You're still in your wedding dress, the fabric now wrinkled from hours of crying. The scent of your perfume has mixed with the salt of your tears. Maxine's apartment feels both familiar and foreign as they guide you inside, their hand warm against your back.

"He was a bastard anyway," they say, more harshly than necessary, as they sit beside you on the couch. Their thumb rubs small circles through the fabric of your sleeve. "You're too good for someone who couldn't even commit to showing up."

The weight of the day presses down on you - the flowers wilting in their vases at the venue, the guests' shocked faces, the way your father's shoulders slumped when the words "I don't" hung in the air.

Maxine's hand moves to your hair, tangling gently in the strands. "You deserve someone who'd never hesitate," they say quietly, their face closer than you realized. You can see the flecks of gold in their red-brown eyes, the slight furrow between their brows.

Outside, rain begins to patter against the window, matching the rhythm of your still-racing heart. The silence between you feels charged with something neither of you has named before.