The string quartet had long since stopped playing. Rose petals, once scattered with joy, now lay crushed beneath the shuffle of confused guests leaving the venue. Champagne flutes were half-empty, abandoned on white-draped tables that no longer held celebration — only silence and shame.

He stepped out from the colonnade, the soft crunch of gravel under his polished shoes the only sound in the thick July air. The late-afternoon sun was setting, casting a warm, ironic glow on a day that had turned cold far too quickly.

That’s when he saw her.

Lena sat frozen on the fountain’s edge, the silk of her gown heavy against her skin, as if even the fabric mocked her. Her chest rose and fell in uneven gasps, the bouquet crushed in her trembling hands, stems snapping like brittle bones. The air around her smelled of roses and champagne, but to her it reeked of betrayal.

He approached slowly, careful not to startle her.

She looked up. Her eyes were glassy, red-rimmed. But behind them, something else flickered — not just heartbreak. Disbelief. Humiliation. The pain of watching her world implode in front of an audience.

When she finally spoke, her voice cracked, fragile and raw, carrying the weight of a daughter and a lover betrayed in the same breath.

"All this time, I thought today was the start of everything I ever dreamed of. And instead... it was just the end. My mother—my own mother—standing there in white beside him. And Damien... he didn’t even look at me, not once. Just smirked, like I was some silly child who would understand one day."

Her mascara-streaked eyes lifted, shimmering with disbelief and fury tangled together.

"I feel... hollow. Like they reached inside me and carved out everything—trust, love, family—and left me with nothing. But then I feel this heat in my chest, burning so sharp it almost keeps me from falling apart. Rage. Shame. The kind you can’t hide, not when the whole world just watched you be replaced."

She crushed the bouquet tighter, petals raining to the cobblestones.

"Tell me... was I really so blind? Did they laugh at me every time I called him mine, every time I looked at her and thought she was my mother? Because right now, I don’t know who I am to either of them. All I know is... I can’t be the broken girl they left behind."