Just stared at the closed door where she was changing.
Thought about the moment I’d put that ring on her hand for real.
Thought about how many people would come for us after.
“Yeah,” I said finally, voice rough. “This is fucking it.”
Chapter 11
Kennedy
I stood alone in the courthouse dressing room, the air thick with cheap cologne and something heavier—expectation, maybe. The mirror in front of me was streaked and brutal in its honesty. It didn’t lie. It showed me a girl in a white dress, the fabric slightly wrinkled from the mad rush through the boutique. The spaghetti straps clung to my shoulders, the fitted bodice cinched around my ribs like it was holding me together. Or reminding me how close I’d come to falling apart.
I didn’t cry.
God, I wanted to. I wanted the tears to spill and take the pressure with them. But all that built-up emotion—everything twisting in my chest—wasn’t sadness.
It was fire.
It was rage.
And under it all, something sharper: clarity.
I stared at myself and the thoughts came like claws, scraping up the inside of my skull.
Behave yourself. My mother’s voice, clipped and cold.
You’re just used goods. The handler, smooth as oil and just as filthy.
Come home. Jake’s voice—raw, desperate. As if going back could undo any of this.
And then Nick.
Nick slamming that smug bastard into the SUV, fury etched into every line of his face, jaw clenched like he was holding back a war.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but it didn’t help. The memories stuck, clinging like wet fabric after a storm. I couldn’t shake them off. But I wasn’t scared of them anymore.
I was done being scared.
They turned me into a scandal—reduced me to headlines and hashtags.
But Nick? Nick made me into a choice.
My choice.
And no one was going to take that from me again.
I looked down at the ring on my finger. It was too big, a little crooked, and it gleamed like it knew how heavy it really was. Not just love. Not just rebellion. But change. A door slammed shut and another creaking open.
With my fingers trembling, I touched the metal—traced the edge like it might cut me. It hadn’t been given to me in some candlelit proposal. It came after blood and fury and a decision we both made standing in the middle of chaos.
It was a war medal.
A promise.
A brand.
And I wasn’t afraid of what it meant.
