I called Eddie the next morning. My voice was steady. My hands were not.

"We need to talk," I said. "Tonight. Just us."

"Yeah, of course," he said. There was a pause. I could hear movement on his end. Sheets rustling. "Actually, Regina, I need to tell you something first."

The way he said my name. Not Reg. Not baby. My full name, like a warning.

"Cat had a really bad night," he started.

My grip tightened on the phone.

"She called me around two in the morning. She was at the bridge on Mercer Street. The one over the river." His voice dropped. "She was standing on the railing, Regina. I had to go get her."

I didn't say anything. The silence stretched out between us like a wire pulled too tight.

"She can't be alone right now," he continued. "Her therapist says the next few weeks are critical. I was thinking—just temporarily—she could stay in the guest room. At our place. Just until she stabilizes."

The air left my lungs in one slow, quiet exhale.

"You're asking me," I said carefully, "to let your ex-girlfriend move into our apartment."

"She has nowhere to go, Regina. If something happens to her—" His voice cracked on cue. "I couldn't live with that. You understand that, right? You're a good person. You've always been a good person."

There it was. The compliment shaped like a cage.

I closed my eyes. Behind them I saw the bridge on Mercer Street. I saw a woman I had never met standing on a railing in the dark. And I knew, with absolute certainty, that I had no way to call his bluff. If I said no and something happened, it would be my fault. That was the architecture of the trap.

"Temporarily," I said. The word tasted like chalk.

"Just a few weeks. I promise."

I hung up before he could thank me.

---

She arrived that afternoon with two large suitcases and a Louis Vuitton vanity case. She wore a cream silk blouse and her hair was perfectly blown out. She did not look like a woman who had been standing on a bridge railing at two in the morning.

"Thank you so much, Regina." Her voice was soft and breathy. She touched my arm lightly as she passed. "You have no idea what this means to me."

I smiled. It didn't reach my eyes.

By evening, her presence had already seeped into every corner of the apartment like smoke. Her perfume—something heavy and floral—hung in the bathroom. When I went to shower before dinner, I found her lacy black lingerie draped over the bathroom door hook. Not folded. Not in a bag. Just hanging there, deliberately, like a flag planted in conquered territory.

I unhooked it with two fingers and set it on the hallway shelf outside the bathroom door.

I didn't say a word.

The next morning, I came into the kitchen and poured myself coffee. Eddie's mug was already in the drying rack. I picked it up to put it away and stopped. A perfect crescent of deep red lipstick curved along the rim. Catalina's shade. The same one she had been wearing when she arrived.

Eddie drank from that mug every morning. He had for three years.

I set it back in the rack. I drank my coffee standing at the window, watching the street below.

---

That night I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling.

The guest room wall was thin. At first there was just silence. Then, at midnight, I heard her voice. Low and theatrical, punctuated by soft, deliberate sobs.

"I just feel so alone," she breathed into the phone. "I don't know if I can do this, Eddie. I really don't."

A pause.

"Can you just stay on the line? Please? Just for a little while?"

I turned my head. The strip of light under the guest room door was steady. She wasn't going anywhere. And neither was he.

I lay there for two hours. The ceiling didn't change. The light under her door didn't go out. Eddie's voice drifted through the wall occasionally, low and soothing, the same tone he'd used in my hallway the night he called her baby.

At two in the morning I reached over to the nightstand. The cheap pink hair clip sat there in the dark. I picked it up. Turned it over in my fingers once.

The boy who bought this was already dead.

I just hadn't finished burying him yet.

I set the clip down. I folded my hands over my chest. I breathed in. I breathed out.

I started making a list in my head. Not of wedding flowers or venue deposits. A different kind of list. Quiet. Methodical. The kind my father had taught me to make when a situation required not emotion, but strategy.

I had been patient long enough.

I found the wine on Tuesday morning.

I was looking for a spare vase in the hall closet. I pushed aside a stack of heavy winter coats. My hand brushed against a familiar velvet gift bag tucked in the dark corner. I pulled it out and looked inside.

Two bottles of 1998 vintage Bordeaux stared back at me. I had bought them last week. I had spent four hundred dollars on them. I remembered handing this exact bag to Eddie before his disastrous dinner with my parents.

*Traffic was a nightmare,* he had said, shoving ten-dollar gas-station wine into my hands.

I carried the heavy velvet bag into the kitchen. Catalina was sitting at the island. She was sipping green tea and scrolling on her phone. She wore one of Eddie’s oversized t-shirts.

I set the bag on the marble counter. The glass bottles clinked loudly against the stone. She looked up.

“You swapped them,” I said. My voice was flat.

Catalina blinked. Her eyes went wide and innocent. “Swapped what, Regina?”

“The wine for my father. You took the Bordeaux from Eddie’s car and replaced it with cheap garbage.”

She put a hand over her chest. She looked deeply shocked. “Oh my god. Is that what was in there? I had no idea. I was cleaning out Eddie’s trunk and found those cheap bottles. I thought he bought them for a party. I just moved the bags around.”

Her voice trembled. But her eyes didn’t. A tiny, sharp smile played at the corner of her mouth. It was a look of pure mockery.

“You knew exactly what you were doing,” I said.

“Why are you attacking me?” Her lower lip quivered perfectly on cue. “I’m barely holding it together, Regina. Eddie told me you were kind.”

I didn’t yell. I looked at her perfectly manicured nails tapping the mug. Then I picked up the velvet bag and walked away. There was no point in arguing with a snake.

That evening, Eddie was in the shower. I was sitting on the sofa, drafting the seating chart for the wedding reception. My phone was dead, so I grabbed Eddie’s from the coffee table to check the time.

As soon as I tapped the screen, a text popped up.

*Baby: Can you bring me some water? My head hurts.*

I stared at the name. *Baby.*

The bathroom door opened. Eddie walked out, aggressively drying his hair with a towel. He saw me holding his phone. He froze in his tracks.

“What are you doing?” he asked sharply. He crossed the room and snatched the phone from my hand.

“Who is Baby?” I asked. My voice was quiet.

He looked at the screen. A dark flush crept up his neck. He ran a hand through his damp hair. “It’s Cat. She just texted me for water.”

“Why is she saved as Baby in your phone, Eddie?”

He rolled his eyes and let out a loud, dramatic sigh. “Regina, really? Are we doing this right now? It’s an old contact name. From years ago. I just never bothered to change it.”

“You’ve been broken up for three years. You’ve been engaged to me for one.”

“I don’t look at contact names!” he snapped. His voice was loud, defensive. He looked at me like I was the crazy one. “I just type her name and hit send. You’re completely overreacting. She’s severely depressed, and you’re picking a fight over a stupid phone setting.”

My chest felt tight, but my face remained perfectly still. I looked at his defensive posture. His shifting eyes. He was lying. And he was using her fake illness as a weapon against me.

“Right,” I said softly. “My mistake.”

I turned back to my seating chart. I heard him let out a breath of relief before he walked to the kitchen to fetch her water.

At two in the morning, the apartment was completely silent. I was still awake at the dining table. My laptop screen glowed in the dark. I was finalizing the floral arrangements.

My phone buzzed on the wood. It was an incoming text from an unknown number.

I opened it.

It was a photo.

My breath hitched in my throat. The air rushed out of my lungs.

The picture was taken in the dark, illuminated by a phone flash. Catalina was in the foreground. She was wearing the black lace lingerie I had found hanging on the bathroom door yesterday. She was looking directly at the camera, smirking.

Behind her, asleep on the pillows, was Eddie. His bare shoulder was visible above the sheets.

It wasn’t an old photo. The headboard behind them was the one in our guest room.

My hands turned to ice. A sharp, physical pain pierced my chest. For ten years, I had built my life around the boy who bought me a pink hair clip. I had defended him. I had hidden my family’s immense wealth and military power just to protect his fragile ego.

Eddie swore he only housed her out of pity. He swore absolutely nothing was happening.

I stared at Catalina’s victorious smirk. She wanted me to scream. She wanted me to burst into the guest room, wake them up, and look like a hysterical, jealous fiancé. She wanted Eddie to comfort her while I lost my mind.

I didn’t shed a single tear. The sadness was entirely gone. Only a cold, hard clarity remained.

I tapped the screen. I pressed *Save Image*.

I moved the photo to a hidden folder on my phone. Evidence.

I closed my laptop. I walked to my bedroom and looked at the cheap pink hair clip on my nightstand. The boy from my childhood was truly dead. And the man sleeping in the next room was going to pay for every single lie.

The seamstress pulled the corset strings tight. The white silk hugged my ribs. I looked in the massive floor-to-ceiling mirror. I didn't see a bride. I saw a ghost wrapped in expensive tulle.

"It fits perfectly, Miss Simpson," the seamstress smiled. She adjusted the delicate lace on my shoulders.

I stared blankly at my reflection. I should have felt excited. I should have felt bubbles in my chest. Instead, I felt absolutely nothing. My phone sat on the velvet chair behind me. The hidden folder inside it felt heavier than the gown. The image of Catalina in black lace, with Eddie asleep behind her, was burned into my retinas.

My father, Arthur, would have bought me this entire boutique if I asked. He commanded battalions. He had limitless resources. But I had kept all of that hidden. I wanted to be a normal bride for the man I loved. I had spent ten years shrinking myself so Eddie could feel big.

I didn't cry. I didn't shake. The ten years of love I had for Eddie were gone. They died at two in the morning when I saved that photo. Now, I just needed to bury the remains.

"Should we wait for your fiancé?" the seamstress asked gently. "He is an hour late."

"No," I said quietly. "Take it off, please."

Just as she unhooked the first button, the boutique door chimed. Eddie walked in. He was sixty-five minutes late. His hair was messy. His jaw was tight. He didn't look breathless from running. He looked irritated.

"Traffic was a nightmare," he muttered. He didn't apologize. He didn't even look at the dress. He just slumped into the velvet chair next to my purse.

"It's fine," I said flatly.

He looked up at my tone. He frowned and stood up. He walked over to me. "You look nice," he offered lazily. He leaned in to kiss my cheek.

I didn't step back, but I turned my head slightly. His lips brushed my jaw. And then the smell hit me.

It was heavy. Floral. Sickly sweet. It was Catalina’s signature perfume. The exact same scent that hung in my bathroom like toxic gas. It clung to his shirt collar. It was woven into the fabric of his jacket. It was the smell of my own guest bedroom being used to mock me.

My stomach didn't drop. My chest didn't ache. My spine just turned to steel.

"Let me change," I said. My voice was eerily calm. "We're going to the restaurant on 5th Avenue. We need to talk."

Eddie sighed loudly. "Can we just eat? I have a headache."

"We will eat," I replied. "And we will talk."

Twenty minutes later, we were in his car. The sky outside was a dull, bruised purple. A light drizzle began to fall. The wipers scraped harshly against the glass. The leather seats felt cold. The silence between us was thick and suffocating. I kept my eyes on the passing streetlights. I was mentally rehearsing the end of our relationship. No yelling. No tears. Just a clean, sharp cut.

Then, his phone rang.

The harsh ringtone shattered the quiet. The screen on the dashboard mount lit up. The name *Baby* flashed in bright white letters.

Eddie cursed under his breath. He aggressively tapped the screen and put it on speakerphone.

"Cat, I told you I'm busy right now," he snapped. He sounded annoyed, but there was no real bite to his words.

"You left without saying goodbye," Catalina's breathy, trembling voice filled the enclosed car. "I woke up and you were just gone, Eddie. My chest hurts. I can't breathe. The walls are closing in."

"I had to go to Regina's fitting," he said. He gripped the steering wheel tight. His knuckles turned white. He didn't even glance at me.

"You promised you'd stay until my therapist called," she whimpered. A soft, theatrical sob echoed through the speakers. "I'm looking at the pill bottle, Eddie. I just feel so empty."

"Cat, stop it. Don't touch the pills." His voice shifted instantly. The annoyance vanished. The gentle, coaxing tone returned. The same tone he used in my hallway. The same tone he used in the dark last night. "Just put the bottle down. Breathe for me, okay?"

"I need you," she cried. "She doesn't need you like I do. She's so cold to you."

Eddie's jaw clenched. "Cat, you're on speaker."

There was a sharp gasp on the other end. Then, silence. But she didn't hang up. She was waiting. She wanted to hear my reaction. She wanted me to scream at him. She wanted a fight to prove I was the unstable one.

I didn't give it to her.

I sat perfectly still in the passenger seat. I looked at Eddie's panicked profile. I smelled her perfume radiating from his clothes. I listened to his desperate, enabling breaths.

"Regina, I'm sorry," Eddie stammered, finally looking at me. "She's just having an episode. You know how her depression gets."

"Keep driving," I said softly. I didn't look at him. I just stared straight ahead at the dark, wet road. "The reservation is at seven."

Eddie swallowed hard. He turned his eyes back to the road. He kept the phone connected. For the next ten minutes, the only sounds in the car were the rhythmic scrape of the wipers and Catalina's soft, deliberate breathing through the speaker.

I let her listen. I let him sweat. I was watching a dead man drive. And I was finally ready to walk away.