Harris rose slowly, unbothered, unthreatened.
He stepped closer until I could smell the tequila on his breath, stale and sour. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t need to.
“The wedding is at nine a.m. tomorrow,” he said evenly. “Be early. I hate waiting. Of all the things I despise, waiting comes first.”
Then he turned and walked away, disappearing down the hallway as if the conversation—and I—were already finished.
Tears burned down my cheeks, hot and unstoppable. The truth I had spent years outrunning finally caught me.
No one would ever love me.
Not the way I deserved.
Who would choose a woman who couldn’t hear? Whose voice fractured and failed her the longer she spoke? No sane man.
Not after ten years of dragging the wreckage of my past behind me like a chain.
Not with the ugly, jagged scar carved into my cheek—right where my dimple used to be.
Not with silence filling my ears and a body that betrayed me every time I tried to speak.
Then I finally stepped out of Harris’s building.
The air outside felt colder, heavier, like it carried judgment with it. Tomorrow would come whether I was ready or not—the wedding, the expectations, the silence wrapped in white lace and obligation.
And I would walk into it the same way I had walked into everything else since the disaster: alone, wounded, and pretending I wasn’t already breaking.
Chapter 2
ELENA
The following day had arrived. My wedding day.
Other brides would feel the thrill of it—the excitement, the anticipation, the flurry of silk and laughter and champagne.
They would imagine hands brushing across polished bouquets, the press of warm fingers as loved ones fussed over every detail. They would dream of a husband waiting at the altar, eyes soft with love, whispering promises meant to last a lifetime.
Me? I wanted none of that.
I wanted silence. I wanted to hide in my house and pretend the world didn’t exist. I wanted to escape the day that was supposed to mark joy but felt like a countdown to humiliation. Just me. Alone. Preparing alone. Laughable, really, that this “beginning” was nothing but routine, like waking from a dream I’d never wanted.
I checked the cheap digital watch on my wrist—a $12.99 Walmart special, cracked plastic face, strap that pinched when I tightened it too much. 7:45 a.m. The numbers blinked weakly, like they were tired of keeping time for me, like even the watch had given up.
I had already bathed, the steam from the small bathroom fogging the mirror, and I was almost finished at my vanity.
The brush felt heavy in my hand, my reflection blurred and pale under the unforgiving fluorescent light.
Every movement was deliberate, careful—hair pinned, makeup applied in muted tones. Not for anyone, not for admiration. Only to survive the day without drawing attention to the scars I could not hide.
The chapel was thirty-five minutes away by car. Plenty of time to make the nine o’clock start Harris had demanded, as if punctuality were the one virtue that mattered in a marriage built on contracts and coercion.
I slipped the hearing aids into place.
I hated them.
The bulky beige devices hooked behind my ears like visible apologies, like proof I didn’t belong in a world built for sound.
They amplified the wrong things—the grind of a passing car, the rustle of leaves, the low electrical hum inside my apartment—while turning voices into distorted, metallic echoes.
