Alexia POV

I stood at the window of my damp apartment, watching the spectacle below unfold like a silent movie.

The street had been blocked off. Balloons bobbed aggressively in the wind. Jacob was down on one knee, offering a ring to Cassandra that caught the harsh glare of the streetlamps. It was a diamond the size of a grape, absurd and blinding.

He looked happy. Or maybe, more accurately, he just looked relieved.

A knock on my door splintered the silence.

I didn't move to open it. I knew exactly who it was. He had a habit of trying to sanitize his guilt the moment after he'd indulged in it.

The door opened anyway. He still had the spare key I'd foolishly given him for "emergencies."

Jacob stepped inside. He was breathless, his suit impeccable-a stark, cruel contrast to the peeling wallpaper of my hallway.

"I'm sorry," he said. That was his opening. Always the apology, never the change. "I just wanted to give you a heads up. I didn't want you to find out from the news."

"A heads up," I repeated. My voice was flat, hollowed out. "You just proposed to her on the sidewalk outside my window. That's not a heads up, Jacob. That's a performance."

He ran a hand through his hair, a nervous tick I knew too well. "I have to do right by her, Alexia. You know that. But that doesn't mean I don't care about you. I love you both, in different ways."

"You love her," I corrected. "You tolerate me."

"That's not true. I feel responsible for her."

"And me?" I stepped closer to him, invading the safe space he tried to keep between us. I held up my right hand. The fingers were stiff, curled permanently inward like the legs of a dead spider. "What about your responsibility to this?"

He flinched. His eyes darted to my hand and then away, unable to hold the gaze of his own negligence.

"I told you," he muttered, shifting his weight. "We'll find a specialist. Once the wedding planning settles down."

"The wedding planning," I laughed. It was a dry, cracking sound, like stepping on autumn leaves. "Of course."

"Alexia, do you need money?" He reached for his wallet, his solution to every problem that couldn't be solved with charm. "I see how you're living. It's... beneath you."

"My hand is beneath me," I said. "My career is beneath me. This apartment is a palace compared to the prison you kept me in."

He looked pained. He opened his mouth to defend himself, to spin the narrative again, but a high-pitched voice cut through the air like shattered glass.

"Jacob?"

Cassandra stood in the doorway. She was wearing a white coat that looked blindingly pristine against the grime of the corridor. Her eyes were red, puffy.

"I knew you'd be here," she sniffled. She walked in, ignoring me completely, and wrapped her arms around his waist. "I felt so anxious. I needed you."

Jacob's posture softened instantly. He wrapped an arm around her, shielding her from... me.

"It's okay, Cass. I was just checking on Alexia."

Cassandra turned her head. She looked at me, and for a split second, the tears vanished. Her eyes were cold, calculating, devoid of anything resembling warmth.

"Oh, sister," she said. Her voice dripped with fake syrup. "You live here? It's so... cozy."

She pulled away from Jacob and opened her designer purse. She pulled out a checkbook.

"I feel terrible," she said. "You must be struggling. Here."

She scribbled a number. She tore the paper out with a sharp rip.

"Buy yourself some nice clothes," she said, holding it out between two manicured fingers. "Or maybe a glove. To hide that hand."

The air was sucked out of the room.

I looked at the check. I looked at Jacob. He wasn't stopping her. He was watching, silent, complicit.

I remembered the years I spent managing his accounts, saving his company from bankruptcy with my own inheritance, only to be stripped of access to my own funds when I tried to leave.

"I don't want your charity," I said.

"It's not charity," Cassandra smiled, a thin, razor-sharp expression. "It's pity."

"Cassandra," Jacob said weakly. "That's enough."

"No, let her speak," I said. "Let her show you who she really is."

"I'm just trying to help!" Cassandra wailed. Suddenly, she grabbed her chest. Her knees buckled. She sank to the dirty floor, gasping for air. "Jacob! My heart! She's being so mean to me!"

It was a performance worthy of an Oscar.

Jacob didn't hesitate. He scooped her up into his arms, his face twisted in worry. He glared at me.

"Alexia, you've gone too far. She's trying to be nice to you."

"She just insulted me," I said. "Are you deaf?"

"She's sick!" he shouted, panic rising in his voice. "Can't you see that? God, you've become so bitter."

He turned his back on me. He carried her out the door, her face buried in his neck. As they crossed the threshold, Cassandra lifted her head slightly.

She looked at me over his shoulder.

And she smiled.

"Is this your love, Jacob?" I called out to his retreating back, my voice breaking against the empty hallway. "Is this the truth you choose to ignore?"

He didn't answer. He just kept walking.

Alexia POV

The door slammed shut, sending a tremor through the walls that harmonized with the shaking of my hands.

I moved to the window.

Down below, Jacob was tucking Cassandra into the passenger seat of his car. He kissed her forehead. He looked like a man guarding a piece of fine china, completely oblivious to the fact that he had just shattered the steel beam that held his life together.

The sky opened up. Rain began to fall, scouring away the chalk marks of their celebration on the pavement.

I didn't cry. Instead, I pressed two fingers to my neck. My pulse was steady.

The pain was gone. Not the nerve pain in my hand-that was a constant ghost-but the pain in my chest. The heavy, suffocating weight of hope. It had finally evaporated.

A rainbow appeared faintly through the drizzle, arching over the city. A cliché. But also, a promise.

I grabbed my coat. I had one last stop to make.

I took a taxi to the mansion. The gates were thrown wide for the engagement party. Cars lined the driveway, a parade of wealth and status.

I walked in through the side entrance, the servants' door. It was fitting. That's all I had been to them in the end.

The ballroom was deafening. Laughter, clinking glasses, the swell of a string quartet playing music I used to play with far more soul.

I lingered in the shadows of the archway.

Jacob's mother was holding Cassandra's hands. She looked at the girl with a tenderness she had never wasted on me.

"My daughter," she said, loud enough for the room to hear. "Finally."

I watched them. I watched my friends, people I had hosted, people whose palates I had trained, raising their glasses to the woman who had destroyed me.

I felt... nothing.

It was a revelation. I thought seeing this would kill me. Instead, it liberated me.

They weren't monsters. That gave them too much credit. They were just small. Small, blind people playing a game I no longer wanted to win.

I remembered being a child, sitting on the stairs, waiting for my parents to come home. Waiting for connection. I had spent my whole life waiting to be picked.

I was done waiting.

I turned to leave, but a commotion near the stage stopped me.

Someone shouted, "Speech! Kiss!"

Jacob was pulled onto the stage. He looked reluctant, his eyes scanning the crowd. Was he looking for me? Or was he looking for an exit?

"Jacob," a guest yelled out, laughing. "Are you finally closing the book on the past? Is it Cassandra forever?"

The room went quiet.

Jacob looked at Cassandra. She was beaming, expectant.

He looked out at the sea of faces. He didn't see me in the shadows.

"Yes," he said. "Cassandra is my future."

He leaned in and kissed her. The crowd roared.

I stepped back.

I walked out of the mansion. I walked down the long driveway, past the security cameras, past the rose bushes I had planted with my own hands.

I didn't look back.

Behind me, fireworks exploded. Red and gold sparks scarred the night sky.

To them, it was a celebration.

To me, it was the burning of a bridge.

"I am free," I whispered.

The words tasted like iron and oxygen.