After My Boyfriend Humiliated Me, His Uncle Married Me

I stood on the rooftop terrace in downtown Seattle, champagne flute in hand, and thought: *This is it. Tonight is the night.*

Five years. Five years of waiting, hoping, believing. The city skyline stretched out behind us, lights glittering like scattered diamonds. The air smelled like expensive perfume and late summer warmth. Mia Torres stood beside me, her arm linked through mine, squeezing gently.

"You look happy," she said.

I was. I touched the jade rosary bracelet at my wrist — Abuela's bracelet, the one she'd given me from her hospital bed three months ago. *Wear this, and you'll always find your way back to people who truly love you.*

"I am happy," I told Mia. And I meant it.

Cason was across the terrace, laughing with his friends. He looked good tonight. He always looked good. Dark blazer, white shirt open at the collar, that easy confidence that had pulled me in when I was twenty years old and never quite let go. I watched him tip his head back and laugh at something someone said, and my chest filled with warmth.

Then his eyes slid past me. Across the crowd. To her.

Clover Nichols.

She was leaning against the bar in a red dress cut too low and too high at the same time. Bottle-service girl from the club downtown. I'd met her twice. Both times, she'd smiled at me like we were friends. Both times, I'd felt cold afterward and couldn't say why.

Cason's gaze lingered on her. Just a second too long.

I felt Mia's grip tighten on my arm.

"Alma—"

"It's fine," I said quickly. "He's just being polite."

Mia didn't answer. She didn't have to.

I drained my champagne and told myself I was imagining things. Tonight was supposed to be a celebration. Cason had said so himself when he invited everyone. *A party for us. For our future.* I'd spent an hour picking out this dress. I'd reapplied my lipstick three times in the car.

I was not going to ruin this with paranoia.

Someone in the crowd — I didn't see who — shouted, "Truth or Dare!"

Laughter rippled through the terrace. People were drunk enough now that it sounded like a good idea. I smiled and shook my head, ready to sit this one out. But then Cason turned, grinning that grin I used to love, and said, "I'll go first."

The crowd cheered.

"Dare," Cason said.

Someone whistled. Someone else laughed. I felt the first thread of unease pull tight in my chest, but I pushed it down. This was Cason. My Cason. The man who'd driven seven hundred miles through the night to surprise me at college. The man who'd danced with me in a tiny apartment with takeout boxes on the floor.

"I dare you," someone said — a voice I didn't recognize, female, light — "to put a ring on the prettiest girl here."

My heart jumped. I looked down at my empty ring finger and felt heat rise in my cheeks. This was it. This was how he was going to do it. In front of everyone. Romantic and public and exactly the kind of thing I would tell our kids about someday.

I looked up, smiling.

Cason reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small velvet box.

My breath caught.

He opened it. The ring inside caught the light — delicate, silver, a single diamond that I had looked at on his laptop three months ago when he left the browser open. I'd said nothing. I'd waited.

Cason walked across the terrace.

Past me.

To Clover.

The world tilted.

He took her hand — her left hand — and slid the ring onto her finger.

The crowd went silent. Then someone laughed nervously. Then someone else whistled, uncertain.

Clover looked at the ring. Then at me. Then she smiled.

"Oh my God," she breathed, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Cason, you shouldn't have."

She stood up. She put her hands on his chest. And then, while I stood there frozen, champagne flute still in my hand, she started to dance.

Not just dance. She pressed herself against him, hips rolling, hands sliding down his shoulders, his arms, his chest. A lap dance. In front of everyone. In front of me.

Someone whistled again, louder this time. A few people clapped. Most just stared.

Mia's voice was low and urgent in my ear. "Alma. Let's go. Right now."

I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I watched Clover's hands slide lower. I watched Cason's grin widen. I watched the ring — my ring — catch the light on her finger.

Something inside me snapped.

I crossed the terrace in four steps. I didn't think. I didn't plan. I just swung.

The slap cracked across Clover's face so hard my palm stung.

She stumbled back, hand flying to her cheek, eyes wide. The crowd gasped.

"You crazy bitch!" Clover shrieked.

Cason grabbed my wrist. Hard. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

I stared at him. At the man I'd loved for five years. At the stranger wearing his face.

"You're embarrassing yourself," he hissed. "You're insane. It was a game, Alma. A joke. Can't you take a joke?"

Clover was crying now — loud, theatrical sobs. People were pulling out their phones.

Mia grabbed my other arm. "Alma, please—"

I pulled free. I looked at Cason one last time.

"We're done," I said.

My voice didn't shake. It didn't rise. It just was.

I turned and walked off the terrace. Down the stairs. Through the lobby. Out onto the street.

I got into a cab. I gave the driver an address. Then I pulled out my phone.

My hands were steady.

I typed: *I'll do the arrangement. Set it up.*

I hit send.

My mother's reply came in seconds: *Come home, sweetheart. We'll take care of everything.*

I pressed the phone against my chest and stared out the rain-streaked window. The city blurred past. Lights and shadows and strangers' lives.

The cab turned a corner.

I heard the screech of tires.

Then the world exploded into glass and metal and darkness.