Chapter 3

I wiped my eyes, a bitter smile touching my lips.

"It's fine, Mr. Vance," I said, my voice flat.

I hadn't called him Mr. Vance since I was a child.

The shift in address, the formality, it hung in the air.

He looked at me, a flicker of confusion in his eyes. He sensed something had changed, something had broken beyond the locket.

But he didn't understand what.

He turned to Cassandra, his arm going around her waist.

"She's just being dramatic, Cassy," he murmured, loud enough for me to hear. "Spoiled, I suppose. We've always been too lenient."

He led Cassandra out of my cottage, leaving me with the broken pieces of my past.

Cassandra glanced back, a look of pure, triumphant malice in her eyes.

I heard her say to Julian as they walked away, "Darling, perhaps we should get married sooner rather than later. After the surgery, of course. I want to be your wife, officially."

Her voice was sweet, cloying.

Julian's response was immediate, filled with affection. "Anything for you, my love. As soon as you're well."

Their voices faded, leaving me in the sudden, stark silence of my violated space.

I didn't see Julian for the next few days.

I threw myself into the final preparations for the volunteer program.

Forms, medical checks, packing the few belongings I would take.

Each task was a step away from him, from this life.

I avoided the main house, avoided any chance of encountering him or Cassandra.

The locket lay on my dresser, broken. I couldn't bring myself to try and fix it yet. It was a symbol of too much pain.

One evening, I gathered all my old journals.

The ones filled with those teenage confessions, the ones Julian had found "intense."

I took them out to the small, rusty incinerator behind the cottage.

It was time to burn the past, literally.

I lit a match, watched the first pages curl and blacken.

A symbolic act. Severing the emotional ties.

"What in God's name are you doing?"

Julian's voice, sharp and angry, cut through the quiet.

He strode towards me, his face a mask of fury. He must have seen the smoke.

He grabbed the half-burnt journal from my hand.

"Are you trying to burn the house down? What is this, Mia? More dramatics? Are you trying to get my attention?"

He flipped through the charred pages, his expression contemptuous.

"Still obsessed with this nonsense?"

I said nothing. There was nothing to say.

He wouldn't understand. He never would.

He threw the smoldering remains to the ground.

"Cassandra and I are setting a date for the wedding," he announced, his voice cold. "It will be a month after her recovery."

He expected a reaction. Tears, perhaps. A plea.

I just nodded. "Congratulations, Julian."

My quiet acceptance seemed to unsettle him more than any outburst would have.

He stared at me, searching for something in my expression.

Then, he said the most outrageous thing.

"I want you to plan it."

I blinked. "Plan... your wedding?"

"Yes," he said, as if it were the most natural request in the world. "You know my tastes better than anyone. You've always handled these things for the family. Parties, events. You're good at it."

He was serious. Utterly, unbelievably serious.

He wanted me, the woman whose heart he'd trampled, whose cherished heirloom his fiancée had destroyed, the woman about to donate an organ to save that fiancée, to plan their celebration of love.

The insensitivity was staggering.

Or perhaps it was a final, cruel test. A way to humiliate me one last time.