Reaching for the pair of scissors on the counter, I pulled my long, gold-soaked locks of hair into my hand and stared at myself once more in the mirror. Please…

…For as long as we both shall live. For as long as we both shall live. For as long…

I started cutting my shoulder-length hair. One strand at a time. Two strands. Five. Seventeen. Chopping. Tearing away at each layer more aggressively. Tears hitting the floor at the same speed as the golden strands. I closed my eyes as I chopped the final parts. Opening my eyes, I let out the breath I’d been holding for quite awhile.

Picking up the box of black hair dye, I looked at the new Meg Ryan, You Got Mail haircut I was sporting. The clock on the bathroom wall ticked loudly behind me, reminding me that time was still moving forward as I stood still. I looked at the clock, which said it was a little before midnight, and the streets of New York City were still alive. The sounds of sirens blaring made my skin crawl, and I watched the wicked window inviting the winds into the apartment, blowing the curtains with the crisp, autumn freshness.

I let out a sigh and began to overdose my hair with the dark ink, which ran down my face. I watched as the clock struck midnight.

Chapter Four

I STOOD OUTSIDE our New York Apartment and waited for her to answer the door. I would be lying if I said my heart didn’t skip a beat when I saw her. She looked amazing. Fuckin’ A, she was gorgeous. She smiled brightly and invited me in. “No, I just wanted to drop this off. You got my mail?” I handed Iris my key to the apartment and watched her disappear to retrieve my mail.

When Iris returned to the porch, she handed me my letters and sighed. “Come on, Cooper. Let’s talk. When did you get out?” I didn’t listen and turned to walk away. She was pretty much begging for my attention, “Seriously? That’s all I get?”

Turning back to her, I studied her stomach; she had to be about five months pregnant and she was starting to show. “Yeah, Iris. That’s all you get.”

I could feel my mind going back to the night I found out she was pregnant. It was hard to focus on the moment before me and I was about to lose it when I saw her and her stomach standing in front of me. I reached into my coat pocket and squeezed the stress ball I’d become accustomed to carrying around with me. Fuck. I shouldn’t have come here.

“It’s just, when you called I thought you were coming home…” she whispered. She had a bit of hope in her eyes, hope that I would give her the hug she was desperately in need of, hope that I would forgive her, and hope that I would come home.

What home? I thought to myself. I hadn’t had a home in quite some time and didn’t want Iris to get the wrong idea. “I said I was coming to drop off the key and pick up my mail. That’s all.”

Her hand reached out and grabbed my wrist. I raised an eyebrow, “You don’t want to do that, Iris.” She let go instantly. Looking down the street, I saw a few people with cameras snapping away at me. First, I was shocked. That was until I looked up to see Iris and realized how gorgeous she was. Even more beautiful than normal. High heels on to answer the door and not a hair out of place. “You called the paparazzi?” I questioned.

She glanced in their direction and back to me, whispering between her teeth. “If you come inside, we can talk. They’ll get their pictures and we can figure out where to go from here. You’ve been all over the tabloids since your…” She cleared her throat. “Since your vacation.”

“Unbelievable.” Stunned. I was f**king stunned by the actions of my twisted wife. “I’m done, Iris.”

I turned, choosing to walk in the opposite direction of the paparazzi, leaving a desperate woman standing there. The last thing I heard was her voice hollering down the street, towards me I assumed. “Okay! Love you.”

How did we get so messed up? I swore there was a time when we were happy, but that was a long f**king time ago.

IRIS WALKED INTO the living room wearing a tank top and panties. I smirked as I sat editing pictures from a photo shoot over in Paris. “Let’s go to bed.” She offered. I kept working; I had to get the edits to the magazine by the end of the week. She walked over to me, sliding between the desk and I. Wrapping her legs around my body, she rubbed her face against me. “Bed. Please?”

“I’m almost done…” I explained as I tried to peek around her sexy body pressed against mine.

Her hands rose to the air and her eyes lit up. I stopped peeking around her and allowed myself to take in the beauty of my wife. My hands lifted her tank top off and I rested my head against her stunning body, delivering her a few kisses.

“Bed?” I offered and she laughed lightly.

As I lifted her up, she snuggled her head into my shoulder and kissed my neck. “I’m pregnant.” My walking came to a halt, and she looked me in the eyes. “We’re pregnant.” She didn’t cry, but she was happy. I could see it in her face, and she could probably see the joy in mine. We had tried so f**king hard for so long and we were officially pregnant.

I covered her lips with mine as we continued onto the bedroom to celebrate our new beginnings.

I COULDN’T HELP but roll my eyes behind my sunglasses as I strolled down the streets of Manhattan with Kyle, my manager and best friend. He was rambling off nonstop about something or other, but I wasn’t really in the mindset of listening to him. As we walked past a newsstand I cringed, seeing my and Iris’s photo plastered on the cover. Most of the time, the headlines were extra insane. Total bullshit. But this time, some read ‘divorce,’ ‘mental health clinic,’ and ‘cheating scandal.’ They were spot on. Then again, whenever some famous couple had a fight, it was a divorce and cheating scandal with a sprinkle of crazy. So Kyle informed me to lay low and ignore it all.

It was tough to ignore it as the paparazzi scooted down the streets of New York with us, hardly giving us enough room to breathe. I was tired of all of this shit. Pulling my baseball cap lower, I cussed under my breath and continued walking.

“I told you not to go see her,” Kyle scolded me. I informed him of the mail exchange between Iris and me, and let’s just say he was less than pleased. “I mean, seriously. If this is going to blow over, we gotta communicate. You understand?”

My silence was enough to make him realize I was out of it. He softened his tone, patted me on the back, saying we should grab a bite to eat. The paparazzi’s questions were echoing in my ears. “Hey, Cooper! Over here! Where’s Iris?” “Coop! My man! Can we get an exclusive?” “Where have you been? We heard you took a trip to a mental health clinic after your breakdown at the bar a few months ago. Are you crazy? Tom Reed?”

When I heard Tom’s name I snapped my head up, rage running through me. Turning towards the cameras my eyebrow cocked up. Tom Reed. Tom Reed. None of the paparazzi’s lips were moving. They weren’t asking about Tom Reed at all. My f**ked up mind was just dishing out some more reminders of my messed up life.

The paparazzi drew in closer. My body tightened up. I was caged in by the wild animals chasing me. They wouldn’t let up. And that feeling I’d felt when Iris told me she was pregnant started creeping back into me. This was after all, her fault. She was the reason why they wouldn’t leave me the hell alone. She was the reason…

“Unclench your fists,” Kyle whispered harshly. I didn’t even know they were clenched. Relaxing my fingers, the fist format faded. Kyle smiled brightly for the cameras as he poked me in the side and delivered me a confirming grin. I took the order, smiled towards the cameras, and waved.

I was so happy when we sat inside the restaurant. One thing they weren’t allowed to do was follow me inside.

“My cousin is having a Christmas party. I got the invite when I picked up my mail from Iris.” I cringed when I said that. Even hearing her name from my lips made me sick.

“You have a cousin?” Kyle asked. I rolled my eyes and thought back to the proper invitation I had received. It was very fancy, the words written in beautiful cursive. The perfect shades of reds and silvers. A perfectly tied bow at the top.

“They asked me to be the photographer.”

Kyle laughed so hard he almost spit out his food, but he managed to choke it down. “Fat chance. What, do they think they can use your services whenever the hell they want? Get real.”

It was true people had a tendency to try to use me once I made it big, but I didn’t see my cousin’s family as those types of people. Within the past five years, my uncle Wayne had created a brilliant ‘As Seen On TV’ item that sold like wildfire and sent him to the outskirts of the small town he’d raised his family in.

Uncle Wayne made twist-on caps for beer and soda cans that kept one’s drink safely covered during outings to sporting events, parks, picnics, or whatever the hell people did outside. Needed to be outside? Uncle Wayne had a cap for that. They came in different colors. Some kept items chilled, some had inserts for straws, and let me be the first to say I had no clue why the hell people would buy them.

But my uncle had somehow hit it big, and he wasn’t afraid to live large. Therefore, they could have any experienced photographer at their holiday party, and the fact that they wanted me was kind of a compliment. But I hadn’t really spoken to them since the accident with my parents…

Kyle swiped a few fries from my plate. “I see you got your shoestrings back.” He laughed unnecessarily loud at his stupid joke. I chose to ignore the comment. He continued asking questions about my last few months spent in a mental clinic to ‘regroup.’ “Come on. Tell me what it was like there. Was it like that one movie with Jack Nicholson? One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest?”

“Fuck you, ass. It turned out to be a nice place. There were actually a lot of nice people there. I met Jesus.”

He choked on the water trying to go down his throat. I got a laugh out of that. “Excuse me. What?”

I looked at him as if he were crazed. “You know, Jesus? Jesus Christ? Really down to earth guy. Deep, too.” I pulled out the stress ball in my pocket and showed it to Kyle. “He actually gave me this to help me deal with my issues.”

Kyle was becoming uncomfortable as I watched him shift around in his chair. It wasn’t surprising—anything that wasn’t money or sex made Kyle uncomfortable. “We should really talk about the next steps for you. How to rebuild your image after this small mishap.”

I agreed 100%. I emailed him earlier with a road map of what I wanted to do. He hadn’t mentioned anything about it, so I figured I should bring it up. “What do you think of my idea?”

“I think it's f**king ridiculous. That's what you get for being around other crazies for so long.” After spending time in the clinic, Kyle assumed my new idea was the wacky medicines wearing off. “So as I said before, we should talk about the next steps.”

I informed him I didn’t want to talk about his next steps for me, but he didn’t care. “Cooper, you are at the top of your career! This little slip up isn’t stopping people from wanting to work with you! BIG people! Our type of people! You make millions each year, and there’s no reason for that to change.”

I didn’t care about the damn money. There was a time when I’d taken photographs out of pure love for it. Kyle should have known that—he had known me since we were kids. “It's not about the money. That's not why I do it. Well, that's why I did it before with Iris, but that's not why I want to do it now.”

Kyle smirked. “Did Jesus tell you to say that?”

I couldn’t get him to understand where I was coming from, but I was determined to try. “Shut up, I do it for…” I gestured to the front window. “Look.” We stared out the window and watched the life experience from the restaurant. There was a couple running, holding hands to get into a taxi. There was a man hollering at someone, probably a poor intern, on his cell phone. Three extremely attractive girls in high end fashion walked by, laughing with each other. An overwhelming level of excitement filled my gut as I realized that now Kyle would be able to understand what I was trying to get at.