don't get i

rves instead of just saying it. She turns, slow and stiff, toward the woman in red. Everything inside her fee

s just dif

osing for a magazine, nothing out of place. But the air around her, it's changed. Where there was polish before, no

sn't-can'

e never my wife and a thousand memories she'd counted on, memorie

impersonal, almost clinical. Like she's cataloguing the

, but it leaves no room for quest

humiliation dissolve into the background noise. But before she can even try to dig her heels in, h

aughter and clinking glasses only make the undercurrent stronger. The music swells up behind them, voices blur into the

s the light and eats up the noise unti

tops. Turns. Rea

alks for

she owns it, squeezing out air and certainty until there's just the two of them. N

oice sounds scraped raw, just

e from the ballroom. This one's smalle

eyes steady. "Because you're still c

understand enough." The wo

y

the question is l

more now, the corridor shrinking around them. Ariel can feel the implication, even if she can'

, just casual cruelty. "Or betrayal. You're stuck on the idea of some tragic,

gers curl a

marriage." It's a weak protest.

on-her eyes flick over Arie

ore than

e the shimmer of her makeup, the steady in-and-out o

you wer

ike a slap-no w

body literally won't move. It's like someone

out as a syllable,

othing. "He knew," she repeats. "Long before tonight

won't work. Her head races-denial scrabbling for somet

pers. "That's

, certain, sha

still ch

gravity tilts sideways. Those three words rattle around in

k

k

Kn

sliding against the polished floor. The corridor'

ords are empty, dissolving even as she

st gentle now, like she's genuinely curious. "

der Ariel's skin, worse

ns, but nothi

enough their breath mixes. That

murs, voice close, almost soft. "Y

ueezed tight. The truth, or whatever this

It slips out, desperate f

hen gives her the a

Just enou

nsides bo

nt

s man was hers. All those late nights, the emotional gaps, the tiny changes she'd

rds are smaller now, b

le is faint. "T

aughter echoes down the hall-a part

like it's pushing her from some far-of

Desperation gives her voice a

g. "For you." Her eyes don't waver. "I

Planned, measured. Like she's bee

cks up, wild and

inis

at from her skin, catches her own face reflected in t

he woman

es in-clean, sharp, bigger than betr

ks. But part of her already kno

s in until her lips hover right by Ariel's e

just an engag

ath sticks

ain, sharp and wild, underlining the next

elebration o