The laughter this time felt cruel. Louder. Clearer. Like the sound of glass shattering underwater.
I turned to Thomas.
His jaw was tight, his hands clenched at his sides. He looked everywhere but at me.
But he didn't say a word.
He didn't correct James. Didn't say this was our place. That I was his wife. That he'd proposed there with trembling hands and whispered promises. That I had named the waves, the cliffs, the light. That I was the one who built a life beside him, not her. That I am his family. The wife, the mother, the heartbeat of the life we made together. The one who stayed, who carried, who kept us whole.
He just stood there. Silent.
And in that silence, I disappeared.
Laura leaned in then, placing her hand gently on his arm like she belonged there. Her voice was soft but perfectly pitched.
"we are going to have so much fun, Tommy"
The room buzzed with conversation again, the toast absorbed into the noise. But I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.
Thomas ignored her and reached for my wrist, gently, like he still had the right to touch me.
"Please, October, let me explain," he whispered. "It's not what it looks like—"
"Shut up," I said again. My voice was low but final this time, steel wrapped in velvet.
He froze. Words died in his throat. And I didn't wait to see what face he made next—guilty, ashamed, pleading. I didn't care.
I turned and walked out of that glittering, poisonous room—heels clicking on polished floors, breath catching somewhere between fury and freedom.
The cold hit me the moment I stepped outside. A different kind of silence surrounded me now—cleaner, sharper.
And then I saw her.
Jeanine stood near the hedges, away from the lights, shoulders hunched, arms folded tight over her sequined dress. Her face was turned just enough that I could see the tears tracing down her cheek, glittering like the frost on the leaves.
She didn't make a sound.
I just stood beside her.
I had never seen her like this. Jeanine, who always smiled just enough. Jeanine, who laughed politely at James' worst jokes, who wore her lipstick like armor. Jeanine, who always seemed fine.
Tonight, she wasn't fine. She wasn't anything close to it. She was crying—quietly, openly, without shame or apology. 
And I knew that this was a turning point for her too. A line drawn. A moment to remember long after everyone else forgot
I didn't speak her name. I didn't meet her eyes. 
"It's time Jeanine," I said, my voice barely louder than the wind.
She just kept staring out into the cold, letting her tears fall without wiping them away.
That was enough.
I walked to my car—grateful, for once, that I'd driven myself. Grateful I didn't have to sit in the passenger seat next to a man who'd watched me drown and called it love.
As I slid into the driver's seat,  I saw him trying to come after me. I didn't care but I didn't feel numb. I wasn't sad.
Not anymore.
Whatever ache had once hollowed me out was gone now—burned away, leaving only the steel underneath.
I didn't cry. I didn't shake. 
And as I drove away, the house shrinking behind me like a stage set gone dim, I caught one last glimpse of him standing there in the doorway. Small. Still. Useless.
I watched him vanish in the rearview mirror—first the man, then the house, then the whole damn world I had twisted myself into just to be chosen.
But I wasn't heartbroken anymore. I was officially done.
And as the road opened up in front of me, as the cold dark wrapped around the silence in the car, a single thought rose steady and certain in my chest: I will make you pay for this Thomas.
Literally. 

And then otherwise.
.........

Jeanine (POV)
October was right.
I saw it in her eyes—the same ache I stopped naming years ago.
But tonight... tonight was different.
He was never this blatant before. Never made a toast to his mistress with his wife standing right there.
Not in front of the whole family. Not with that smile.
October was right. It's time.
It's time to end it all.