I didn’t think about the veil anymore. I thought about the 2019 receipts. I thought about the way Aaron’s eyes had gone flat when he saw the wig. It wasn’t the wig that had broken us. It was the years of small, sharp lies I’d told, the kind that accumulate until they’re heavy enough to sink a ship.

I’d spent my life trying to control the narrative, trying to keep everyone in their place, and all I’d managed to do was move myself into the smallest, darkest corner of the room.

I reached the highway and didn’t stop. I kept driving until the gas light came on, until the road sign pointed toward cities I’d never seen before. I am the woman who stole a wedding’s heart, and I am the woman who finally lost her own. The silence in the car was absolute. It was the kind of silence that doesn’t just sit there. It waits.