The silk of my wedding dress felt like chains against my skin.
I stood before the floor-length mirror in my childhood bedroom, staring at the woman I'd become or perhaps, the woman I'd destroyed myself to become. Six years. Six years of sacrifice, of bending myself into impossible shapes, of pouring every drop of my soul into making Adrian Sterling love me the way I loved him.
The dress was perfect. Ivory silk that cost more than most people's cars, hand-beaded with crystals that caught the lamplight like fallen stars. My reflection should have been radiant, glowing with the joy of a bride-to-be. Instead, I looked hollow. Beautiful, but hollow. Like an exquisite porcelain doll with nothing left inside.
My fingers traced the intricate beadwork, remembering how I'd spent months designing every detail with the seamstress. Adrian had been too busy to care about such things always too busy with work, with his friends, with everything that wasn't me. But I'd told myself it didn't matter. Tomorrow, when he saw me walking down that aisle, when I became Mrs. Adrian Sterling, everything would change.
Six years of waiting for everything to change.
The knock on my door made my heart skip. "Come in," I called, expecting my maid of honor or perhaps my stepmother with some last-minute detail about tomorrow's ceremony.
But it was Adrian who stepped through the doorway, and the expression on his face made my blood turn to ice.
His usually perfect hair was disheveled, as if he'd been running his hands through it. His tie hung loose around his neck, and there was something in his eyes guilt, perhaps? Or was it relief? Either way, it wasn't the look of a man excited to marry the love of his life.
"Elena," he said, and my name sounded like an apology on his lips.
"You're not supposed to see me before the wedding," I whispered, but the words felt stupid even as I said them. Something in his posture, in the way he couldn't quite meet my eyes, told me that wedding superstitions were the least of our problems.
He closed the door behind him, the soft click somehow ominous in the silence. "We need to talk."
Those four words. How many relationships had died with those four words?
I turned away from the mirror, away from the hollow-eyed bride staring back at me, and faced the man I'd given everything to love. "What's wrong? Are you nervous? Because it's normal to have pre-wedding jitters, Adrian. Everyone says"
"I'm not marrying you tomorrow."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I actually took a step backward, my hand instinctively reaching for the dresser to steady myself. "What?"
"I can't marry you, Elena. Not tomorrow. Not... not yet."
"Not yet?" My voice came out strangled, barely above a whisper. "Adrian, what are you talking about? Our families are already here, the church is decorated, the reception is"
"I'm marrying Sophia."
The world tilted. For a moment, I thought I might faint, the room spinning around me like a carnival ride gone wrong. Sophia. My stepsister. Sweet, fragile Sophia with her doe eyes and her trembling smiles and her mysterious illness that no doctor seemed able to cure.
"You're marrying... Sophia." I repeated the words, testing them, seeing if they made any more sense the second time. They didn't.
Adrian's hands were shaking as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small velvet box the engagement ring he was supposed to slip onto Sophia's finger tomorrow instead of renewing his vows with me. Wait, no. That wasn't right either. My thoughts were fragmenting, reality refusing to coalesce into anything that made sense.
"It's her dying wish," he said, and his voice cracked on the words. "Elena, you have to understand. She's... the doctors say she doesn't have long. Maybe six months, maybe less. She's loved me since we were children, you know that. And she's never asked for anything, never complained about her illness, never"
"Stop." The word came out sharp, cutting through his rambling explanation like a blade. "Just stop talking."
But he couldn't stop. The words kept pouring out of him like water through a broken dam. "It's not real, Elena. It's just... it's just to give her some happiness in her final months. Something to hold onto. And then, after... after she's gone, we'll get married. The wedding we planned, the life we wanted it'll all still happen. This is just temporary. Just until"
"Until she dies." My voice was flat, emotionless. Shock, I realized dimly. I was going into shock.
"Yes." He looked relieved that I seemed to understand. "Yes, exactly. And then we can be together. Forever, just like we planned."
I stared at him for a long moment, this man I'd loved with every fiber of my being, this man I'd rebuilt my entire identity around. Six years of my life. Six years of making myself smaller so he could feel bigger, of supporting his dreams while abandoning my own, of smoothing his path while letting mine grow wild with thorns.
And he wanted me to wait. Again.
He wanted me to accept a secondhand marriage after he'd already given himself to someone else. Even if that someone was dying. Even if it was 'just temporary.'
"Elena?" He took a step toward me, concern creeping into his voice. "Say something. Please. I know it's a shock, but you understand, don't you? You understand why this has to happen?"
And suddenly, inexplicably, I started to laugh.
It wasn't a nice laugh. It wasn't the musical sound that Adrian had once said reminded him of silver bells. This laugh was harsh, bitter, born from the ashes of every dream I'd ever surrendered for this man. It bubbled up from somewhere deep inside me, somewhere I'd forgotten existed.
"Elena, you're scaring me." Adrian's face had gone pale. "Please, just listen"
"I am listening," I gasped between fits of laughter. "I'm listening to you tell me that after six years of engagement, after planning this wedding for over a year, after I've given up everything for you, you want to marry someone else. But don't worry!" My voice pitched higher, hysteria creeping in around the edges. "It's just temporary! Just until she dies! And then you'll come back to me like nothing happened!"
"It's not like that"
"It's exactly like that!" The laughter stopped as abruptly as it had started, leaving only cold, crystalline fury in its wake. "Tell me, Adrian, what happens if she doesn't die in six months? What happens if the doctors are wrong? What happens if she recovers?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it, the answer written clearly across his face. He hadn't thought that far ahead. Or maybe he had, and he just didn't want to say it out loud.
"You haven't thought about that, have you?" I pressed on, my voice getting steadier with each word. "Because this isn't really about granting Sophia a dying wish. This is about you finally having an excuse to choose her. This is about you being too much of a coward to break up with me outright, so you're hiding behind her illness."
"That's not Elena, you know I love you"
"No." The word came out with such finality that Adrian actually flinched. "No, you don't. Because if you loved me if you had ever truly loved me you wouldn't be standing in my bedroom the night before our wedding asking me to wait while you marry someone else."
I walked to my jewelry box with steady steps, my hands surprisingly calm as I opened it and removed the engagement ring I'd worn for six years. The diamond caught the light, throwing rainbows across the wall such a beautiful thing to represent such an ugly lie.
Adrian's eyes widened as I held the ring out to him. "Elena, don't. Please. You're upset, you're not thinking clearly"
"I'm thinking more clearly than I have in years." I pressed the ring into his palm, his skin cold against mine. "Take it. Give it to Sophia. I'm sure she'll love wearing it to her wedding tomorrow."
"Elena"
"Get out."
"Please, just listen to me. After Sophia... after everything is over, we can start fresh. The wedding you want, the honeymoon we planned"
"GET OUT!"
The force of my scream seemed to shake the entire room. Adrian stumbled backward, clutching the ring, his face a mask of shock and hurt. Good. I hoped it hurt. I hoped it cut him as deeply as his words had cut me.
"You'll change your mind," he said quietly, reaching for the door handle. "When you've had time to think about it, you'll understand that this is the right thing to do. The selfless thing."
I turned back to the mirror, back to the hollow-eyed bride in the perfect dress. "The only thing I understand," I said without looking at him, "is that I never want to see you again."
The door closed behind him with a soft click, and I was alone.
Alone with my wedding dress and my shattered dreams and the terrible, liberating realization that I was finally free.
I sank onto my bed, still in my dress, and for the first time in six years, I didn't cry for Adrian Sterling. Instead, I closed my eyes and tried to remember who Elena Hartwell had been before she'd made herself into the woman Adrian wanted.
Tomorrow, while he married my stepsister, I would find out.
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