Chapter 1
Sarah
The fluorescent lights in the UCSF Medical Center emergency department never slept, just like the rest of us on the night shift.
At 2:30 AM, I was slumped over a stack of patient charts. My phone buzzed against the metal desk—Jake's name was flashing across the cracked screen.
I pressed it closer to my ear, glancing around the empty nurses' station.
"Jake, I'm at work. What happened?"
"Sarah! Baby, we fucking did it! One million downloads!"
His voice was shaking, practically vibrating through the phone.
"TechCrunch wants an exclusive! This changes everything, Sarah. Everything." I could hear him pacing—that manic energy he got when he was coding for eighteen hours straight, except this time it was pure joy.
Despite my exhaustion, something warm spread through my chest.
I replied, "That's incredible, honey. I'm so proud of you."
But even as I said it, I was thinking about Emma asleep in her bed, probably having kicked off her covers again. About how I hadn't seen her awake in two days because of these double shifts.
Jake continued, "There's more calls coming in. But Sarah, this is it. This is everything we've worked for."
The line went dead, leaving me staring at my reflection in the black screen.
By the time I dragged myself home at 4 AM. The apartment should have been dark, but warm light spilled from the living room.
I found Jake hunched over his laptop.
"...phenomenal user acquisition metrics..." The voice from his laptop was crisp, professional. "We'd like to discuss a ten million Series A."
Ten million. I froze in the doorway. On the screen, a middle-aged man in a polo shirt was leaning back in what looked like a very expensive office chair.
I slipped off my shoes, trying to process what I was hearing. Ten million dollars. The number felt surreal—bigger than our annual household income, bigger than Emma's college fund, bigger than anything I'd ever imagined.
Jake ended the call and spun around, his face split by the biggest grin I'd seen since Emma's first steps.
"Ten million!" He swept me into his arms, spinning me around the coffee table. "Can you believe it? Marc fucking Andreessen wants to invest in my app!"
I laughed despite my exhaustion, caught up in his infectious excitement. But when he set me down, his expression shifted.
He said, "God, I looked like such an amateur in that old t-shirt."
I responded, "You looked like yourself. That's what got you here."
He ran a hand through his disheveled hair, suddenly self-conscious. "Maybe that's the problem. Silicon Valley is a different league, Sarah. These guys... they're expecting someone who looks the part."
Two weeks later, I was standing in a gleaming space, feeling completely out of place.
Everyone there looked like they'd stepped out of a tech magazine—perfect haircuts, designer jeans that probably cost more than my monthly salary, conversations peppered with words like "disruption" and "scalability."
Jake's new desk was in the middle of it all, two massive monitors displaying charts I didn't understand. I'd brought him lunch.
A guy approached us.
"Brad. This is Sarah, my... partner," Jake said, and something cold settled in my stomach. Partner?
"Nice to meet you. Jake talks about you all constantly," I managed, keeping my smile steady.
"You must be so proud," Brad said. "Jake's destined to be the next unicorn founder."
I nodded and made small talk, but Jake's words kept echoing. Partner. Not wife. Not "this is Sarah, we've been married for six years." Just... partner. Like we were some kind of business arrangement.
That night, after giving Emma her bath, I was lying in bed scrolling through Jake's LinkedIn profile on my iPad. I wanted to see how the world was celebrating my husband's success.
His profile photo was new—professional headshot, crisp button-down, confident smile. But as I scrolled down, my stomach dropped.
[Relationship Status: Single.]
Every mention of our marriage, every photo with Emma, every trace of our family—gone. Like we'd never existed.
My fingers shook as I screenshotted the page and texted him.
[Honey, your LinkedIn says you're single? ]
His response came quickly: [Image consultant's advice. Just temporary.]
I replied to his text message. [Since when do we have an image consultant?]
[Marc introduced me. It's all about perception in this world, babe.]
I gazed at the screen, my fingers hesitating, leaving the response unwritten, my thoughts lingering unvoiced.
Saturday morning, Emma was building an elaborate Lego castle on the living room carpet, narrating every architectural decision to herself.
Jake was on the couch with his laptop, supposedly having a quiet morning with us, but his fingers hadn't stopped typing.
"Daddy, what are you building?" Emma climbed onto his lap before he could stop her, pointing at his screen.
I caught a glimpse of a LinkedIn profile—a stunning woman with blonde hair and knowing eyes, her credentials reading like Silicon Valley royalty.
Jake slammed the laptop shut so fast Emma jumped.
Emma asked again, "Daddy, who's the pretty lady on your computer? She looks like Elsa!"
"Just work stuff, sweetheart. Boring adult business." His laugh sounded forced.
Emma said, "She's so pretty! Can I meet her someday?"
Jake replied, "Maybe someday, baby. Daddy works with many important people now."
I asked, "Who are you talking about?"
Jake responded, "Madison from Sequoia Capital. She's... one of the top VCs in Silicon Valley."
The way he said her name—careful, reverent—made my chest tighten.
Emma bounced on his knee. "Is she a princess, Daddy? She looked like a princess!"
"Something like that," Jake murmured, and I pretended not to notice how his fingers hovered over his closed laptop.
That night, long after Emma was asleep and I'd fallen into exhausted unconsciousness, I woke to find Jake's side of the bed empty. The blue glow from his phone illuminated the living room where he sat in the dark.
I should have gone back to sleep. I should have trusted him. I should have believed that whatever was keeping him up at 11 PM was just work.
Instead, I lay there listening to the soft tap of his fingers on the screen, watching the light flicker across his face. He was smiling at something—the kind of smile I hadn't seen directed at me in weeks.
From where I lay, I couldn't see what had captured his attention. But I didn't need to. The way he was holding that phone, the careful way he was typing, the secret smile—it all told me everything I needed to know.
My husband was becoming someone I didn't recognize. And for the first time since that jubilant phone call in the ER, I was afraid of what his success might cost us.
I watched him there in the darkness, bathed in that cold blue light, and realized that Jake wasn't just chasing a unicorn company worth billions. He was chasing a completely different version of himself.
And I was no longer part of Jake's success story. I was just something he needed to manage, to explain away, to keep in the shadows while he stepped into the spotlight.