After He Fled the Wedding Ninth Time, I Left

Chapter 4

The discomfort on his face twisted into full-blown panic as he reached for me.

"Aurora, let me explain."

I recoiled as if from something vile.

"Do not bother."

My voice came out eerily steady, stripped of any tremor.

"No explanations. I am past needing them. I only came back for what belongs to me."

But when I stepped into my workroom, Ascendance, the gown I had spent two full years designing was gone.

My heart dropped into a pit. I tore through every corner and every drawer, but the masterpiece had vanished without a trace.

That hand-embroidered haute couture gown had consumed countless sleepless nights. Every inch of its exclusive fabric had been sourced by me, every pattern drafted and redrafted by my own hands.

It was my entry for the international design competition.

The prize money that could have saved my grandmother's life.

It was my life's work, my heart and soul, my only hope of surviving everything that had happened.

And it was gone.

I turned the workroom upside down and found nothing. Cold sweat soaked through the back of my shirt, yet my mind grew unnervingly clear.

Only one outsider had stepped into this house recently. Genevieve.

We were both designers, but while my awards had accumulated year after year, she had flared briefly before fading into mediocrity.

Who else would have set her sights on my work?

Swallowing the tightness in my throat, I called the police without a moment of hesitation.

Genevieve went pale when she heard me make the call. Sebastian scowled at me.

"Over a piece of clothing? Are you serious?"

My reply came out razor-edged. "A piece of clothing? That piece took hundreds of sketches and thousands of stitches. It has been stolen. Should I not demand justice?"

The officers arrived while we were still arguing. Their search turned up nothing. After they left, I fell apart and sobbed uncontrollably.

Genevieve oozed counterfeit sympathy. "Aurora, now that you are a cripple anyway, what use are designs? You might as well let someone more capable put them to use."

The open provocation snapped my self-restraint. My hand cracked across her cheek.

"That was completely out of line, Aurora."

Sebastian threw me aside. I crashed to the floor, my knee slamming against the corner of the table. The bruising pain was nothing compared to the tearing agony in my chest.

"Enough. What Genevieve said was true. Is it really worth causing such a scene over a ragged dress and some worthless competition? I never knew you were this petty."

The officers' attempts to mediate still echoed somewhere in the background, but I could no longer make out a single word.

Tears blurred my vision, not from fear and not from grievance, but from a coldness that had seeped into my bones.

Pushing against the floor, I slowly pulled myself back up.

My shoulders were trembling, yet my voice came out unnaturally calm.

"Petty? Sebastian, you will understand exactly how I feel when you lose what matters most to you. My designs are not the worthless trash you just called them. They are all my sweat and my dreams. Even as a disabled woman, I still have my dignity. Nothing you say gives anyone the right to steal my creations."

I wiped the tears from my face and locked my eyes on Genevieve, speaking each word with deliberate clarity.

"What you stole was not just a gown. It was a talent you will never possess in this lifetime. Remember this. I will make you pay for it."

With that, I turned and walked out.

In the days that followed, I hid myself away in a tiny rented room.

There was no elegant desk and no soft sofa. There was only an icy floor, a clunky old sewing machine, and my own stubborn hands.

Discarded sketches covered the floorboards. Pencil dust gathered in thin layers. The lamp burned late into every night.

My wounds still ached dully. Each press of the sewing pedal sent a jolt through my prosthetic limb, but I never once flinched.

I told myself the same thing over and over. So what if Ascendance was gone?

My gift was still here. My skills had not left me.

Even with the limits of my body, even against the pressure of time and the crudeness of my conditions, I could still produce something that would make every last person open their eyes wide.

When the first light of dawn spilled through the window, I set down my needle.

A new design had taken shape.

This time, I would not give anyone the chance to steal my future away again.

On the final day of the competition deadline, I mailed the garment in.

I had shut the world out completely during that stretch of time.

Only when I turned my phone back on did I discover the flood of messages that had piled up.

Every one of them was from Sebastian.

Sebastian: Aurora, I should not have spoken to you that way the other day. I had no right to belittle your work, and I should never have called you disabled.

Sebastian: But if you had not hit her first, I would not have spoken so harshly either. Let us just call it even, all right?

Call it even.

I had been publicly humiliated by him and Genevieve, my life's work stolen, my dignity ground beneath their feet, and he thought a casual phrase like call it even could balance the scales.

Sebastian: Aurora, please take care of yourself out there. The weather is getting cold. Remember to dress warmly.

Sebastian: Genevieve's apartment is still being renovated. She may need to stay a while longer. Just stay where you are for now. I will come and bring you home once things are sorted out.

Sebastian: Aurora, I have transferred money for your rent. Buy whatever you need. Do not go without.

I let out a sharp, bitter laugh and deleted every message in a single motion.

His concern and his apologies rang completely hollow to me now.

All I had to do was wait for Genevieve to make a misstep.

If she dared to touch what was mine, she had better be ready to face total ruin.

A month later, the results of the fashion design competition were announced.

My piece had caught the judges' eyes, but the materials I had been forced to use were cheap and inferior. My entry placed fourth.

Still, I was satisfied. It proved that everything I had poured into those sleepless nights had not been wasted.

What filled me with an even colder satisfaction was discovering that Genevieve had actually dared to submit my Ascendance as her own entry.

She had made numerous alterations, adding heavy lacework and all manner of embellishments, but I recognized it instantly. Every stitch of it was mine.