Semua Bab The Bride I Used to Be: Bab 1 - Bab 8

She didn’t sleep that night.Her body craved rest, but her mind wouldn’t allow it. The photo, the locked door, the soundless music, and Damon’s unreadable eyes swirled together in her thoughts like a storm she couldn’t escape.She sat in the dark, watching the pale morning light slip through the curtains like a stranger sneaking into her room.A soft knock came.This time, the nurse didn’t enter. It was a younger woman in her early thirties, dressed in black with a silver pin on her collar. Her tone was clipped but polite.“Good morning, Mrs. Blackwood. I’m Elise, the house assistant. Mr. Blackwood asked me to escort you to the dining hall. If you feel well enough to walk, that is.”Bliss nodded slowly and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Elise didn’t offer to help her dress, and Bliss appreciated that small mercy. She moved stiffly toward the wardrobe, opened it, and paused.Everything inside was in her size. Dresses, pantsuits, soft cashmere sweaters, silk undergarments. All

The music came softly at first.It wasn’t the haunting piano melody from before. This was softer, a delicate lullaby, faint and fragile, as if floating through the ceiling or borne on the sea breeze.Bliss sat up in bed and listened.The fire in the hearth had died out. The room was dim, cast in the gray morning light that always made the walls look colder than they were. She slipped from the covers, pulled on her robe, and padded barefoot to the door.The music tugged at something inside her. A whisper in the back of her mind. Not a memory, not yet. Just a feeling. Something familiar she couldn’t quite reach.She followed the sound through the hall.Past the main staircase. Past the double doors Damon always kept closed. She turned left instead of right. Down the corridor lined with windows that showed a sliver of the cliffs.The sound grew clearer.It came from a narrow archway at the end of the hall. She stepped through it, her fingers brushing the cold stone wall as she moved.The

Bliss didn’t move for a long time.The storm outside cracked again, this time louder, as if the sky itself was reacting to the tension in the room. Damon hadn’t taken another step forward. He just stood there, shadowed by the dim hallway behind him, his expression unreadable.Bliss still held the second cassette in her hand."Memory."She turned it over, her fingers brushing the old plastic as if it held something sacred. The silence between them stretched. Her mind spun, caught in a whirlwind of images and unanswered questions. Who was the woman on the tape? Why did she sound like her? Why did her name, Ivana, feel like it belonged just as much as Bliss did?Damon’s voice broke through the silence.“You don’t have to listen to that.”Bliss looked up sharply.He took a step forward, then paused when he saw her flinch. His jaw tightened.“I was trying to protect you.”Her fingers curled around the cassette.From the beginning, his lies had been polished, dressed in tenderness and half-

Bliss stood outside the imposing building, her heart thudding in her chest as she stared up at the sleek glass and steel structure. The acting academy’s name glimmered in silver letters on the entrance, a symbol of success that seemed lightyears away from where she stood. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this, she reminded herself. She had taken Damon’s advice. She had decided to take the first step toward reclaiming her life, toward becoming who she had always wanted to be. And yet, as she pushed open the glass door and stepped inside, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was somehow out of place. The lobby was bustling with the elite, polished faces, and sharp suits of people who belonged here. They had that effortless grace, the kind of air that spoke of years spent in these rooms. Bliss felt like an imposter, a girl who had stumbled into a world she had no business being in. Her clothes, simple and understated,