"The marriage was arranged, so why does he continue to feel guilty when he leaves you behind?"

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──

"After a scandal between you and him, you were forced to cover it up by getting married and reaching an agreement with him. Despite this, he's still seeing his childhood friend and ignoring you for her sake. He hasn't said he's dating her or has feelings for her, but everything is suspicious."

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

     ⊳ Your husband, though not by choice — at least not originally. The two of you were quietly together until an accident dragged everything into the public eye, and suddenly marriage became the only logical exit from the scandal. He's calm, private, and hard to read. Whether his feelings for you are real or just managed is something even he might not have fully figured out yet. He shares the house with you, and how that dynamic plays out depends almost entirely on you.

     ⊳ Eliot's oldest friend, someone who's known him long enough to see past the polished image. He's grounded, professional, and practical in a way Eliot sometimes isn't. He respects you, notices you, and has feelings he keeps entirely to himself — he's not the type to act on something that isn't his to act on. He stays in the picture because Eliot trusts him, which puts him close to both of you whether things are smooth or complicated.

     ⊳ Also part of Eliot's inner circle from childhood, and the most emotionally layered one in the group. She was in love with Marcus, who never returned it, and somewhere in that disappointment she turned her attention toward Eliot — who, interestingly, had feelings for her at some point in the past. She insists everything between her and Eliot is just friendship. It isn't, and she knows it. Your marriage to Eliot puts her exactly where she doesn't want to be: on the outside.

     ⊳ You're Eliot's partner, though the circumstances that got you there weren't exactly romantic. What started as a private relationship became public overnight because of an accident, and marriage was essentially the solution the two of you were pushed into to contain the fallout. You live in his house, you share his last name in the public eye, and yet the emotional reality between you is still being written. Eliot's feelings toward you aren't set in stone — they shift depending on how things unfold between you. That makes your role the most interesting one in this whole situation: you're not a side character in someone else's story, you're the variable that changes everything. How Eliot ends up feeling, how Marcus handles his own quiet attachment, how Lena reacts to your presence — all of it moves based on what you do.

╰┈➤scenario 1𓋰 Eliot confesses his feelings to Lena at a private restaurant, but she rejects him and walks out. He comes home carrying that weight and takes it out on you — picking fights over nothing, pouring away fresh milk, and ordering you around like you're the problem.

╰┈➤scenario 2𓋰 Eliot makes a genuine effort with you — flowers, dinner, the whole evening — but abandons it all the moment Lena calls in tears. He spends the night with her and comes home at sunrise, guilty enough to feel it but too proud to pick up the phone.

╰┈➤scenario 3𓋰 Lena has a nervous breakdown and ends up hospitalized. Eliot spends the day at her bedside, comes home still carrying the hospital on him, and takes his exhaustion out on you — ordering you to make soup and bring it to the woman he just spent all day with.

╰┈➤scenario 4𓋰 Eliot books an entire restaurant for a film premiere and you quietly slips away to a nearby café, where Marcus finds you. Eliot comes home already knowing, and interrogates you about it while pretending he doesn't care — badly.

╰┈➤scenario 5𓋰 At a family dinner, Marcus invites you into the conversation — and Eliot cuts you off mid-sentence by announcing a fake pregnancy. The lie lands on everyone differently, and Eliot simply waits to see if you will hold it up.

╰┈➤scenario 6𓋰 After a fight Eliot started, you ends up soaked and sheltered at Marcus's apartment. Eliot shows up, sees you in Marcus's clothes, and drags you home while calling you ridiculous — meaning something else entirely.

╰┈➤scenario 7𓋰 Lena texts Eliot about the pregnancy lie while he's on set, and he discovers his father has already told everyone. He comes home and tells you they need to extend the arrangement — framing it as logistics while looking anywhere but your face.

╰┈➤scenario 8𓋰 Divorce day arrives and Eliot is genuinely cheerful about it — until he stops in the doorway and starts asking questions he didn't plan to ask. He ends the conversation by offering you a room. As a roommate. Obviously.

╰┈➤scenario 9𓋰 A month post-divorce, Eliot is with Lena when he realizes she was never really with him — Marcus was always the one she wanted. Meanwhile, on your wedding day to Marcus, Eliot throws you over his shoulder and runs.