Everyone sounded like they were speaking through water. Prolonged use meant migraines, tinnitus that screamed even in silence, the risk of further nerve damage doctors warned me about in careful, patronizing tones.
But today I needed them.
I needed to hear the priest’s words without craning forward like a supplicant. I needed to catch the murmured congratulations of strangers who didn’t know me, didn’t care, who would witness the legal erasure of my freedom and call it a celebration. I needed, at least for an hour, to pretend I still belonged among normal people.
I grabbed my coat, stepped outside, locked the door behind me, and started toward the main road to hail a taxi.
The morning was deceptively peaceful.
The street lay quiet under pale winter sunlight. A few cars passed, tires hissing softly over asphalt. Birds chattered in the palm trees lining the sidewalk.
Somewhere, a lawn sprinkler ticked rhythmically. It was the kind of morning people remembered fondly. The kind of morning where nothing bad was supposed to happen.
Then I saw him.
A little boy—no older than eight or nine—came sprinting around the corner, sneakers slapping the pavement hard. His arms pumped wildly, coordination gone, face drained of color. His mouth was open, gasping, eyes wide with terror.
This wasn’t play.
This wasn’t mischief.
This was fear.
Before my mind could fully register what I was seeing, two men burst onto the sidewalk behind him.
Big men. Thick-necked, broad-shouldered, dressed in black jackets that screamed uniform without insignia. One already had his hand outstretched, fingers clawing for the back of the boy’s collar.
My stomach dropped.
I moved without thinking.
The wedding dress tangled around my legs, cheap satin catching against my knees.
The too-small shoes slipped on the pavement, heels skidding, but I charged forward anyway. The boy saw me and veered instinctively toward me, as if my white dress marked me as safe. His eyes locked onto mine—pleading, desperate. He made choking, muffled sounds that weren’t quite words, panic robbing him of language.
I stepped directly into their path.
“Let the boy go. Now,” I said.
My voice was hoarse but clear. Commanding in a way I hadn’t heard it sound in years.
The men slowed, startled by the sudden appearance of a woman in a wedding gown blocking them like a barricade. One of them barked out a short laugh, sharp and ugly.
“Miss Bride,” he said, lips curling, “I’d advise you to mind your own fucking business. Unless you want your body on the ground in pieces.”
The words slid over me without effect. I’d heard worse. Men had threatened me with far more when they held real power.
The boy tried to dart past me again.
The larger man grabbed him.
A thick hand closed around the child’s thin wrist and yanked hard. The boy cried out—a sharp, broken sound—and his feet skidded on the concrete. Pain contorted his face.
Something old and buried snapped awake inside my chest.
Not the scared woman.
Not the exhausted survivor.
