Alexia POV
The door slammed shut, sending a tremor through the walls that harmonized with the shaking of my hands.
I moved to the window.
Down below, Jacob was tucking Cassandra into the passenger seat of his car. He kissed her forehead. He looked like a man guarding a piece of fine china, completely oblivious to the fact that he had just shattered the steel beam that held his life together.
The sky opened up. Rain began to fall, scouring away the chalk marks of their celebration on the pavement.
I didn't cry. Instead, I pressed two fingers to my neck. My pulse was steady.
The pain was gone. Not the nerve pain in my hand-that was a constant ghost-but the pain in my chest. The heavy, suffocating weight of hope. It had finally evaporated.
A rainbow appeared faintly through the drizzle, arching over the city. A cliché. But also, a promise.
I grabbed my coat. I had one last stop to make.
I took a taxi to the mansion. The gates were thrown wide for the engagement party. Cars lined the driveway, a parade of wealth and status.
I walked in through the side entrance, the servants' door. It was fitting. That's all I had been to them in the end.
The ballroom was deafening. Laughter, clinking glasses, the swell of a string quartet playing music I used to play with far more soul.
I lingered in the shadows of the archway.
Jacob's mother was holding Cassandra's hands. She looked at the girl with a tenderness she had never wasted on me.
"My daughter," she said, loud enough for the room to hear. "Finally."
I watched them. I watched my friends, people I had hosted, people whose palates I had trained, raising their glasses to the woman who had destroyed me.
I felt... nothing.
It was a revelation. I thought seeing this would kill me. Instead, it liberated me.
They weren't monsters. That gave them too much credit. They were just small. Small, blind people playing a game I no longer wanted to win.
I remembered being a child, sitting on the stairs, waiting for my parents to come home. Waiting for connection. I had spent my whole life waiting to be picked.
I was done waiting.
I turned to leave, but a commotion near the stage stopped me.
Someone shouted, "Speech! Kiss!"
Jacob was pulled onto the stage. He looked reluctant, his eyes scanning the crowd. Was he looking for me? Or was he looking for an exit?
"Jacob," a guest yelled out, laughing. "Are you finally closing the book on the past? Is it Cassandra forever?"
The room went quiet.
Jacob looked at Cassandra. She was beaming, expectant.
He looked out at the sea of faces. He didn't see me in the shadows.
"Yes," he said. "Cassandra is my future."
He leaned in and kissed her. The crowd roared.
I stepped back.
I walked out of the mansion. I walked down the long driveway, past the security cameras, past the rose bushes I had planted with my own hands.
I didn't look back.
Behind me, fireworks exploded. Red and gold sparks scarred the night sky.
To them, it was a celebration.
To me, it was the burning of a bridge.
"I am free," I whispered.
The words tasted like iron and oxygen.
