The dinner table felt like a battlefield.
My mother’s eyes were red-rimmed, her lips pressed into a thin line of disappointment. My father barely looked at John, his jaw clenched so tightly I feared it might shatter. The silence was heavier than any scream.
“Lucy,” Mom finally said, voice cracking, “how could you do this? To Leo? To all of us? We had the venue, the flowers, the life planned out. And you threw it away for… him?”
John sat beside me, his hand gripping mine under the table like an anchor. His thumb stroked my knuckles in slow, soothing circles, but I could feel the tension radiating from his body.
“I know it looks selfish,” I whispered, tears already burning my eyes. “It was selfish. But staying with Leo would have been worse. I was dying inside, pretending to be someone I
