Elena's POV

Maybe it was because Vicky never gave him the reaction he was looking for that morning at breakfast — from then on James started coming around a lot more often.

At first, I felt a quiet, secret kind of happiness.

He'd send flowers to my apartment before I left for work. Or a short message saying we were attending some banquet together that evening.

Sometimes he would even drop by my studio and sit on the couch, leafing through my design sketches.

One day, he found a sketchbook on my shelf — the one with the wedding I had designed for myself. Swing. Alawn and fountain just out of view. Compared to those lavish vampire banquets, the design looked almost too simple.

I didn't want to put any pressure on him. I watched him carefully, said nothing, and quietly closed the sketchbook.

But James just stood there for a long time, silent.

"This wedding looks beautiful."

He was turned slightly to the side. The studio light cast a shadow down the line of his face.

"Thank you. It's a design I've been refining for years. James, the truth is, I've always — "

The truth is, I've always wanted to make it real with him.

I didn't finish the sentence. He turned his head just then, and we caught each other's eyes and shared a small smile.

I caught something soft in his eyes — and something faint, like anticipation.

But it didn't take long for me to realize something was wrong.

That evening, he was taking me to a dinner party hosted by another vampire family, and he sent over a dress ahead of time.

The dress had a clean cut. The color suited my skin. The waist and the neckline were finished beautifully — almost too refined to be something James had picked out himself.

He brushed his fingers along my cheek and told me I'd look better with my hair down.

I didn't think much of it. I changed into the dress, and when I came down the stairs, my steps felt lighter than usual.

I had James's arm in mine. I had just reached the foot of the staircase when I saw Vicky.

She was sitting not far away, leaning toward the man beside her in conversation, her fingers resting lightly on the rim of a wineglass, her long, wavy hair spilling down her back.

The dress she was wearing was wine-red too.

The cut, the silhouette, even the finish at the neckline — it was nearly identical to mine.

People were watching me. People were watching Vicky.

The looks they gave me were curious, with a faint trace of pity tucked underneath. Some raised their glasses to me with a smile and said Miss Elena was beautiful tonight.

Others lowered their voices as I passed and remarked, with a sigh, that it was a shame — still not quite right.

I knew what they meant.

The real tragedy wasn't the dress, but the undeniable fact that I wasn't Vicky

James heard them. He didn't say a word in my defense.

Only sometimes, when I couldn't quite hide the disappointment on my face, he'd offer me some perfunctory comment about not paying attention to those tedious people.

And I would always smile and say it was nothing.

I could endure it. I would wait for him to let go of Vicky.

By the end of the evening, something inside me had gone numb.

After that, it kept happening.

James started bringing me along to more and more events. Sometimes he would even make small, intimate gestures in front of everyone.

People started to think he was finally taking me seriously.

And sometimes, even I let myself believe it.

But every time that illusion started to take shape, some new detail would pull me back to reality.

The dresses he picked were always the kinds Vicky liked. The places he took me were places he had already been to with Vicky.

When he looked at me, he was looking at someone else.

Bit by bit, I couldn't keep lying to myself.

He just needed an outlet. Somewhere to breathe through what he had lost.

And I just happened to be there. Always.

Elena's POV

After the engagement banquet, Vicky and Joey set the date for their wedding before long.

There was no way the gossip from those weeks hadn't reached their ears, but Vicky still went out of her way to choose me as her wedding planner.

She seemed to require my presence—her pitiful contrast—just to reassure herself that she would always be the one chosen, effortlessly and without question.

I had a betrothal in hand, but didn't even have a date set for an engagement banquet. Over time, I had become a joke to everyone — quietly, by default.

Because I'd grown up without my parents' attention, I'd always assumed I just wasn't good enough — that was why James didn't love me. So in front of Vicky, I had always shrunk.

I had taken her petty cruelties for years, following the family's instruction never to provoke a vampire.

But now — thinking of the way James had looked at me, the gifts he had sent — I suddenly didn't want to bow that low anymore.

When we were planning the wedding, I stopped going along with everything she wanted. I stopped apologizing first whenever something went wrong. It clearly didn't sit well with her.

"Your designs are mediocre." "I hate this bouquet." "This ugly dress — wear it yourself."

She kept changing her mind on purpose, often demanding revised proposals from me in the middle of the night.

The discarded drafts piled up in stacks on my desk, but I held my ground.

When James came by my studio, I didn't have time to put the papers away.

He glanced over them, and didn't seem to care much. He told me to go rest for a while — that sleep would do me good.

I took his advice. When I woke up, it was already dark outside.

A message had come in. Vicky said she'd found a better design for the wedding. From here on, she just needed me to oversee the on-site rehearsal.

A flicker of confusion went through me — I didn't know how she'd found a satisfying wedding planner so quickly. But my body was still tired, and I didn't think too hard about it.

Three days later, when I showed up at her wedding rehearsal, I understood.

The swing, lawn and fountain. An outdoor wedding.

The layout. The angle of the lights. The flowers. Everything matched the wedding in my private sketchbook, exactly.

Not a single detail off.

I stood in the entrance and didn't go in right away.

Someone was adjusting the lights. Someone was running a sound check. The director's voice repeated the cue, again and again.

"Groom, take a step forward."

I followed the voice with my eyes.

The man on the stage was James.

The stage lights cast a shadow along the elegant line of his nose. He looked like a model who had stepped out of an oil painting — pale, flawless, smiling and murmuring to Vicky beside him.

He was standing in the groom's place. He took the bouquet, walked the line I had designed, paused, adjusted his angle.

The motion was natural. As if the place had always been his to begin with.

I stood there. I didn't move.

People walked past me, talking in lowered voices, laughing softly.

"Joey went up north on business — flight got delayed, couldn't make it back for the rehearsal."

"Well, his little brother's certainly realizing the dream now."

The voices were quiet. Just clear enough that I could hear them.

I stood below the stage in the red dress James had given me.

Every part of it was a joke.

The dress was meant for Vicky in the first place.

This wedding — the wedding of my dreams that I had designed myself — he was going to hand to Vicky too.

Every bit of love, every ounce of attention, James had given to Vicky.

And I deserved to wear someone else's leftover clothes — to hand over even the things I cherished most, with both hands, to someone else.

I let out a small, bitter laugh. The tears slid down my face, but I just kept staring at James on the stage.

The look on him — happy, careful, almost reverent — drove a fresh blade into a heart that was already in pieces.

In one unguarded moment, James saw me there in the audience.

He froze for a beat. Then he looked away and tightened his grip on Vicky's hand.

"Elena's here too? Didn't Vicky say she didn't like her designs?"

"How embarrassing. The Valerie family has been pushing for the engagement banquet for ages. A pity James has time to play groom for his brother but no time to actually marry his own fiancée."

A few of Vicky's relatives were murmuring behind me.

Listening to those familiar, biting voices, I suddenly realized I couldn't stand any more of it.

By the time the rehearsal ended, the sky had gone fully dark.

The crowd thinned out. When James came down from the stage, he saw me.

He noticed how red my eyes were — how clearly I had been crying. Something pained flickered across his face, and he started toward me without thinking.

I had been planning to finally lay everything out with him. But just then, Vicky came over too.

"Sorry, Elena. Joey couldn't make it in time. I had to borrow James for a bit. You don't mind, right?"

She had James's arm. Her smile was sweet.

"Thank goodness for James — I don't know what I would have done with this wedding otherwise!"

"You'll all be one family soon enough anyway, so I'll just transfer James's fee to you, all right?"

Every sentence cut at the parts of me that were thinnest. She knew perfectly well that James still hadn't moved on our engagement, and she wanted to bring up the idea of us being family right there.

I couldn't even hold a smile anymore. I just looked at James.

He couldn't quite meet my eyes. He opened his mouth to explain. "Vicky, this design is actually Elena's — "

"It's fine. The rehearsal went well. If there's nothing else, I'll be going."

I cut him off and turned to leave.

The moment I turned my back, the tears came, and I couldn't stop them.

The servants and relatives all saw the look on my face. They smiled, mocking, watching the whole thing unfold like entertainment.

It wasn't the first time I'd been laughed at like this in a crowd.

I had known for so long that the one James loved was Vicky.

Whether with my parents or with James, I would never be the first choice.

Why hadn't I been able to let go back then?

The cold wind cut against my cheeks.

The lights along the busy street were flickering on for the night, and the vampires passing by were all eyeing me strangely.

It struck me, suddenly, that I had never really belonged to this world. And I had nowhere to go.

Elena's POV

I walked the streets for a very long time before I made it home.

My heels had rubbed blisters into my ankles. I was cold all over.

I sank down by the entryway and looked at my empty apartment, and it suddenly hit me — most of my things were actually at James's estate.

For the past few years, I had basically been working as his private assistant.

Arranging his banquets. Managing his social affairs. More often than not, sleeping in his guest room.

So all this time, I had been devoted myself to him like that, with not a single thing in return.

Looking down at the dress that didn't really fit me, I just leaned forward against the floor and laughed bitterly.

The wedding I had designed with my heart had been taken by James and given to Vicky.

The engagement banquet I had waited years for still didn't have a date.

I had spent all those years adapting to the world of vampires, putting myself together every single day, hoping that someday James would take me in.

In the end, I had nothing.

In the end, I was still just something to be laughed at.

I stayed on the floor a long time before I could stand again. I was on my way to the living room for a glass of water when I heard a key in the door.

James stumbled in, drunk, the sharp smell of wine pouring off him.

I caught him on instinct.

But the thought of him sober the next day, recoiling from my touch again, made me want to pull my hand back.

He grabbed my wrist before I could and pressed my palm against the side of his face.

Those red eyes that were always so alert, so cutting, were soft and unfocused now. He looked up at me with confusion, with something almost wounded in his expression.

I had never seen him look at me like that. For a moment I just stood there.

"I'm sorry — " The words came out unsteady. "I'm sorry. Today's the last time. I promise."

The bridge of my nose stung. I had waited so long for that apology.

"Don't push me away. Please."

There was something almost pleading in James's voice.

"Let me hold you. Just let me."

His nose grazed mine, and his eyes were drowning in mine.

The tear tracks under my eyes still stung. He kissed them gently.

"I love you. Don't push me away. Please."

I could hear my own heart pounding. I closed my eyes and let him.

We had never held each other so closely.

The cold of his skin sank into mine. I could feel how desperate he was, and I held him just as hard.

His pale skin pressed against my body, every muscle in him drawn tight where it should be.

His narrow waist moved in rhythm. A vampire's stamina is nothing like a human's, and I couldn't take the dizzying pleasure or the pain — but I didn't want to give in and pass out either.

All I knew was that I had waited so long that my heart had gone past the point of pain into something like numbness.

"James. I love you."

I kissed his lower lip and whispered it against his ear.

His hand ran through my hair and came to rest against the side of my face. He deepened the kiss.

"Vicky. I love you too."

Vicky?

Every illusion of happiness shattered in that single moment.

Vicky.

The name he said was Vicky.

The smell of wine rolling off him was right there at my mouth. I started laughing, and I couldn't stop.

So that was it. He was drunk. He had mistaken me for Vicky.

Elena, how could you be this stupid?

I was mocking myself in my head. I tilted my face up at the ceiling, numb. The tears had run dry. There was only the raw burn in the rims of my eyes.

When it was over, James had already drifted off, content.

I looked at the wreck of the bed. There were dark bruises forming on my shoulders and arms where he had gripped me.

A human body was never built for that kind of force.

Looking down at the marks on my body, I understood something I should have understood a long time ago.

Maybe I had never had any business forcing myself into this world to begin with.

I looked at James one last time. His features, even cold and asleep, were still impossibly handsome. But now, looking at him, there was nothing stirring in me at all.

When the sky outside started turning gray, I sat at the edge of the bed, and I suddenly remembered the first time I had seen James, all those years ago at the ball. Back then I had thought fate was finally on my side. I had believed I could make him love me one day.

Now I knew.

What fate had given me wasn't favor.

It was a swamp — the kind that pulls you in deeper the longer you stand still.

And I had stood still so long I had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be chosen. To actually be loved.

It was time to walk out of all of it.

I was going to walk out of a life I had never been loved in.

I was going to disappear from James's world. Completely.