend the rest of the night avoiding him like a responsible adult who is definitely moving out soon and definitely getting over this.

I broke rule three within the first ten minutes. I am nothing if not consistent.

Roman was waiting at the foot of the staircase, one shoulder against the banister, like he had been there a while and did not want it noticed. He straightened the second he saw me.

I had smoothed the dress, fixed my face, and given myself a full pep talk in the mirror, and none of it mattered, because his eyes went straight to mine and stopped.

“You’ve been crying.”

“Allergies.” I kept my voice light, adjusting a strap that did not need adjusting. “Apparently I’ve developed new ones.”

“You don’t have allergies.” He said it like someone reading a label he had memorized years ago. “Rose.”

“It’s my party, isn’t it?” I made myself look up and give him a small, safe smile. “Let me have it. Please.”

Something moved in his face, a question he wanted to ask and a door he was choosing not to push. It was the smallest kindness in the world, and it nearly undid me when he let it go.

His gaze traveled down to my dress and back up.

“You wore it,” he said.

“You told me to wear something I liked.” I smoothed the fabric, mostly to give my hands something to do. “I liked this.”

“I noticed.” His gaze moved over me slowly, and for one dangerous second I let myself believe it meant something before reminding myself, the way I always have to, that men like Roman look at everything that way. He offered his arm. “Come on. Before someone finds a reason to make a speech.”

The doors opened onto a ballroom transformed into something out of a movie, so obviously nothing to do with my actual life. Just inside, a long table held masks on black velvet, and a woman in an evening gown was already pressing one into the hands of the guest ahead of us.

“Masks,” I said. “Nobody told me masks.”

“Nobody told me either.” Roman took a black one from the velvet without looking, as though it had been waiting for him.

I took longer. I chose the deep blue one, trimmed in silver to match my dress, because it had the smallest openings for the eyes. The more of me it hid, the better. I was still trying to secure the ribbon behind my head when I looked up at him.

He was already wearing his. It concealed just enough of his face to make the rest of him more striking, especially his eyes. They looked darker behind the mask, almost unnervingly so.

Inside, every guest was hidden behind a mask, and the room hummed with the energy of a hundred people pretending to be more interesting than they actually were, glasses clinking somewhere near the strings quartet, someone’s laugh cutting sharp through the noise every few seconds like it was competing for attention. It suited the night. I felt like I was pretending too, only at something bigger than usual, with higher stakes than I had admitted even to the mirror.

Across the room, a woman in a gold feathered mask laughed with her head thrown back, and even without seeing her face I recognized her. Vivian. Roman’s current girlfriend.

I looked away before it could hurt, and it hurt anyway.

He held his hand out for a dance before I could think of an excuse, and I took it because I have never once had a real defense against him. The music was slow enough that talking felt optional. His palm was warm against my lower back, and for a few stolen minutes I let myself pretend we were just two people allowed to want each other in public.

I memorized it on purpose, some part of me already understanding I would need something to hold onto once this house stopped being mine to walk through freely.

Then his steps faltered.

It was small at first, barely a stumble, but I caught it. His eyes had gone glassy, and his movements suddenly seemed too loose, too slow to belong to the Roman I knew.

“Roman?”

“I’m fine. Warm in here.” His voice had thickened at the edges, slurred just slightly.

He was not fine.

Sweat gathered at his temple. His pupils were unusually wide, and when I touched his hand, his skin felt clammy. He was conscious and breathing normally, but his coordination was deteriorating by the second.

Someone had put something in his drink.

The realization dropped cold into my stomach. Whatever it was had not knocked him unconscious, but it was clearly affecting his judgment and control. Looking around at a sea of masks, I would probably never know who had done it.

“We need to get you upstairs.” I slid his arm over my shoulders and took as much of his weight as I could carry, adrenaline doing most of the heavy lifting my actual arms could not.

I steered us toward the service door behind the coat check, the one the caterers used, and nobody looked twice. In a room full of masks, nobody wanted to be the one who noticed anything.

He did not argue, and that scared me more than anything else could have, because Roman did not simply let things happen to him. We made it to his room by the back stairs, with him leaning heavily against me and murmuring things that did not fully connect.

I got him onto the bed and pulled off his shoes. His hands were shaking slightly, and I was painfully aware of how close I was, how his shirt had come half undone during the walk up, how even flushed and unsteady he still looked dangerous and beautiful.

I told myself I had been useful, that I had done what I could and it was time to leave. I turned.

His hand caught my wrist.

“Don’t go.” His voice was low and rough, stripped of its usual careful register, but the words themselves were clear, and deliberate, leaving no room for confusion. “I need you.”

My heart slammed against my ribs, hoping he had finished the sentence.

“…to get Vivian.” His eyes were half-lidded, unfocused, but there was no delirium in his voice, nothing I could later pretend had scrambled his mind. “Bring her here. Be fast.”

The word landed like a slap. And I couldn’t contain the disappointment that smeared through the whole of my body.

He was not so far gone that he had mistaken me for her. He knew exactly who he wanted, and it had never once been me, not even tonight, not even like this. I had spent years quietly accepting that fact in daylight. I had never had to accept it standing this close to him in the dark, his hand warm around my wrist, asking me clearly, on purpose, to go and fetch someone else.

“Okay,” I heard myself whisper. “I’ll get her.”

I made it as far as the hallway before I stopped.

The thought of actually finding her, of walking her back down this hall and handing him over the way you hand over something that was never yours to keep, made something in my chest curl up and refuse to move another step. I did not want anyone else to have this. Not even for a minute.

I hated myself a little for that. I lingered anyway, telling myself I only wanted to check on him once more before doing the responsible thing.

That was when I saw it on a small table outside the terrace: gold feathers, the same ones I had watched across the ballroom. Vivian’s mask.

I stood there arguing with myself that I shouldn’t be arguing with myself.

This is insane, I told myself.

I picked it up anyway, telling myself it was only to move it out of the caterers’ way. I carried that lie back down the hall, and only when I stood outside his door did I admit what I was actually doing.

Why couldn’t it be me? Just once.

Watching everyone else get to be wanted out loud while I stayed exactly where I had always been, useful, quiet, unclaimed.

I almost turned back three times.

Every time, the mask felt heavier than it should have. I took mine off, and set it on his nightstand. My hands shook as I secured Vivian’s ribbon. Even then, I stood frozen by the door, telling myself there was still a chance I would walk out.

I did not.

I crossed to the small lamp by his bed, my hand hovering over the switch as I made one final, useless negotiation with myself, weighing years of loving him quietly against one night of finally being allowed to have him.

Just one night with him.

I turned off the light before I could talk myself out of it again.

I let the dark hide everything it needed to hide, and stepped closer.