Georgia's POV
The idea hasn't just simmered. It's festered like a splinter beneath skin for weeks, twisting deeper with each heartbeat. Not rebellion. Survival. Oxygen in lungs grown paper-thin. Attending the exhibition alone is my desperate gasp for air in the asphyxiating perfection Josiah has architected around me.
My husband doesn't just control me. He curates me, a living brushstroke in his collection of beautiful, expensive things. His associates shadow me like ravens when he can't be there himself, their eyes recording every flutter of my hands, every hesitant smile.
To be owned so completely feels like drowning in honey. Exquisite and terrible.
After dinner, I find him in his study. That sacred sanctum where decisions that sculpt my life are etched in stone without my chisel ever touching the surface. The brandy in his glass captures lamplight in hypnotic amber spirals. Documents command more of his attention than I ever could.
I'm white noise in my own marriage.
I step inside. The silk of my dress announces me before my voice can. The wedding ring on my finger catches the light, a twenty-four-carat handcuff growing heavier by the day.
"Josiah?" My voice is steady. Beneath it, something twisted and writhing fights for release.
He doesn't look up. Not immediately. "Hmm?"
Clipped. Clinical. The sound a doctor makes before delivering a terminal diagnosis.
"I heard about an exhibition opening this weekend." The words carry delicate weight. "The gallery on Fifth Street. Their new collection on modern impressionism. I'd like to go."
His hand freezes mid-sip, suspended. When he finally sets the glass down, the clink against wood sounds like a judge's gavel. His steel-gray eyes finally find me, and the temperature plummets. They move over me the way a butcher assesses meat.
"We have the gala at the Fairchilds' estate that evening."
"Yes, but it's in the afternoon. I'll be home long before we need to leave." My fingers betray me, twisting at my sleeve's edge. "It would mean so much to me. I've been feeling restless lately and—"
"Restless?"
The word hangs between us like a noose. Wrong word. Dangerous word.
I recalibrate instantly. "I mean... I just feel like I need to do something meaningful. Something outside the usual circles. The same conversations, the same faces..." I move closer, the way you might approach a venomous snake. "You always tell me I should cultivate my own interests."
His fingers tap against the armrest. Methodical. Patient. One, two, three, four. The sigh that finally escapes him isn't relief but resignation.
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt." He picks up his glass again. "But Samuel will take you in the car, and you'll go straight there and back. No unnecessary stops. Understand?"
I keep my face neutral. Too much gratitude would trigger suspicion. Too little would suggest ingratitude. "Of course."
"And Georgia?"
I pause at the door. "Yes?"
"Don't embarrass yourself." His eyes don't leave his documents. "Or me."
I slip out, closing the door with practiced softness. Each step down the hall accelerates like a heartbeat in pursuit. For one afternoon, I will shed "Mrs. Josiah Mason" like dead skin. I will be Georgia. Just Georgia.
And that terrifies and thrills me in equal measure.
Josiah's cruelty isn't limited to private moments. It blooms most beautifully under watchful eyes, a performance art that requires an audience.
At a charity gala downtown, a woman named Evelyn corners me. Her curiosity is barbed and deliberate. Her diamond earrings catch the light as she leans in, lips curved in faux concern.
"Do you ever think about what kind of mother you'll be?" She asks it surgically. "You must have pressure, being so young and married to Josiah."
Before I can form my armor, Josiah appears.
"Georgia, darling." His voice comes sweet venom. "You must think about it. Your role in my life isn't just about being beautiful. You should take interest in things that truly matter."
The room goes silent. All eyes turn to me, witnessing my public execution.
"Like what?" I manage, fighting for breath.
"Children, naturally." He smiles at the gathered crowd. "A man in my position needs heirs. It's something we've discussed, haven't we, darling?"
We haven't. Not once. But I can't say that here.
"Of course." My voice is a stranger's. Small. Broken. "I'll be sure to consider that."
He doesn't acknowledge my response. He doesn't need to. Message delivered, he retreats into glacial indifference, and I become invisible again. The weight of eyes on me feels physical, pressing me down, flattening me into nothing.
Evelyn touches my arm, her pity worse than her curiosity. "He's right, you know. You're so young. You have time."
I nod. Smile. Die a little more inside.
Later, in the car, silence stretches between us like a corpse. I examine my hands in the passing streetlights, wondering when they became so unfamiliar. These delicate fingers with their perfect manicure. Are they mine? Have they ever been?
"You need to learn your place, Georgia." His voice comes sharp as a razor. "People don't want your opinions. They want to be impressed by your beauty. That's your role."
I don't answer. What is there to say when your existence has been reduced to decorative purpose?
"Do you understand me?"
"Yes." The word tastes like copper.
"Good." He turns to look out his window. "The Hendersons are hosting next month. I expect you to do better."
Better. As if I'm a product that needs improvement. A project that requires refinement.
"I'll do my best."
"See that you do."
The truth is simple and devastating. There will be no next time, no redemption arc, no moment when Josiah will suddenly see me. Each event, each function, each hollow conversation drives the wedge deeper. I'm fading, dissolving molecule by molecule.
The more I try to exist in his world, the less of me remains.
And Josiah? He never notices my disappearance. Or maybe, and this thought cuts deeper than any knife, he orchestrated it from the beginning.
Maybe the vanishing was the point all along. Maybe I was meant to dissolve until nothing remained but the shape he wanted. A silhouette filled with emptiness. A vessel for his ambitions.
As I stare out the window at the city lights blurring past, I feel something shift inside me. Something hard and cold and dangerous forming in the hollow space where my heart used to be.
If disappearing is inevitable, perhaps I should embrace it. Perhaps I should disappear so completely that not even Josiah can find me.
After all, what can't be seen can't be controlled. What doesn't exist can't be possessed.
And in that final vanishing might lie the only freedom I will ever know.