There were jokes about the dress fitting.
There was a photo of Anya’s ring sitting on Lauren’s finger, Lauren’s hand held out like she was auditioning to be someone’s wife.
And there was a message from Ethan that hollowed Anya out so fast she almost didn’t feel herself falling:
She’ll never leave. She needs this more than I do.
Her vision narrowed to a tunnel. Sound became distant, muffled by the rush of blood in her ears. She tried to swallow and couldn’t. Her hands shook so hard the phone slipped from her fingers and clattered against the makeup table.
A lipstick rolled. Someone laughed at something across the room. The photographer—some cheerful guy in a button-down—asked her to tilt her chin “just a touch, perfect, right there.”
Anya stood up too quickly, the chair scraping, the robe slipping off one shoulder. Nobody noticed at first. They were all orbiting her like she was a sun they assumed would always stay in place.
She walked out of the suite and into the hallway. Her feet moved like she’d given them instructions in another life. The bathroom door was down the hall. She went into the nearest stall, locked it, and pressed her forehead to the metal divider.
Breathe.
Her mother’s voice echoed in her head, gentle and useless.
