Chapter 25 - The Woman in the Mirror
Three months after the annulment, my wedding photographs arrived.
I almost deleted the email.
Instead, I opened the gallery.
There I was.
White gown.
Soft curls.
My mother fastening my necklace.
My father kissing my forehead.
Mia laughing while trying to keep her flowers straight.
Then Julian.
Smiling.
Handsome.
Convincing.
In one photograph, he was looking at me as though I was the only person in the room.
Once, that picture would have broken me.
Now I studied it with strange detachment.
A photograph could preserve a moment.
It could not tell you whether the moment was true.
I continued scrolling.
Then I found a photograph taken during the reception.
Julian and Victoria stood in the background.
Neither was looking at the camera.
Victoria was whispering into his ear.
Julian’s expression was serious.
In the foreground, I was laughing with Mia.
Two stories existed inside the same image.
Mine.
And theirs.
For months, I had been furious that I hadn’t seen the warning signs.
Rebecca finally stopped me during dinner one night.
“You keep acting like trusting your fiancé was a character flaw.”
“I ignored things.”
“You interpreted them using the information you had.”
“I should have known.”
“Known what?”
“That my future husband and his mother had asset files on women?”
She raised an eyebrow.
“When you say it out loud, does that sound like something a normal person should anticipate?”
I laughed despite myself.
“No.”
“Exactly.”
That conversation changed something.
I stopped rewriting my past as though I had been stupid.
I had been deceived.
There was a difference.
My mistake was not loving.
My mistake would have been staying after love was weaponized against me.
That night, I stood in my bathroom mirror and looked at myself.
No wedding makeup.
No veil.
No ring.
Just Elena.
I smiled.
Not the eight-tooth customer-service smile I had given Julian.
A real one.
Then my phone rang.
Samantha Price.
One of Julian’s former girlfriends.
“Elena?”
“Hey.”
“I thought you should know something.”
“What?”
“There’s another woman.”
My stomach tightened.
“What do you mean?”
“Someone Julian dated before all of us.”
“How did you find her?”
“She found me.”
I sat down.
“What does she want?”
Samantha paused.
“To talk to you.”
“Why?”
Another pause.
“Because she says Victoria did more than research her.”
I went still.
May you like
“What did she do?”
“She says Victoria actually got money from her.”
