I was selected by the System. My assignment: redeem one depressed, suicidal husband. I refused. When he held a knife to his arm, I ignored him, threw open the window, and screamed at the top of my lungs: "My brand-new pearl necklace just broke! Oh my god, I literally can't live!" My depressed husband, terrified I’d wake the neighbors, had to put the knife down to come and calm me down. "Shh, it's okay. We'll... we'll buy another one tomorrow." In the middle of the night, when he tried to sneak out for a "quiet walk" to the train tracks, I shoved my ice-cold feet into his pajama pants. "I'm freezing. Warm me up." He yelped, jolted awake, and instinctively grabbed my feet, pulling the covers tighter around us. Later, even after we'd gotten used to each other, he still wanted to die. I was still indifferent. "Fine. But can you at least divorce me before you go?" He froze. "I have to get divorced to die?" "Obviously. How else am I supposed to get out of this hellhole?" He suddenly grabbed me, his arms locking around my waist. "Then I'm not dying. We're not getting a divorce." 1 I was, very unfortunately, chosen by the System and dropped into the life of Julian Wu's wife. The wife of a dark, depressed, broody man. The System gave me the "great responsibility" speech, pleading with me: [Ms. Hayes, in this scenario, you can only return to your original world by successfully redeeming your wounded husband.] I yanked open the blackout curtains, letting the painful sun flood the room. I squinted at the empty air. "Why? "I commute two hours a day to a job I hate, work nine hours, and you expect me to come home and babysit a grown man out of killing himself? I want to kill myself." So, when Julian had his little episodes, I generally pretended not to see them. After the System's multiple warnings failed, it gave up. [Fine. If you can look at a man that handsome and not save him, you're a lost cause, Fiona. Have fun.] With the System gone, I really stopped caring about his life or death. 2 Julian was a trust fund kid. His grandfather had left him a fortune, so he never had to work. He was the classic "I don't want money, I want love" type. He had more money than he knew what to do with, and he was still depressed. And I, a corporate wage slave, was supposed to be the one to redeem this sad little rich boy. What a joke. Is a normal person's life not a life? I didn't have time for his existential angst. If he was going to be my husband, he could at least be useful. I wasn't about to cater to him. Today, like most days, he was holed up in his studio. I hammered on the door. Annoyed, he finally pulled it open a crack, just one dark, sunken eye staring at me. "What." His voice was flat. "I'm hungry. You. Cook." My voice was flatter. "No." He tried to slam the door. I jammed my foot in the frame and shoved it open. He stood there, all six-foot-two of him, staring blankly. His hair was so long it covered his eyes, showing only a sharp, pale jawline. He looked like a ghost, and it just pissed me off. "Go make dinner. Now. And then you're getting a haircut. You look like a vampire." Julian just stood there. I lost my patience, grabbed his wrist, and yanked. He stumbled forward, right into me, looking panicked. "Are you insane?" I brushed his greasy hair out of his eyes and, on impulse, stuck my own pink barrette in it. Seeing his whole, beautiful face, my anger faded. My voice softened. "Look, you're my husband, right? I'm hungry. If you don't take care of me, who will?" Julian blinked, as if the logic was new but... sound. He straightened his wrinkled shirt, pulled his sleeves down over the scars on his wrists, and went to the kitchen. "Chicken and rice again?" he asked, his voice muffled as he tied on an apron. I collapsed on the sofa. "Yep." 3 How do you live with a mentally ill person? You just treat them like a normal person. After dinner, as he was clearing the plates, I grabbed his coat and blocked his path to the studio. "I did the dishes. Let me go back to my room." He still had that cold attitude, but the pink cartoon barrette made it ridiculous. I couldn't help it. I snorted. "Pfft—" "What are you laughing at?" His brow twitched. The first real expression all day. "You're actually... kind of cute sometimes," I said. He started to argue, but I put a finger to his lips. "Shh. We're going. You're getting that haircut. I'm not living with a ghost." 4 Julian was angry. After the haircut, he stormed out of the salon and shoved the barrette back into my hand. "Here." I looked at him. The haircut had transformed him. He was... beautiful. I had no idea why he was mad. But if he was going to pout, I wasn't going to play. Our fancy suburban neighborhood was dead at night. We walked home, him in front, me behind, with the distance of a football field between us. He power-walked. I dawdled, spotting a stray cat and dog. "Here, kitty... hey, sweetie, c'mon..." A clean, pretty calico and a filthy, matted Samoyed. One had been a stray for a while. The other was freshly abandoned. The rule of strays is: "dibs." I'd hit the jackpot. A cat and a dog. The Samoyed—I'll call him Ghost—was wagging his tail so hard it was a blur. The calico—Pickles—was rubbing against my legs. I was giggling, and Julian, way up ahead, heard me. He stopped. With his new haircut, he looked less like a vampire and more like an off-duty model. "Why are you walking so slow?" he asked, annoyed. I cupped my ear. "What's that? Sorry, can't hear you from all the way over there." 5 He stalked back, ready to argue, but then he saw the cat. His eyes lit up. He crouched to pet it. I blocked him. "This one's mine." He moved toward the dog. I blocked him again. "This one's mine, too." "Finders keepers, you know the rules." His lips thinned. He thought for a second, then deployed my own logic: "We're married. Community property!" "Oh, now you remember we're married?" I said, dragging out the words. "What kind of married couple walks on opposite sides of the street?" He tried to argue. He just got red in the face. The System really miscast me for this "redemption" role.
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