"Melisa, you know we don't have a choice."
The voice behind her was soft. Gentle, even. As if that could soften the weight of what was being asked.
Melisa didn't turn around.
She sat in front of the vanity, motionless, staring at her reflection like it belonged to someone else.
The wedding dress was too white. Too perfect. Too… Olivia.
And today, apparently, so was she.
Behind her, the woman—her mother—sighed. That soft, helpless little sigh she always used when Melisa "acted difficult." As if being quiet was the same as being difficult.
"Say something," her mother tried again, almost pleading now.
Still, Melisa didn't speak. She couldn't.
There was something lodged in her throat. Grief, maybe. Or fury. Hard to tell the difference these days.
Her father stepped in with all the emotional finesse of a tax form.
"Melisa, you're the elder sister. You should understand. Cancelling the marriage at this stage would severely impact the company's future. Just go through with it. For your sister. For us."
There it was.
The real reason.
Not love. Not happiness. Not choice.
Profit.
Melisa slowly turned her head, her eyes meeting his with practiced stillness.
She nodded.
One, two, three.
Just like in the dreams.
No, not dreams—memories. Or maybe previews of a version of herself who didn't make it. Who folded under all the pleasing, the sacrificing, the pretending.
She'd seen this before: the dressing room, the veil, her mother's lipstick-stained coffee cup on the side table. Her father adjusting his watch, not meeting her eyes.
This wasn't a first-time betrayal.
It was just the first time she didn't pretend not to notice.
"She was the one who insisted on marrying him!" her mother huffed suddenly, as if Olivia's vanishing act was the real crime here. "Now she disappears at the last second. How can she be so childish?"
Melisa didn't answer. They didn't expect her to. Not really.
Her role had always been silence. Obedience. Stability.
Olivia got the affection, the softness, the tears. Melisa got expectations.
Because you're stronger, Melisa. More sensible.
Translation: You're easier to use without guilt.
She stared at her reflection again. Her hazel eyes looked dull beneath the veil. Her lips were bitten red. She hadn't even realized she was doing that.
It wasn't nerves.
It was habit. Survival instinct. A way to stay quiet when screaming wouldn't change anything.
Her parents had always loved Olivia just a little more loudly. A little more openly. Because Olivia needed protection. Because Olivia was fragile. Because Olivia—
—never had to clean up after herself.
And now, here Melisa was again. Wearing the dress. Standing in.
Dressed like a bride. Feeling like a placeholder.
She touched the fabric on her lap. It felt too smooth, too light, like it might slip off and reveal the bruises underneath—only they weren't on her skin.
They were inside.
Her dreams—the strange, vivid ones that started after her twentieth birthday—were getting harder to ignore. In those dreams, she died old, unloved, used up, forgotten. Everyone else went on living while she stayed behind, still holding the pieces together.
In every version of her life, she gave everything away.
And in every version, no one looked back.
Not this time.
> This will be the last thing I do for them.
After today, I'm no one's daughter. No one's sister. Just Melisa.
A knock came at the door.
"Melisa, come out."
Her father again. Calm. Devoid of sentiment. He could've been announcing a meeting, for all the emotion in his voice.
She stood.
Her legs shook once, then steadied.
The veil came down.
Her eyes disappeared behind sheer white. It felt like a shroud.
She looped her arm through her father's, and together they walked down the aisle—an aisle she wasn't meant to walk.
The guests smiled. Applauded. Cameras flashed.
She moved like a ghost through it all.
When they stopped, she looked up.
The man standing across from her was not who she expected.
Melisa's heart skipped once, then dropped.
The officiant's words were slow, muffled, like someone had pressed her ears underwater.
> "Leonard Soveir, will you take Melisa Everhart…"
Leonard.
Not Tristan.
What?
Was this a mistake? Was someone playing a cruel joke?
Leonard was Tristan's older brother. The serious one. The one who rarely showed up at social events unless he had to. The one who, once, when she was sixteen, had looked at her with the kind of stillness that made her heart feel too loud.
And now… he was the groom?
Why?
What had Olivia done?
> "I will," she heard herself say. The words felt foreign. They left her mouth like strangers.
Then came the sentence she feared most.
> "You may kiss the bride."
Melisa froze.
Every cell in her body screamed to run. But she stood still, hands clenched beneath the bouquet, willing her knees not to give out.
A hand reached for her wrist.
Warm. Gentle.
Different.
Leonard lifted the veil.
And there he was.
Those eyes.
The same grey eyes from her dreams. The same gaze that once felt like home.
His face stiffened in shock.
He hadn't known.
"…Melisa?"
The sound of her name—soft, disbelieving—nearly undid her.
He leaned in. Close enough for a kiss.
Instead, he whispered:
> "What are you doing here?"
And just like that, everything shattered.