Emergence

In the bridal boutique, when I stepped out of the fitting room, even strangers nearby gasped.

The sales associate smiled. "Ms. Jones, you're so tall and slim. This wedding dress looks absolutely stunning on you.”

"Go show your fiancé. He's going to love it."

I smiled back. "I wouldn't be so sure. He has very high standards."

After over ten years together, Damian Graves always held me to impossibly high standards and never once praised me.

Yet today, looking at myself in the mirror with my slender waist and fair skin, I thought I looked perfect in this dress.

I thought maybe Damian would like it. Would he compliment me? Would he think I was beautiful? Would he be stunned speechless like the other grooms in the shop?

With that hope building inside me, I nervously tugged at the corner of his sleeve. The next moment, my expectations shattered.

Damian turned to look at me, his eyes traveling up and down. The first words out of his mouth were, "Elara, you're still too fat."

My smile froze. Even the sales associate beside us looked uncomfortable.

"Your face is puffy, your arms are thick, you have a big frame, and your waist is too wide. It doesn't look good at all."

Damian sighed. "Elara, you don't look anything like a bride in this dress."

His voice was not loud, but just loud enough for everyone in the store to hear.

Different gazes landed on me, pitying, mocking, curious.

In that moment, I felt like nothing more than an object for Damian to inspect, not a person.

Tears pooled in my eyes. My chest felt so tight I could barely breathe.

I had exercised every single day just to fit into this dress, following his demands. For three months, I ate almost nothing. I worked so hard to lose 24 pounds, all so I could look good at the wedding.

Why did he still have to say these things?

Maybe the hunger from all those months made me emotionally fragile, or maybe the feeling of crushed expectations was simply unbearable.

Either way, in that moment, after enduring for ten long years, I could not bear it any longer.

I tore off the veil and screamed at him for the first time. "Damian Graves, if I'm not good enough for you, don't marry me!”

"Fine. I don't look like a bride, so I'm not getting married!"

Under Damian's shocked gaze, I took a deep breath and finally said the words that had circled through my mind countless times.

"Damian, let's break up."

By the time my best friend Lily Hayes came to pick me up, my tears still had not stopped. The moment I posted about canceling the wedding, everyone flooded me with messages asking what happened.

The most common response was, "Elara, did you and Damian have some kind of misunderstanding?"

"He's such a great guy. If you let him go, you'll regret it."

Even my mom took Damian's side. "I heard from Damian about what happened. It's just a small thing. No need to take it to heart."

Damian only sent me three words. "Stop being dramatic."

I stared at my phone as a sense of powerlessness spread through me. No one understood me.

After all, in everyone's eyes, Damian Graves was the perfect boyfriend.

He was good-looking, skilled, and thriving. In our ten years together, he never strayed. However, if he had a flaw, it was how he enjoyed belittling me.

We were childhood friends who grew up together. He was the golden child, the one who excelled at everything, better than me in every way.

Still, life was fair. While it gave him talent, it also gave him a broken family.

His mother died young. His father was a workaholic who rarely paid attention to him, only noticing when Damian won some award.