THE ILLEGITIMATE BRIDE

Chapter 2:Elena

I woke up on the floor.

My neck ached before I even opened my eyes, some dull throb from a night spent curled against the base of my own door instead of my bed, still in the dress I'd worn into that study, like it might have protected me from something. The light through my window was pale and thin, the kind that makes everything look a little colder than it actually is.

For one merciful moment, I didn't remember why my chest already hurt.

Then it came back. All of it. Damien Ashford. The wedding in three weeks. My mother's name in my father's mouth, flat and careless, like she was a line item he was tired of seeing on a budget.

I lay there longer than I should have, staring at the ceiling, something heavy and gray settling over me the way it always did the morning after something in my life broke. I didn't cry. Crying never solved anything ,it just made you look weak, and there was something almost peaceful in having nothing left to feel with. Just emptiness. Quiet, and gray, and hollowed out.

My mother didn't know yet what kind of morning I was having, and she never would if I could help it. So I forced myself upright. I forced my legs to hold me, even though they felt borrowed from someone else. I splashed water on my face until the puffiness under my eyes could pass for tiredness instead of grief, and I put on something clean, something soft, something that didn't smell like the study or my father's voice.

I visited her every morning. Today wasn't going to be any different, even if I was.

Rosa was adjusting the curtains when I let myself in, and gave me the same tired, gentle smile she always did , the one that meant nothing had changed overnight, which by then was the closest thing to good news either of us ever got.

My mother sat propped against her pillows, the pale blue cardigan I'd bought her draped over her shoulders even though the room wasn't cold. She turned toward the door slowly, the world reaching her a few seconds after it happened everywhere else.

"There's my girl," she said, and something in her voice tightened my throat immediately.

"Morning, Mama." I sat on the edge of her bed and took her hand in both of mine, feeling how thin it had gotten, how the bones sat closer to the surface than they used to.

She studied my face longer than usual, and my stomach dropped, the way it always did when I couldn't tell how much of me she was actually seeing that day.

"You look tired," she said. "Did you sleep?"

"A little." The lie came easily. I'd gotten good at lying to her gently, the kind of lie you tell someone you love too much to burden. "I'm fine, Mama."

"You always say that." Her thumb moved over my knuckles, slow and absent. "Even when you were small, you'd say you were fine right before you burst into tears."

I laughed, and it came out wet and small, and I hated that she'd noticed even a fraction of what I was hiding.

"I promise I'm okay. Just didn't sleep well."

She let it go, not because she believed me, I think, but because holding onto a thought for very long had become its own kind of exhausting for her now. She asked about the garden instead, whether the hydrangeas were still blooming, and I told her they were, because it was easier than telling her anything true.

I stayed until Rosa gently suggested it might be time for her to rest. I kissed my mother's forehead and told her I'd see her tomorrow, and for the length of that hallway, I let myself believe I could survive whatever came next.

I made it exactly to the top of the staircase before Camille found me.

She was already there, leaning against the banister like she'd been waiting, arms crossed, wearing the particular smile I'd hated since we were children, the one that meant she already knew something and had been looking forward to telling me she knew it.

"Well, well." Her eyes swept over me slowly, the way you'd assess something before deciding whether it was even worth mocking. "Well, if it isn't the bride to be."

I didn't answer. I tried to walk past her, but she shifted her weight just enough to block the space, some old instinct for exactly how much room to take up to leave me none.

"You look awful," she said, almost delighted by it. "Didn't sleep, I take it? Understandable. I'd lose sleep too, if I found out I was being handed off like some old piece of furniture."

I ignored her. While growing up, I'd figured that if I ignored her for long enough, she'd eventually get tired and leave me alone. It was either that or endure my father's wrath for daring to touch his precious legitimate daughter.

"Being a wife means being useful, Elena. Smile when you're told to. Speak when you're spoken to. Don't embarrass the man whose name you're borrowing." Her smile widened. "You should be good at that part, at least. You've had practice."

My eyes burned, and I hated myself for it, hated that after everything, she could still find the exact place to press.

"Is that all?" My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to.

"For now." She stepped back, already losing interest, already moving on to whatever came next in her day, because none of this had ever cost her anything. "Enjoy your last few weeks of freedom. I hear Damien Ashford is as ruthless as they come."

She left me standing there, one hand gripping the banister hard enough to hurt, watching her disappear down the hallway like she hadn't just crushed flat the small, fragile calm I'd built two doors away.

I thought of my mother, asking if I was okay in a voice that still remembered how to worry about me even when so much else had slipped away from her.

And I thought, not for the first time, how much easier it would be if I could forget things the way she did. If I could wake up and not remember, even for an hour, exactly how small I was in that house and exactly how little that was ever going to change.