You looked up from the couch toward the bathroom doorway where Jaafar stood, one hand smoothing over the front of a suit jacket that did not need smoothing. It had already been pressed into perfect lines, not a thread out of place, but he kept running his palms over the fabric anyway, like he could iron out whatever nerves underneath it.
At the time, it seemed like nothing more than one of his little habits.
You let the silence linger for a second, pretending to study him.
“Hmm.” You tapped a finger against the corner of your mouth before walking over to him. Your hands found his collar, straightening something that wasn't crooked. “I think you look so handsome.”
His smile came so easily. It was the same smile he wore whenever you complimented his curls or told him how beautiful his dark eyes were. Before it had the chance to spread any wider, you leaned in and kissed him. It was quick enough that when you pulled away, he was still smiling.
“What's this for?” you asked, giving the hem of his jacket a gentle tug.
He laughed through his nose.
“What do you mean, what's this for?”
He searched your face for a second, waiting for the joke that never came. When it didn't, he blinked slowly and looked away, shaking his head. There was still a smile on his face, but it looked tired now. Disappointment always seemed to find him before anger did.
He bit the inside of his cheek.
“Tomorrow is the Met Gala.”
Shit.
“I completely forgot.” You groaned, dragging both hands over the top of your head. “I already made plans. It's Tiffany's birthday tomorrow, and I told her I'd be there.”
“So you're not going?”
“I'll make the next one. I promise.”
You reached for him, but he stepped back, turning toward the mirror instead. He fussed with the front of his jacket again, though this time it wasn't about the jacket at all. He stared at his reflection longer than he looked at you.
“Don't be so dramatic, Jaafar.”
He laughed once, but there wasn't anything funny about it.
“Dramatic? Do you know how embarrassing it is to keep telling people you'll be there, and then you're not? Every single time I have something important, I have to make excuses for you. It feels like you don't care about me. It feels like I never come first.”
You let him talk because interrupting him would only make it worse.
But every word scraped against something raw inside you.
All you could think about were the mornings that started before sunrise, dragging yourself out of bed at four just to get him to set on time. Folding his laundry while he slept so he could wake up with one less thing to worry about. Sitting beside him until midnight, reading script after script while he tried to become people who looked nothing like him and lived lives he had never known.
None of those moments had cameras waiting for them.
None of them ended up in magazines.
None of them seemed to count.
“So because I'm not standing beside you on a red carpet while people take pictures of us, none of that means anything?” Your voice came out harsher than you meant it to. “Reading every draft with you until midnight. Making sure you had clean clothes. Driving you to set before the sun even came up. None of that counts because I'm not smiling for photographers?”
You swallowed hard.
“You really can be such a spoiled brat sometimes.”
Tomorrow finally came.
Outside of a quiet, “Morning,” spoken while you were both still tangled in sleep, Jaafar hadn't said a word to you.
You made breakfast anyway.
The apartment filled with people before either of you had finished eating. Stylists drifted through the rooms with garment bags slung over their shoulders. Someone dusted powder across his face while another adjusted the shoulders of his jacket. Hands were constantly on him, fixing his hair, pinning fabric, smoothing wrinkles only they could see.
You watched him disappear into all of it.
Eventually, he wandered into the kitchen. The refrigerator door opened with a dull creak before he reached for a bottle of water. His fingers rolled the cap back and forth without opening it.
“You can't even come for a few hours?”
You sighed.
“Trust me, Jaafar, I would love to watch you walk that carpet. I'd love to be standing beside you, holding your hand.”
“Then why aren't you?” he asked, irritation pulling at the corner of his mouth.
You glanced toward the living room where strangers pretended not to listen.
“We're not doing this in front of all these people.”
Your eyes dropped back to the plate in front of you. The eggs had gone cold. You weren't hungry anymore.
“I want a relationship with someone who's actually there for me.” His voice stayed even, which somehow hurt more. “And if you can't be that...”
Your head lifted before he could finish.
“...then I have to find someone who will.”
He turned before you had the chance to answer.
The moment he stepped back into the living room, someone called his name, asking him to try on a pair of ruby red socks to make sure they fit with the rest of the look. Conversation picked right back up around him, as though nothing had happened.
You stayed where you were.
It wasn't the threat that hollowed you out.
It was how easily he walked away from it.
For the first time since meeting in your early twenties, he looked at you like you belonged on the other side of the room. Like everything the two of you had built behind closed doors carried less weight than what people might see ahead of flashing cameras.
Maybe the signs had always been there.
Maybe success had started changing him long before either of you realized it.
Or maybe success had simply given him permission to become the version of himself that no longer needed you.
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