Georgia's POV
The day descends with the silent certainty of an eclipse. My wedding day.
I feel it metastasizing within me, spreading cell by poisoned cell. Not a celebration. A transaction where my flesh is the only currency that holds value.
This is what dying feels like. A slow, beautiful suffocation wrapped in silk that everyone applauds.
I can't fill my lungs beneath cascades of white lace. Each breath comes shallower than the last. My dress doesn't adorn me. It imprisons me, heavy as medieval armor, abrasive as penitent's cloth. My father's arm entwines with mine, his fingers digging into my flesh with unmistakable intent.
Don't fuck this up. Everything depends on this. On you.
His smile is all predator. He's not giving away a daughter. He's auctioning damaged goods at a premium.
"You look beautiful, Georgia." His voice stays low, meant only for me. "Don't disappoint us today."
I nod. The only response I'm capable of.
Smile, Georgia. Smile like your life depends on it. Because it does.
The guests circle us like carrion birds, their congratulations barely masking the scent of their curiosity. Would I fracture? Would I flee? Would I finally reveal myself as the counterfeit we all know I am beneath the veil?
I can't meet their gazes. Instead, I fix my sight on Josiah, who stands at the altar with all the emotion of ancient marble. Frigid. Inanimate. Eternal. His face betrays nothing but the steady conviction of a man who knows precisely what he's purchasing, and for exactly what price.
Each step down the aisle drives me deeper into quicksand. The music hammers against my skull but fails to drown the violent percussion in my throat.
At the altar, Josiah's hands consume mine. Dry. Glacial. Clinical. The invisible chains constrict until they slice into flesh.
My father observes from the front row, triumph gleaming in his eyes. This isn't my wedding day. This is his salvation, inscribed in my blood.
Your debt is paid, Daddy. Hope it was worth it.
The officiant's voice reaches me as if through murky bathwater. Distorted and hollow. I hover somewhere above my form, watching my shell perform movements programmed into bone and sinew.
"Do you, Josiah Mason, take this woman, Georgia Steele, to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
"I do." Two syllables. Sterile and efficient.
"Do you, Georgia Steele, take this man, Josiah Mason, to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
My throat constricts, strangled by truths fighting for liberation. I nod instead. A mechanical, splintered movement. My knuckles bleach to alabaster around my bouquet.
Not consent. Surrender.
Say something. Scream. Run. Do anything but this.
"I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."
His lips graze mine. Parched. Perfunctory. Lingering just long enough to satisfy appearance. No passion. No promise. Just a transaction completed with minimal theater. His cologne invades my senses, expensive and aggressive, claiming territory.
I'm not certain if I'm recoiling from him or from the stranger I've become.
The applause erupts like bullets penetrating flesh. I'm no longer Georgia Steele. I'm not even Georgia Mason. I'm property, transferred from one owner to another with the cold precision of digital currency changing hands.
The congratulations dissolve into meaningless rhythm.
"Congratulations, Mrs. Mason."
"Such a beautiful ceremony."
"What a stunning couple."
Josiah's palm presses against my lower back. A gesture that appears loving to observers but feels possessive beneath my skin. Steering me. Displaying me. His newest acquisition.
"Smile," he murmurs near my ear. "They're watching."
I smile. Because that's what I do.
Sunlight streams through stained glass as we exit, but it can't thaw me. Nothing can penetrate this permafrost. The girl I had been, Georgia Steele with her fragile dreams and desperate hopes, is already dissolving. Replaced by a chrysalis. A performance. A specter with a pulse.
Somewhere inside you is a girl who believed in something better. Where did she go?
I descend those steps, my heart beating a requiem. With each footfall, I feel fragments of myself vanish. Memory by memory. Dream by dream.
And the most terrifying revelation?
I can't remember why I should fight to remain whole.
Our wedding night exists in negative space, defined by everything it isn't.
Not tender. Not passionate. Not a beginning. Just glacial silk sheets that whisper against my skin like indictments, candlelight that casts shadows without warmth, and silence dense enough to suffocate on.
Josiah doesn't look at me like a man looks at his bride. There's no desire. Not even the primitive kind. Just distance. An emptiness so vast it seems to devour oxygen.
This is what the rest of your life looks like. Get comfortable with the emptiness.
I perch on the edge of the bed, fingers battling with pearl buttons that suddenly feel like miniature blades. Each one a small rebellion. A pointless resistance against inevitability.
Miranda's words haunt the quiet. You're not happy, are you? The final honest question anyone had troubled to ask me.
And you lied. You lied because that's what good girls do.
Josiah sits across the room, back turned, attention captivated by his laptop. His true mistress. His authentic passion. Business. Money. Power. I've never been the objective. Just a decorative complement to complete his collection.
"Are you comfortable?" He doesn't look up from his screen.
"Yes." The lie comes automatically.
"Good." He types something. "We have brunch with your parents at eleven tomorrow. Don't be late."
"I won't."
That's it. That's our wedding night conversation. Six words exchanged like contract negotiations.
I undress mechanically, movements precise and joyless. Slip between sheets that welcome me with the same enthusiasm as a mortuary slab. The hotel's lavender soap clings to my skin, its artificial sweetness mocking the bitterness crystallizing on my tongue.
Josiah eventually joins me without word or glance. His body rigid beside mine, careful not to touch. Not from respect. From indifference. The space between us might as well be an ocean.
I stare at the ceiling, counting imaginary fractures while night birds call outside. Their freedom a taunt I can't answer.
This is my life now. Wife. Asset. Responsibility. The weight crushes me flat, stealing breath, killing hope one labored heartbeat at a time.
Josiah's breathing evens out. Sleep claims him easily. No guilt disturbs his rest. No doubts. No regrets.
I can't sleep. How could I? How could I surrender consciousness when it's the only possession still mine?
If you close your eyes, you might wake up forty years from now, still trapped, still empty, but with no escape route left.
I shift slightly. The bed protests with a creak that feels obscenely intimate in the silence. He doesn't stir. Not even a twitch. What words could possibly bridge the chasm between us? The hollow pit in my chest constricts, a black hole consuming everything I might have said, might have felt, might have been.
The darkness behind my eyelids offers more compassion than my new reality. I long for a time when I existed as more than function. When someone saw me as a person with desires and dreams, not just an ornamental necessity.
But that world has vanished. It slipped through my fingers before I learned how to properly grasp it.
You sold yourself one piece at a time, and now there's nothing left to bargain with.
I lie awake beside a stranger who owns me but will never know me. Will never care to. I'm nothing but a finishing touch in his meticulously curated existence. An obligation fulfilled without passion or interest. The warmth I once foolishly imagined was just mirage. Vapor that dissolved in the arctic reality of this marriage.
Too late, I understand what Miranda tried to warn me about. The price of duty has been paid in full, and the payment cost me everything. I'm empty now. Hollow. A beautiful shell where a woman used to live.
And somewhere in that emptiness, something dangerous begins to grow. Something with teeth and claws and unspeakable patience.
This cannot be all there is.