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The Wedding of the Century
Not long after, we uprooted ourselves once again, clinging to the foolish hope that the ghosts of the past had loosened their grip. We whispered to each other, soft assurances that this time would be different—that this house, this new home, would cradle our love instead of suffocating it.
The house was called The Elms, a name that promised serenity in a way that only names can. Less than ten minutes from the town square, it felt a world away. Quiet neighbors peered behind curtained windows like distant phantoms, and the silence pressed against me with the weight of unspoken secrets.
Inside, The Elms unfolded like a labyrinth. The long living room spilled into a dining area, which bled into the kitchen. A narrow storage room led to the garden, a thin strip of green overshadowed by the hulking oil tank, silent and brooding. Jack assured me it would keep us warm through the winter. I nodded, trusting him, yet never quite trusting the tank’s ominous quiet.
Upstairs, four rooms waited. The largest became ours. Julian had a room when he visited. I claimed a third as mine, pinning fragments of my childhood to the walls like talismans against despair. The fourth, I sealed with trembling hands. Porcelain dolls, left by the previous owner, stared with glassy eyes brimming with intent. I had always hated dolls—their frozen smiles, their mimicry of life. Too many horror films had planted that fear. I locked the door and never looked back.
Life tilted again one unremarkable afternoon. Laden with grocery bags, I passed O’Briens bistro. Above the door: STAFF WANTED. Behind the counter stood a man, tall, broad-shouldered, carrying the calm strength of someone accustomed to battlefields or rugby pitches. Barry. His smile was disarming, safe. Before I even thought it through, I was stepping inside.
“I saw your sign,” I said, breathless from the weight of my bags. “I’d be interested.”
Minutes after handing over my résumé, my phone rang. I had the job.
It felt miraculous. Steady work. A boss who looked at me with trust, not suspicion. Barry was fair, quick to laugh, and in his presence, I began to feel more than a shadow.
At first, I hid in the kitchen, scrubbing dishes, listening to the hum of customers beyond the counter. Then Barry caught me.
“You can’t spend your life hiding back here,” he said, firm but kind. “Go out there. Face them. You’ll be fine.”
Something in his certainty broke through my fog of doubt. I stepped into the front of the bistro, into a version of myself I had almost forgotten existed.
Weeks later, he called me aside.
“You’ve got something in you, Teri,” he said. “I trust you. How about becoming team leader? The place needs you.”
No one had ever trusted me like that. I memorized the faces of regulars—the man who always wanted two sugars, the woman who frowned if her sandwich wasn’t cut right, the accountant who never met my eyes but tipped heavily anyway. I thrived in the rhythm: the aroma of coffee, warm croissants, the small satisfactions of being needed.
But I never escaped entirely. Even amid laughter or the clatter of cups, the tether to Jack pulled me back. Every evening, I had to report—when I finished, when I left, when I would arrive home. He always knew where I was, even when I no longer asked about him.
One night, at a new pub with Karolina, my best friend from work, I glimpsed his shadow. He was downstairs, too close to a blonde. Karolina confronted him; she returned with eyes full of fire.
“I told him it was disgraceful. He said she’s his cousin Susie. Then he threatened me,” she whispered.
And I betrayed her—and myself.
“Maybe she really is his cousin,” I murmured, a feeble attempt at believing lies felt safer than truth. That was how he won: twisting reality until doubt became armor.
Months passed. The wedding approached. Lorain and John—the so-called wedding of the century. Jack bought me a black gown, the only dress he ever gave me. For a fleeting moment, I felt like someone else entirely.
At Lorain’s house, her warmth and John’s easy humor filled the air. Their boys, Adam and Conor, tumbled through the rooms with the careless joy of childhood untouched by shadows. I felt envy flare—sharp, bitter—for a life that seemed ordinary and impossibly far away.
The church was a cathedral of whispers. The hall afterward glittered with twenty white-draped tables. I sat beside Jack, proud despite myself. For that day, he played the perfect gentleman. When he pulled me to the dance floor as Time of My Life filled the room, I believed in the illusion. For a single song, I believed.
We laughed, spun, radiated. In his arms, a version of him appeared—free, unburdened, tender. For those minutes, I felt beautiful. Alive.
But illusions shatter. Jack disappeared, leaving me among strangers. Then came David. His cousin. Smaller, slighter, yet kind. He spoke with me, his voice gentle, and a warmth spread through me—as if the universe whispered that not all men were cruel.
The next morning, Jack humiliated me again, abandoning me at breakfast. But David crossed the room, lowering his voice:
“He doesn’t know how to treat you. The rest of us… we’re not like him.”
And in that moment, I wanted to believe him more than anything I had ever wanted.
I never saw David again. Perhaps it was meant to be only that—a brief glimpse of light in a life that was growing darker by the day.
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