Chapter 2
JESSICA
The "Welcome to Largo Waters" sign looks exactly the same as it did six years ago. Faded green paint. Cheerful yellow letters. A cartoon oak tree with a face that's supposed to look friendly but looks like it's judging you for every bad decision you've ever made.
Join the club, tree. I'm judging me too.
I slow down as I pass it, my hands still shaking on the wheel. The tulle of my wedding dress has somehow migrated everywhere. There's a piece stuck to the gear shift. Another wrapped around my left ankle. A third has attached itself to the rearview mirror like a sad, deflated ghost.
Melissa's car smells like her perfume. That expensive vanilla and jasmine stuff she started wearing after Callum complimented it once at dinner. I remember thinking it was weird at the time. Why would she care what my fiancé thought of her perfume?
Now I know.
I crack the window and let the autumn air wash through the car, carrying away the scent of betrayal and poor life choices. Mine and hers.
Largo Waters unfolds around me like a postcard from a life I used to live.
Lanzarote Street with its brick storefronts and hanging flower baskets.
The Bluebird Cafe where Mom and I used to get pancakes every Sunday.
The hardware store that's been run by the same family for four generations.
The gazebo in the town square where they do summer concerts and Christmas caroling and probably sacrifice goats under the full moon for all I know about what happens in small towns after dark.
Everything looks smaller than I remember. Quieter. More... real.
A woman walking her dog stops dead on the sidewalk as I drive past. I see her mouth fall open. See her reach for her phone.
Right.
I'm driving through my hometown in a ruined wedding dress, mascara streaked down my face, hair half up and half collapsed, behind the wheel of a car that definitely isn't mine.
Everything is fine.
I take the turn onto Thorne Street, and my chest tightens. Three blocks. Two blocks. One.
There it is.
Mom's house sits at the end of the cul-de-sac, a pale blue Victorian with white trim and a wraparound porch.
The garden is immaculate, as always. Chrysanthemums in orange and burgundy.
Decorative kale in purple and green. A scarecrow wearing one of Dad's old flannel shirts, standing guard over the pumpkins.
I pull into the driveway and turn off the engine.
Silence.
For a long moment, I just sit there. Breathing.
Staring at the house where I grew up. The house I ran from six years ago.
I try to open the door and realize my dress is caught on something.
The gear shift. The seat belt. Possibly the fabric of space and time itself.
I yank and pull and eventually just rip a chunk of tulle free, leaving it behind like a shed skin.
The October air hits me the second I step out. Cool and crisp, carrying the smell of woodsmoke and fallen leaves which my throat tight.
My heels sink into the gravel as I walk toward the house. These stupid shoes. Four-inch stilettos that Callum's mother insisted were "elegant" and "appropriate for a bride." They're also instruments of torture designed by someone who hates women and wants us all to suffer.
I kick them off halfway up the walkway. Leave them lying in the grass like casualties of war.
The porch steps creak under my bare feet. The same creak they've always had. Dad kept saying he'd fix it, but he never did. After he died, Mom said she liked the sound. Said it reminded her of him.
The porch swing hangs in its usual spot, swaying slightly in the breeze. Dad built it the summer I turned ten. Spent three weekends measuring and cutting and sanding while I handed him tools and pretended I was helping.
I sink onto it now, and the familiar groan of the chains sends something cracking open inside my chest.
I don't cry. Not yet. I just sit there, dress pooling around me like a deflated meringue, staring at the garden Dad planted and Mom still tends, breathing in air that smells like childhood and safety and everything I gave up when I followed Callum to the city.
My phone buzzes. I pull it out without thinking.
Twenty-three missed calls from Callum. Forty-seven text messages. Twelve voicemails.
I don't read any of them. I scroll past all of it until I find what I'm looking for.
Mom: Are you there yet? Are you okay?
I look at the timestamp. Three minutes ago.
Me: I'm here. I'm okay.
The reply comes immediately.
Mom: We're at the airport. Aunt Linda is checking our bags. Jessica, are you sure about this? I can cancel. I can come home right now.
I stare at the message. At the worry bleeding through even in text form. Mom giving up her honeymoon—my honeymoon—to come take care of me.
No.
I nod to myself, even though she can't see it, and type back.
Me: I'm sure. Go. Have fun. You deserve this.
Mom: I arranged for someone to pick up Melissa's car in the morning. Don't worry about it. Just rest, sweetheart. Please rest.
Me: That's exactly what I intend to do. The left the key in the glove box.
Mom: I love you. Call me if you need anything. Anything at all.
Me: I love you too. Have the best time.
I set the phone down beside me on the swing and stare at the house.
Empty.
Mom's at the airport. On her way to Mexico with Aunt Linda, living the honeymoon I was supposed to have. And I'm here. Alone.
The realization settles over me slowly. Not scary. Not sad. Just... quiet.
"Jessica?"
I look up.
Mrs. Whight is standing at the edge of Mom's property, her ancient Pomeranian tucked under one arm like a furry football. She's wearing a tracksuit the color of a traffic cone and an expression of barely contained glee.
Mrs. Whight has lived next door my entire life. She's also the president, secretary, and sole member of the Largo Waters Information Distribution Network, which is a fancy way of saying she's the town gossip and she takes her job very seriously.
"Hi, Mrs. Whight."
"Isn't it your wedding day?" She's already reaching for her phone with her free hand. Probably has the group chat open and ready.
I look down at my dress. The torn hem. The dirt stains. The piece of ivy still clinging to the bodice from my trellis escape.
"Yes," I say. "And this is my honeymoon."
Her eyebrows shoot up so high they nearly leave her face.
"The honeymoon is... here?"
I laugh, the sound slightly hysterical. "Surprise destination. Very exclusive." I gesture at the porch like I'm a game show host.
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.
"Well," she finally manages. "That's... nice."
"Isn't it?"
She backs away slowly, phone already pressed to her ear. I hear her whisper as she retreats down the sidewalk: "Marge, you're not going to believe this. The Delacroix girl is back. Sitting on her mother's porch in a wedding dress. Alone."
A pause.
"I know. Times must be hard if she's having her honeymoon here."
I should probably care. Should probably feel embarrassed or ashamed or something other than this hollow, floating numbness.
But I don't.
Let the whole town know. By dinner, every resident of Largo Waters will have heard some version of the story. By tomorrow, it will have grown and twisted and become something barely recognizable.
Jessica ran away from her wedding, and showed up on her mother's porch in a destroyed dress.
The swing creaks as I rock it gently with my feet. Back and forth. Back and forth. The same rhythm Dad used to make when he'd sit out here with his coffee in the mornings, whilst watching the sunrise.
I miss him. The feeling hits me suddenly, sharp and unexpected. I miss his quiet steadiness. His terrible jokes. The way he'd look at Mom like she hung the moon, even after thirty years of marriage.
Callum never looked at me like that. Not once in two years.
How did I not see it sooner?
The tears finally come. Silent at first, just a burning in my eyes and a wetness on my cheeks. Then bigger. Heavier. The kind of crying that comes from somewhere deep, somewhere I've kept locked away for too long.
I cry for the wedding I ran from. For the woman I almost became. For the two years I spent shrinking myself to fit into someone else's idea of who I should be.
The porch swing creaks and groans as my body shakes with sobs. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks. A car drives past slowly, definitely rubbernecking. Mrs. Whight's voice carries from her yard, still on the phone, still spreading the news.
I don't care.
I just let it all out. Every tear I've been holding back. Every scream I've swallowed. Every moment of rage and grief and relief that's been building since I climbed out that window and left my old life behind.
By the time the tears finally slow, my face is swollen, my nose is running, and my dress has absorbed enough moisture to qualify as a biohazard. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, smearing mascara across my wrist like war paint.
I need to go inside. Need to change out of this dress. Need to figure out what the hell I'm doing with my life.
But for now, I just sit on the porch swing in my ruined wedding dress, watching the sun set over Largo Waters, letting the autumn breeze dry my tears.
Tomorrow, I'll have to face reality. The fallout from running. The conversations I don't want to have. The four alphas who live in this town and probably already know I'm back.
But that's tomorrow.
Tonight, I'm just a girl in a ruined wedding dress, sitting alone on her mother's porch, watching the sky change colors, and that’s more than enough.