And I wasn’t.

I had already decided, somewhere on the stairs, that I would let them tell the entire town whatever story they liked about me, that I would hand them the narrative for free, because a reputation managed by staying in a cruel house is not a reputation worth having.

Let them say the bride was lazy.

Let them say she was cold.

I would be saying it from a hotel suite with my own money in my own account and my whole life in front of me, and they would be saying it in an empty house that had just lost the one thing it married me to get.

“Tell them whatever you like,” I said, turning the deadbolt.