Chapter 16 — Bled Dry

My family had not simply chosen a party over my wedding.

They had financed their picture-perfect celebration by bleeding me dry — draining the safety net I had built for my own future, banking on the fact that I rarely checked the account and never questioned their need for help.

I sat there with the shattered mug at my feet.

Something in me that had been alive a long time — the girl who cried in the vestibule, the girl who skipped her own car payment to pay for their hotel — went quiet, and did not come back.

I want to describe that quiet, because it was not rage, though I had every right to rage.