There was just one thing missing — me!
She hadn’t used a computer to edit me out. She’d used scissors.
My dress was sliced away. My arm was missing from Brandon’s side. There were jagged, white edges where my face should have been. In every single photo, I was a silhouette of negative space.
It looked like a wedding between a groom and his mother.
“You cut me out,” I whispered, tears springing to my eyes.
Beverly gave me a sweet, pitying smile. “Oh, honey, the lighting wasn’t flattering for you. I just fixed it.”
It looked like a wedding between a groom and his mother.
The room went silent. I looked around, but nobody said a word. They just stared at the mangled pages.
Brandon’s face turned a deep, angry red. “You destroyed our wedding album. Are you insane?”
Immediately, Beverly’s hand went to her chest. “Oh, my heart. I can’t handle this stress. My blood pressure is skyrocketing.”
Her sister rushed to her side, glaring at Brandon.
“She has a condition!” someone shouted.
Just like that, the script flipped.
“You destroyed our wedding album. Are you insane?”
Not one person defended me. They were all watching, waiting to see if I would cause a scene.
In that moment, a cold, quiet realization struck me. If I kept trying to keep the peace, there would be nothing left of me to protect. She would erase me piece by piece until I was just a jagged edge in my own life.
I closed the album. “I’m leaving.”
I walked out the door. No one stopped me. Brandon followed a moment later, leaving his mother surrounded by cooing relatives on the sofa.
Not one person defended me.
That night, I went to my desk and prepared a thick manila envelope.
See, Beverly thought she held all the cards because she had the only copies of the photos and an Oscar-worthy performance of a “heart condition” to hide behind. She was wrong.
There was something very important that Beverly didn’t know.
Read more on the next page ⬇️⬇️⬇️
