The Road that Led Here.

~ Ivy ~

The asphalt burned icy cold against my cheek. I felt the sharp gravel of the road digging into my skin, but I couldn't lift my head to pull away. My body felt like a sack of heavy stones. Every breath was short and shallow, barely reaching my lungs.

Just a few steps away, the white sheets of my divorce papers made a soft, scraping sound as the wind blew them across the dirt. You came with nothing, so you leave with nothing, the guard had said. Julian’s final words through the intercom were still ringing in my ears, louder than the wind: I couldn't care less if you have to sleep on the street. I closed my eyes. The cold street seemed to fade slowly, and my thoughts drifted back into the past—sinking into old memories that were just as dark and frosty as this night.

I was eight years old, standing in the brightly lit hallway of my parents' house. The floor was covered in a thick, soft carpet that never hurt my feet. Through the open door of the master bedroom, I watched my mother, Victoria, zip up a gorgeous pink dress on my little sister, Lily. Shiny little pearls were sewn around the collar. Lily laughed and twirled in circles, her blonde curls bouncing.

"Mommy," I said, stepping into the room and tugging at my oversized gray T-shirt. "What about me? Is there a pretty dress for me for the party, too?"

Victoria paused instead of fixing Lily’s hair further. She turned her head and looked down at me. With a slight frown, her gaze swept over my broad waist and sturdy legs.

"In a dress like that, you just look fat, Ivy," she said in a completely toneless, matter-of-fact voice. "It would only emphasize your unflattering figure. Just put on your old blue pants and stay in the kitchen until we leave."

Lily smiled at her reflection in the mirror. I went back to my room, my heart heavy as lead. That was the day I realized my body was a problem. I realized that I was fundamentally flawed. The memory shifted, growing louder, crueler. I was twelve years old, sitting on a wooden bench during school recess. A group of boys and girls from my class walked up to me, blocking out the sun.

"Oink, oink," a boy named Peter grunted, puffing out his cheeks. "Look how much room the bench takes up today. No one else can fit."

"Woof, woof!" a girl laughed, throwing an old apple core at my shoes. "The Monroe family's grocery bill must be gigantic."

Desperate for help, I looked around the schoolyard. Mrs. Gable, the playground monitor, walked right past our group. She looked at the kids yelling at me, but immediately looked away, pretending she needed to organize something on her clipboard. She didn't utter a single word to stop them. I dug my fingernails into my palms and kept my head down until the bell rang. No one would ever stand up for me. I was completely on my own.

Then came my sixteenth year. I remember the harsh yellow glow of the porch light on the night of the high school dance so clearly. A boy named Derek, who had sat next to me in biology class for three weeks, had asked me to be his date. He had smiled at me. He had given me a single white rose. For three weeks, I had believed the mirror was lying to me. I had believed that someone actually wanted me.

I stood on the porch in a loose, navy-blue dress my mother had ordered from a catalog for elderly women. Derek walked up the steps, but he wasn't holding car keys. He held up his smartphone, the camera aimed directly at my face. A loud giggle from the bushes beside the driveway broke the silence. Three of his football buddies stepped into the light, all with their phones out.

"Did you really think I'd go out with a whale like you, Ivy?" Derek laughed, throwing the white rose into the dirt in front of me. "It was a bet. We just wanted to see if you'd actually buy a dress."

They ran down the street, laughing and hooting. I remained frozen on the porch, staring at the trampled flower in the dirt. Love was not a good thing. It was only a sharp blade people used to stab you the moment you let your guard down.

The scene shifted to my father’s study. I was twenty years old, holding a large canvas in my hands. For three months, I had worked on that painting of the river near our house. The colors were vibrant and full of life. I had been proud of it. Arthur Monroe sat behind his massive oak desk, counting through business papers. Beside him stood Lily in a designer jacket.

"Father, look," I said, holding up the canvas so he could see. "My art instructor said I have real talent. She wants to exhibit my painting in the local gallery."

Arthur didn't grace the painting with a single look. He didn't even raise his eyes from his papers. "Lily is going to be the face of our new marketing campaign next month, Ivy. She has real potential to bring in new investors."

"But what about my art?" I whispered.

My mother walked into the room, eyeing my paint-splattered jeans. "Take that dusty thing down to the basement, Ivy. Lily has a dinner with the mayor tonight. You should stay in the background a bit more so the guests don't start asking why you look so completely different from your sister."

I carried the canvas downstairs and hid it behind the old water heater. That was when I understood that my talents didn't matter. I was just an embarrassing blemish that had to be hidden away in the dark.

The memories sharpened, leading me to the day my life completely shattered into pieces. I was twenty-seven. The family business was on the brink of ruin, and my father's face was chalk-white with panic. Lily had packed her bags in the middle of the night and fled to avoid marrying Julian Vance, the cold-blooded billionaire and CEO. Arthur and Victoria sat me down at the long dining table. They looked at me like an old piece of furniture that had to be sold off to pay the bills.

"You are going to marry Julian Vance on Saturday," Arthur said, his voice hard as forged steel. "It is your duty to this family. You owe us at least that much for feeding you all these years."

"But he doesn't even want me," I pleaded, my voice breaking as I looked at my mother. "He wants Lily. He saw me once and looked at me like I was dirt. He will hate me."

Victoria leaned across the table and slammed her palm down on the wood. "It doesn't matter what he wants, Ivy! The only thing that matters is doing what is necessary to save this family from bankruptcy. You will put on that wedding dress, you will walk down that aisle, and you will say I do."

The wedding day was a blur of gray. I walked down the long church aisle completely alone, because my father was too busy outside talking to reporters. The guests in the pews whispered and snickered behind their hands as my broad frame passed by. Julian stood at the altar in a flawless black suit. His eyes were like ice cubes. When I finally reached him, he didn't take my hand. He leaned in close to my ear while the priest read from the Bible.

"Don't expect a happy marriage," Julian whispered, his voice dripping with utter contempt. "You are merely a placeholder until I get what I want."

When the priest told him to kiss the bride, Julian barely brushed his cheek against mine for half a second. The crowd cheered, but I felt as though I was being pulled down into deep, dark water.

An entire year of that marriage passed by like a fast-forwarded nightmare. Separate bedrooms. Lonely meals at the massive dining table while the food grew cold. Julian coming home late at night, smelling of Chloe's sweet floral perfume. The staff laughing in the hallways, calling me a laughingstock and a ghost behind my back. I had learned to apologize every single time I entered a room. I had learned to apologize for simply being alive.

The memories broke off abruptly.

The freezing asphalt burned against my face once more. A violent gust of wind swept past, and I heard the rustling of the signed divorce papers blowing farther down the street. My fingers twitched, but I couldn't ball them into a fist anymore. My stomach felt empty and torn; the memory of the red blood on the white marble of the ballroom floor sent another wave of nausea up my throat.

Maybe… they were all right about me… my mind whispered into the silence. I am too fat. I am too clumsy. I am too ugly to ever be loved.

My hand went completely limp on the cold roadway. The darkness in my head expanded, sweeping me away like a heavy wave. I closed my eyes tightly, ready to just let go. I never wanted to wake up again. Then, suddenly, two bright beams of yellow light sliced through the darkness, cutting through the branches of the distant trees. The low rumble of a heavy engine echoed through the quiet night, drawing closer and closer.