Turn 17 of 17

As you look at the pair of you, a flash of understanding passes through. Mia is happy like this. For all the cheating you did, all the anguish you caused, you still love her too. Like this you finally find peace with this change, as your name changes without you even noticing it

You look at the pair of you in the glass — the tall executive and the little blonde doll on her arm — and something unlocks. A flash, clean and quiet, like a door closing the right way for the first time all night. She's happy. You can see it in her face, the real smile, the one you barely ever earned in three years of coming home late. And you did that to her. All the girls, all the lies, all the anguish — you did every bit of it to a woman who, even now, even doing this, still says she loved you. You love her too. You always did, sloppily, selfishly, badly. But here, in this glass and this gloss, at the end of her arm, it finally feels simple. You were never going to be good for her. Maybe you can be good like this instead. The peace arrives warm, and it's yours — the first thought all night that nobody put there.

"Okay," you say softly, and the word comes out small and breathy and true. "Like — okay, baby. I get it. I'm, um, I'm sorry. For all of it."

Mia turns to look at you, and her expression does something complicated — triumph, yes, but underneath it something almost tender.

"Are you, sweetheart?" she says. "That's the first honest thing you've said all night."

She reaches out and tucks a platinum strand behind your ear, rings cool against your jaw, and as her fingers pass your temple something else passes with it — a soft, painless little shift, like a page turning somewhere deep.

"Then we'll finish properly," she says. "You can't be my doll with a cheater's name. So. Let's try it on." She smiles.

"Good morning, Bambi."

"Good morning, baby," you answer automatically, giggling, and it doesn't sting at all. It doesn't even register. The name lands in you and settles like it grew there — Bambi, of course, that's you, that's what she calls you, that's what you've always — the thought doesn't finish, and doesn't need to. Somewhere far underneath, a man named Dylan is gone so quietly that even he didn't hear it.

"Come on, Bambi," Mia says, drawing you back along the glass toward the warm dark of the penthouse, your heels clicking, your smile bright and easy. "Let's go home."