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Lily.

作者: Pr3shy V.
last update publish date: 2026-08-26 07:30:57

~ Ivy ~

The studio smelled of linseed oil, fresh canvas, and black coffee.

I stood in front of my wooden easel, holding a wide palette knife coated in deep cobalt blue paint. Afternoon sunlight came through the front window, shining across the polished floorboards and the half-finished commission resting on the stand. My green apron was smeared with gray and gold smudges from yesterday's work.

A small brass bell chimed above the front door.

I set the palette knife down on the edge of my glass m
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  • The Plus-Sized Bride No One Wanted: Too Fat to Love    Lily.

    ~ Ivy ~The studio smelled of linseed oil, fresh canvas, and black coffee.I stood in front of my wooden easel, holding a wide palette knife coated in deep cobalt blue paint. Afternoon sunlight came through the front window, shining across the polished floorboards and the half-finished commission resting on the stand. My green apron was smeared with gray and gold smudges from yesterday's work.A small brass bell chimed above the front door.I set the palette knife down on the edge of my glass mixing tray, wiped my fingers on a clean cotton rag, and turned around, expecting a client from the arts quarter.The person standing in the doorway was not a client.My breath caught in my throat. I stood completely still by the easel, my hands holding the rag tight against my apron.Lily stood just inside the threshold.She looked thinner than the last time I saw her. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, but several loose strands hung around her pale face. She wore a beige trenc

  • The Plus-Sized Bride No One Wanted: Too Fat to Love    What Almost Slip Out.

    ~ Ivy ~The screen of my phone lit up the dark bedroom.A name flashed in bold black letters right in the center of the glass: Lily.My fingers went cold. The steady, buzzing hum of the ringtone sounded like an alarm going off in the quiet room.I did not move. I sat on the edge of the mattress, my hands gripping the cotton sheets so tightly that my knuckles turned white. My chest grew tight, making it hard to pull air into my lungs.For twenty-seven years, that name had meant everything in the Monroe house. Lily was the golden child. Lily got the pink dresses with the shiny pearls. Lily got the praise, the private schools, and the gentle smiles from our parents. When Lily ran away to avoid marrying Julian Vance, our father did not hunt her down with anger. He just turned to me, his disposable daughter, and sold me to save his company instead.The phone buzzed against the nightstand. Four times. Five times.I kept my hands locked on the mattress. I stared at the flashing letters until

  • The Plus-Sized Bride No One Wanted: Too Fat to Love    The Weight of a Name.

    ~ Ivy ~ My phone buzzed on the workbench, face-down, and I let it go to voicemail before I even looked at the screen. Old habit. Numbers I didn't know used to mean trouble, and some habits don't leave just because the trouble stopped. I wiped the paint off my hands and picked it up anyway. One new voicemail. I pressed play. "Hello, Miss Monroe, this is Gerald Ashford, calling on behalf of—" I didn't let him finish. My thumb found the delete button before he got to the second sentence, and I stood there holding the phone like it might ring again on its own. My hands were shaking. Just a little. Enough that I noticed. Maya looked up from the canvas she was stretching in the corner. "Everything okay?" "Fine." I set the phone down screen-first, like that would help. "Just old business trying to become new business." "That's not an answer." "It's the only one I've got right now." I forced a smile, and Maya let it go, because that's the kind of friend she was. She didn't push. She j

  • The Plus-Sized Bride No One Wanted: Too Fat to Love    Building Something Careful.

    ~ Ethan ~I typed one line and then just sat there looking at it. *Chloe Bennett — timeline, night of the fall.* Ten words. It took me almost twenty minutes to write them.The hospital was quiet this late. Most of the lights on my floor were off except mine. I had told myself I was staying to catch up on charts. That was true, but it wasn't the real reason. The real reason was sitting in a folder I hadn't opened in over a year.I opened it now.Ivy's admission file. Her intake photo was the first thing that came up, and I made myself look at it instead of clicking past it. The bruising along her jaw. The cut above her eyebrow. Her eyes in that picture didn't look scared anymore. They looked like she'd already given up on being scared, like she was too tired for it. I had seen that look on other patients before. It never got easier.I closed my eyes for a second, then opened them and kept working.I pulled the original police report next. It was short. Too short. Two pages for a woman

  • The Plus-Sized Bride No One Wanted: Too Fat to Love    Faces from Before.

    ~ Ivy ~I was about to throw the envelope in the trash when Maya grabbed my wrist. "Don't you dare," she said. The envelope was thick and cream-colored, with gold letters that said ASHBOURNE PRIVATE ACADEMY - TEN YEAR REUNION. It had been sitting on my kitchen counter for three days. Every time I saw it, my stomach tightened."I don't want to go," I said. "You know what those people were like." Maya pulled the envelope out of my hand and held it up. "That's exactly why you should go." She was sitting on the stool by my kitchen island, drinking coffee from my chipped blue mug. Her laptop was open to an email from a gallery, but she wasn't looking at it anymore."Do you remember when I told you about my senior year?" I asked. "When they made pig noises every time I walked into the cafeteria?" Maya's face got tight. "I remember." "I don't need to see them again. I have a good life now. I don't need to prove anything." Maya set the mug down. "It's not about proving anything to them. It's

  • The Plus-Sized Bride No One Wanted: Too Fat to Love    The New Beginning.

    ~ Ivy ~I stood with a paintbrush in my hand and didn't move. The canvas in front of me was still blank. I had been standing there for almost ten minutes, just looking at it, and I hadn't made a single mark.A year ago I couldn't hold a spoon without my hand shaking. Now I owned this whole room. Canvases leaned against every wall, some finished, some half done. My work. My name on the little cards next to them at the gallery downtown. I turned in a slow circle and looked at all of it, and my chest felt tight in a way that wasn't bad. It was the opposite of bad.I thought about the woman who collapsed on the side of the road, soaked and freezing, with nothing left. I thought about the hospital bed, and the cast on my leg, and the ceiling I used to stare at for hours because staring at the ceiling was easier than thinking. I thought about Ethan sitting next to that bed, night after night, not saying much, just staying.I picked up a tube of blue paint and set it back down without openin

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