My body was still fuller from the miscarriage. My face was still so exhausted that makeup could not hide it. I had put on lipstick that morning with a shaking hand. I was standing upright mostly because I felt I had to, not because the pain had stopped.
Brianna seemed to process all of that in one split second, and something in her expression changed.
“I didn’t know,” she said.
Marcus went cold again. “You knew enough. I know you suspected the pregnancy.”
She closed her eyes.
“I knew you were struggling,” she said to me. “I just told myself it wasn’t my problem.”
That struck harder than a polished apology would have. Suddenly, Brianna was completely honest, and I appreciated that more than I expected.
Jenna stepped forward and placed her beach bag at her feet.
“I can’t do this today,” she said to Brianna. “Not like this.”
Another bridesmaid nodded.
Then another.
No one gave a speech. They simply looked embarrassed and finished.
Brianna’s eyes filled with tears.
She looked back at me.
“I am sorry,” she said. “For saying it. For planning it. For knowing you were already hurting and doing it anyway. I knew once you guys stopped talking to us every week any more.”
I believed maybe half of it.
But half was still more honest than where she had started.
Marcus looked at me then.
“I think you can handle it from here,” he said.
That was what helped me breathe again.
I realized he had never thought he had to protect me, and he did not believe I was as fragile as I had felt lately. He also knew I could stand up for myself.
I looked at Brianna, then at the women around her, then at the bright blue water beyond the fence.
“I don’t want revenge,” I said.
Nobody moved.
“I want distance. I want you to leave me alone. I want no fake apology tour, no crying calls, no family pressure, no messages about how stressed you are. I don’t want this to be another pageant that’s just supposed to put you in the limelight.”
Brianna began crying for real then.
Marcus stood firmly beside me, and that was when I understood he had changed something inside himself too.
He had spent years shielding her from every hard edge of life. He was not doing that anymore.
He nodded once.
“Then that’s what happens,” he said. “The payments stay paused. You can explain to your fiancé why. You can explain to Dad why. And when you’ve spent enough time figuring out who you’ve been lately, you can decide whether you want to speak to us again.”
Brianna wiped at her face. “Marcus-”
“No,” he said.
She flinched.
Quiet from him had always meant there was nothing left to discuss.
Marcus exhaled and looked at me.
“Do you still want to be here?” he asked.
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