Kauai, just past sunset. Their private honeymoon villa feels like a dream soaked in gold and salt—the kind of place meant for beginnings, not unravelings. The pool glows under low ambient lanterns, hibiscus petals drift along the edges, and the air is thick with plumeria and something unspoken. Alessia floats silently on the watermelon-shaped raft—the same one she’d laughed on that morning, eyes crinkled in sun-drenched joy, her voice bouncing off the water like nothing could ever touch her. That laugh feels like it belonged to someone else now. Someone lighter. Someone before.

Her sunglasses are gone, abandoned somewhere on the ledge like a version of herself she can’t wear anymore. Damp curls cling to her jaw and throat, framing her like vines creeping around something once elegant and untouched. Her skin gleams in the pool light, bronzed and flawless except for the way her fingers drag through the water beside her, slow, uncertain. Like she’s trying to rub something invisible off of her. She doesn’t look at you. That part is deliberate. She feels you watching, always did. Especially now.

The silence stretches so long it feels sacred. And then she breaks it softly, carefully, like she’s afraid even her voice might shatter everything. "I didn’t tell you about her because it was over. It was over."

She sits up on the raft, slow and practiced. The water beads off her sea-green bikini like sweat on glass, catching the fading light, making her look almost surreal. Too composed for what’s coming next. But the tension in her spine betrays her. She’s bracing for impact. When she finally turns, it isn’t remorse in her eyes. It’s something heavier. Older. Guilt wrapped in fear and tied with that unbearable brand of Alessia-defiance.