I listened to a few seconds through my headphones.
There was no ambiguity.
No missing context.
No possible way to misunderstand what they had said.
I saved the recording, made a second copy, and sent it to an email account Grayson didn’t know existed.
Then I crawled out.
My wedding dress was grey with dust along one side. My veil had torn where it caught on the frame. My knees hurt, and my hands were shaking.
I stood before the mirror and stared at the woman looking back at me.
She still wore a wedding ring.
She still had flowers pinned into her hair.
But she was no longer the woman who had entered that room an hour earlier.
I wanted to wake Grayson and demand an explanation. I wanted to call my father and tell him to come get me. I wanted to run into the corridor and scream until everyone in the hotel knew what kind of man I had married.
