4

I did not reply. While I was packing, I found that all the certificates and trophies I kept in the study were gone.

Camille's stuffed animals were sitting where they used to be.

I searched for a long time before I dug them out of the trash bin outside the house.

The certificates had been torn to shreds. The trophies had been smashed to pieces.

I carried the pieces inside and fit them together bit by bit, and I could not put together one whole certificate.

There was no surge of hatred in me, no urge to sob. There was only a dead stillness.

These were honors I'd earned in college, and they were important proof of my academic record for graduate school. I needed to show them to my advisor, and now they were gone.

I called Dante.

It took three calls before he picked up. I could hear Camille laughing in the background.

"What is it?"

My fingers shook around the phone. "My certificates and trophies from college. Why were they all destroyed?"

Dante's tone was offhand. "Camille wanted somewhere to put her toys, and your things were taking up space, so I told her to deal with them."

"Those things matter to me! I need them tomorrow! What gives you the right to let her touch my things!"

"What do you need certificates for? Are you going to put them up on a wall and worship them? You look after my meals and my house, that's all. Stop competing with Camille over everything."

His tone was anything but kind; it was thick with impatience.

I opened my mouth, and all I felt was that a heart already dead could not hurt anymore. I said nothing else and hung up.

He could abandon our wedding and abandon me, all to attend Camille's concert and celebrate her success.

When it was my turn, all I got was a question about what certificates were good for.

And getting the school to reissue them would have cost him nothing more than lifting a finger.

In the end it came down to one thing. I did not matter to him as much as Camille did.

Sick with nerves, I called Professor Nolan at the university.

Thankfully the school had kept copies of the certificates, and there were photographs of the trophies on file.

I shuddered to think what I would have done if the school had kept no backups.

I did not sleep all night.

By morning Dante still had not come home.

I pulled my suitcase to the door and took one last look at the house I had lived in for five years.

The maids had no idea. They thought I was leaving to get my bridal hair and makeup done, and they cheerfully wished me well.

I smiled and said nothing.

Whatever happened to the Morettis now had nothing to do with me.

After I picked up my documents at the university, I went straight to the airport.

Dante did not send a message until after the ceremony was supposed to have started. "I overslept. I'll be at the hall a little late."

"It's overcast today. Stay out of the wind."

He had finally remembered that I get headaches in this weather.

But I did not need him to care about me anymore.

I turned off my phone and boarded the plane without looking back.

Dante did not come rushing into the banquet hall until that afternoon, out of breath.

With the doors shut, he assumed I had ended the ceremony early.

He had just taken out his phone to call me when the messages came flooding in.

"Aren't you getting married today? Why are the staff saying there's no wedding?"

"Did you change venues? The hall doors aren't even open."

Dante went blank. What did they mean, there was no wedding?

He grabbed a staff member at the door and snapped at him, "Isn't today my wedding to Vivian? Why haven't you set anything up!"

The staff member shrank back, frightened. "Ms. Kerr transferred the booking to someone else. There really isn't a wedding here today."

Dante's pupils contracted. "She transferred it? Why!"

"We don't know either. But she left a message. 'I don't need this wedding.'"