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Eighty five

Author: Ranya Vale
last update Last Updated: 2025-08-06 00:11:38

Three weeks had passed since I stood in front of the mirror wearing the coat my mother had once only imagined. The boutique had reopened quietly, with no announcement, no campaign, no curated story. There were no cameras waiting. No velvet rope at the door. Just a slow return to rhythm. The windows were updated. The mannequins wore pieces I had touched myself. The fabric was simpler now. Intentional. The kind that did not shout, but endured.

Inside, the space felt different. The walls carried less tension. The silence was no longer defensive. The air did not hold its breath the way it used to. There was room again. Not the kind that came from emptiness, but from something hard-earned. A steadiness that came only after the dust had begun to settle.

Most days began the same way. I arrived before the others. I walked the perimeter of the studio like I always had, fingers brushing the edge of the table, eyes checking the light. It was habit, but also something deeper. A way of making su
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  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge   Chapter 143

    The day the archive officially changed felt quieter than I expected. There were no speeches, no photographers, no glittering launch banners across the boutique windows. The announcement went up on our small corner of the website the night before, a single paragraph stating that the student archive was now a formal learning program. It carried my name, but in truth, it belonged to all the hands that had passed through here.We opened early that morning. Claudia was already in the back when I arrived, leaning over a table with a neat row of folded muslin and a stack of labeled boxes. The smell of fresh coffee drifted through the air, and somewhere behind the fabric shelves, I could hear the muffled hum of the small heater we had pulled out for winter mornings.I set my bag down and walked toward the archive room. It had always been small, tucked away at the far end of the boutique, past the workstations and the racks of finished garments. For years, it had been littl

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge   Chapter 142

    It started raining again the next afternoon, the kind of rain that makes the street shimmer like it has been newly polished. I was standing by the front table arranging a set of hand-stitched scarves when I saw them. Not all of them from yesterday, but enough that I recognized the faces, the way their coats clung damp to their shoulders.The signs were gone this time, though a few carried folded pieces of cardboard under their arms. They didn’t chant. They stood together under the narrow strip of awning across the street, talking quietly, their breath turning into mist in the cool air.I didn’t hesitate. I walked to the door, pushed it open, and let the air and sound of the rain spill in. The sudden shift made a few of them glance up.“You can come in if you want,” I said, raising my voice only enough to be heard over the rain. “It’s warmer inside, and the kettle’s on.”There was a pause, the kind that feels longer than it is. Then the young woman

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge   Chapter 141

    The morning had been moving slowly, the way mornings sometimes do when the city is still waking up. I had opened the boutique the same way I always did, lights one by one, curtains drawn back, windows open just enough to let in the air. The air carried that clean, unsettled smell that comes after a night of rain—fresh, but still holding onto the damp. I had the front door propped open to let it flow through the space, thinking about the stack of supplier updates I still needed to review before lunch.I was in the back workroom, bent over a box of fabric swatches, when the sound came. It started as a low hum—voices, layered and restless—but it didn’t drift away the way passing conversations do. It settled right in front of the shop, the rhythm of it growing until I could catch the edges of words. Unethical sourcing. Hidden suppliers. Cheap labour.I straightened slowly, one hand resting on the worktable.By the time I walked to the front window, the group w

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge   Chapter 140

    The street outside was still damp from the rain that had passed through during the night. The kind of rain that darkens the brick and leaves the shopfronts gleaming under the early light. I arrived before anyone else and let myself in, locking the door behind me and pausing in the middle of the boutique for a moment before touching anything.It was always quiet at this hour. No footsteps overhead. No hum of voices. Just the faint ticking of the clock in the back room and the muffled sound of traffic from the main road. The air still carried the familiar mix I had grown used to over the years—cotton, cedar polish, and the faint sweetness drifting through from the café next door.I turned on the lights one by one. The racks lit up first, then the display table by the window, then the soft glow above the counter. The kettle went on automatically, a habit I never questioned. While I waited for it to boil, I stacked the fabric swatches Claudia had left out yesterday. She had been experimen

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge   Chapter 139

    I was standing behind the counter with a pen in my hand, trying to remember whether I had already signed the last invoice, when Claudia called my name from the front door. Her voice had that half-distracted tone she used when her hands were full. I looked up and saw her carrying the mail, a loose bundle of envelopes and a couple of small padded packages balanced against her hip.She dropped them on the counter, muttering something about the delivery guy being in a hurry, and went back to helping a customer by the display wall. I started flipping through the stack without thinking, the way you do when most of it will probably be bills or catalogues we never asked for.Halfway through the pile, there was an envelope that didn’t look like the others. No return address, just my name written in handwriting that looked careful but a little uneven, like the person had taken their time but still felt nervous. The paper was thicker than usual, not glossy or bright white, more like the kind you

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge   Chapter 138

    The wind was stronger near the waterfront that night, the kind that carried the salt smell from the bay and pressed the loose strands of my hair across my face. Julian had suggested we walk after closing the boutique, and I had not asked where. I just let him lead, his hand in mine, as we wound through streets where the lamps threw long golden shapes across the wet pavement. It had rained earlier, not heavily, but enough to make the air feel soft and clean.We passed the shuttered front of a bakery, the scent of bread still clinging to the doorway. Somewhere down the street a busker was playing guitar, not loud enough for words to carry but just enough for the chords to find us in snatches. I thought about the long day behind us, about the orders stacked up on my worktable, about the quiet pressure that had been building since Claudia’s proposal to expand into Asia. It had been a flattering offer. The numbers made sense. The opportunities were obvious. And yet something in me resisted

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