Chapter 2 Fire in the Fog

Alora Dane stood at the edge of the cliff, the wind pulling at the loose tendrils of her undone bridal hair. The ocean below roared like a beast awakened, its waves crashing into the jagged rocks with fury. The sky was cloaked in grey; thick fog curled inland like fingers, suffocating the coastline.

The dress was still white. Pristine. Unforgiven.

She hadn't gone home. She couldn't face the pity in her mother's tight-lipped frown, the useless comfort of wine offered by cousins she didn't even like, or worse-her father's silence. That silence, more than anything, always had a way of shattering her more than words could.

Instead, Alora had come here. To the one place no one would think to look for her.

The Gallery of Mirrors.

It was once the pride of the Dane family-a towering coastal estate turned bohemian dream by her mother, a failed artist who traded paint for pearls after marrying wealth. The gallery had closed after Faye vanished. Rumors said she'd stolen from it. Others claimed she'd set a fire in the east wing. Neither was ever proven.

Now, it stood hollow, its stained-glass windows broken, ivy overtaking the stone façade, and the front door hanging on one twisted hinge like a tooth knocked loose in a fight.

Alora pushed it open. Inside, it smelled of salt, rot, and the memories she tried to forget.

And there Faye stood. Leaning against the fractured window frame, barefoot, her champagne wedding dress dirtied at the hem with seaweed and sand. Her hair, darker than Alora remembered, whipped about her face like wild brambles. She looked like something out of a dream. Or a nightmare.

"You came," Faye said, not moving.

Alora didn't answer immediately. She walked in slow, her heels echoing against the warped hardwood floors.

"What did you expect?" Alora said. "That I'd ignore your little cryptic message? You married my fiancé. You ruined my life-again. The least you can do is offer an explanation."

Faye exhaled, laughing faintly, not with humor, but with disbelief. "You still think I ruined your life?"

Alora's jaw tightened. "You ran away and never looked back. You stole from the gallery. You left me to face the wreckage. Then you waltzed back into town and took Jeffrey. On my wedding day."

Faye stepped forward, her eyes sharp. "Jeffrey was never yours, Alora."

"Then why did he propose to me? Why did we plan a wedding?"

"Because he was trying to convince himself he could love someone safe." Faye's voice cracked like breaking glass. "Someone simple. Predictable. He wanted a life without complications. But that's not love, Alora. That's fear dressed in a tuxedo."

Alora's breath caught in her throat. She hated how true those words felt.

"And you," Alora said, her voice low, "you've always been the complication."

"I never asked to be," Faye snapped. "But neither of us ever had a choice in how we were made, did we?"

Flashback: Ten Years Ago – The Same Gallery, Summer of 2015

Back when it was still open and filled with color and light, the Gallery of Mirrors had been their secret place.

Alora, ever the cautious one, would catalogue every item in her notebook: Venetian glass sculpture, 19th-century French oil on canvas, steel and wire installation from Prague...

Faye would sneak cigarettes behind the bronze bust of their great-grandfather and dare Alora to join her. She never did.

"You were always a checklist, Alora," Faye once said, tossing her ashes into a cracked teacup. "Perfect grades, perfect hair, perfect lies."

"I just don't want to end up lost," Alora whispered.

Faye looked her dead in the eye and said, "Maybe being lost is the only way to find anything real."

Back in the Present

"I didn't come here for a philosophical slap fight," Alora said, snapping the memory like brittle glass. "Tell me why you married him. What was the plan? Humiliate me? Destroy me?"

"No," Faye whispered. "Save you."

Alora blinked. "Save me?"

Faye walked toward her and pulled something from her pocket-a letter. Old, yellowing, creased with too many readings. She handed it to Alora.

"It's from Jeffrey. Dated two months before he proposed to you. He wrote it to me."

Alora opened it with trembling fingers.

Faye, I tried to forget. But nothing works. Being with her feels like living someone else's life. She's good to me. But you were the truth. The fire. I hate you for leaving. But I hate myself more for needing you.

Alora's legs gave way. She collapsed onto the bench beside the broken piano, the letter still in hand.

"He loved you," she whispered.

"He did," Faye said. "And I loved him. But I left because I couldn't handle it. Not then. I thought you deserved a stable life. I thought you two would work."

"And then you came back," Alora murmured.

"I didn't know you were marrying him until two weeks ago," Faye said. "He found me. Told me everything. Begged me to come back. He said if I didn't stop it, he'd never forgive himself."

Alora's stomach twisted. "And you agreed? Just like that?"

Faye's eyes shone. "Not just like that. I made him choose. And he chose me."

Silence.

A storm began to brew outside. The fog thickened. The gallery groaned with the weight of past sins.

Alora rose to her feet slowly.

"Do you love him?" she asked.

"I do," Faye said. "Enough to ruin everything for him."

Alora turned, her heels cracking broken glass. "Then congratulations. You already have."

The Letter – A recurring motif throughout the story; the truth in ink that neither Alora nor Faye can ignore.

As Alora stepped out of the gallery, thunder rumbled over the sea. Rain began to pour-fast and cold.

In her phone, a new message waited.

From Jeff:

"You were never the mistake. But I might be. Please... let me explain."

Alora looked up at the storm, eyes burning.

This wasn't the end. It was the beginning.

Of her story.

Of the reckoning.

Of a fire in the fog.