ROSE’S POV
I knew, three minutes into the toast, that I had made a significant error in judgment.
Not about coming. I had made the decision to attend with full awareness of its risks and I stood by the decision as a strategic choice, even now. The error was not in attending. The error was in what I had expected to find when I got here, and what I had built my preparation around.
I had prepared for a woman in pain.
Every scenario I had run in the weeks since the cream invitation arrived had been built around that foundational assumption: Rebecca Jones was hurting. She was hurt in the specific way of a woman whose marriage was ending against her will, whose husband had brought his other woman into her home, and who had decided, admirably, impressively, but ultimately from a position of
