It felt pathetic, really, how automatic it still was. I hadn’t touched the bottle in days, thought I’d convinced myself I was past this. Sobriety wasn’t easy, but it had felt manageable, safe, even a little bit real. That was because nothing serious had come along yet. No tests. No humiliations.
No fuckingweddings.
Weddings weren’t something I knew how to handle sober. The only way I knew how to face a wedding was with a few sips—just enough to get through the day without wanting to claw off my own skin.
I moved slowly toward the cabinet like if I took my time, it meant I was still making a choice. Still had control. When I opened the door, there it was: the bottle of vodka I’d hidden from myself.
I grabbed the bottle roughly, twisting the cap off before I could think twice. No one said sobriety had to happen all at once, right? Maybe tomorrow I’d figure out how to handle my problems without a buzz. Maybe tomorrow I’d finally get it together.
But today? Today I just needed to survive.
“Can you be at the courthouse in an hour?”
Max was waiting. I could picture him perfectly, leaning back in his big leather chair, probably staring at that stupid watch of his, counting down the seconds because he already knew what I’d say.
I always said yes.
That was what bothered me the most—not just saying yes, but that he was never surprised. That I wasn’t a wildcard, wasn’t unpredictable, wasn’t dangerous in the ways people liked to pretend I was. Everyone talked about me as if I were some reckless, chaotic thing, when really, I was just predictable, boring, and pathetically desperate.
I needed this, and I had no way out of this mess but through it. A part of me wanted to say no just to see what would happen—to test the limits of my own self-destruction—but there was no space for pride when you were drowning.
“Yeah, I can.”
The words felt like betrayal. The kind I’d learned to live with.
“Okay. Don’t be late.”
The call ended abruptly, leaving nothing behind but silence and that empty ache settling deep in my chest.
For a second I just sat there, staring into space. Thinking. Feeling way too much, or maybe nothing at all—I couldn’t even tell anymore.
Slowly, I turned the bottle over in my hands. I took a sip, then another, and before I knew it, I’d lost count, like I always did.
I was late to the courthouse.
Not intentionally.
Okay, maybe alittleintentionally.
My dress wasn’t anything special, just some simple white silk gown I’d dug out from the back of my closet—the same one I wore the night Cillian proposed. Probably bad luck. Definitely bad luck actually, but did it even matter at this point? I was pretty sure my luck had run out years ago.
The plan was simple. So simple I’d repeated it in my head at least a hundred times to stop myself from spiraling into overthinking again.
Walk in. Sign my name next to Jonathan’s. Smile like this wasn’t humiliating. Let him slide another meaningless ring onto my finger, and then walk out with my inheritance, my dignity—or at least whatever scraps of it were left—and finally be done.
Quick and easy.
I didn’t care about Jonathan. That was the best part. He was forgettable, harmless,quiet.Exactly what I needed. The kind of man who’d leave me alone once this was done, who wouldn’t ask questions about why a widowed woman was so desperate to get married again.
Honestly, I was looking forward to it. Not the marriage, obviously, but thelackof drama. This was supposed to be the calm after the storm. The payoff at the end of an exhausting conga line of “sober living” steps, courtesy of Max and his ultimatum.
I’d get my money, I’d fix everything—Mama’s treatment, Isabel’s fears, my own guilt about being the screwup in the family—and I’d do it without hitching myself to someone who might think this wasreal.
Jonathan was the perfect solution.
So when I half-jogged up the courthouse steps, I was fully expecting to see him—the tall, maybe-sort-of-handsome Fed with the stiff posture and the cautious smile—waiting with a polite handshake and a ring that meant absolutelynothingto either of us.
Instead I got . . .
