Chapter 3

I stared at my phone, my thumb hovering over the screen as the video loaded. The thumbnail had already appeared, a woman dressed in white, twirling happily in front of the camera.

My mother leaned closer, her brows drawing together.

"What is it?" she asked.

I swallowed hard and pressed play.

The video filled the screen, revealing Lily standing in the center of a bridal suite, surrounded by soft golden light.

She was wearing my wedding dress.

Lily turned in front of the mirror, grinning at the camera before flashing a playful peace sign.

A staff member moved around her, adjusting the bodice and pinning the hem of the dress while Lily admired herself in the mirror.

Her face glowed with happiness.

A kind of happiness I had never felt whenever I thought about marrying Derek.

The staff member finally stepped back and clasped her hands together.

"Mrs. Sinclair, you look gorgeous," she said brightly. "This dress was made for you. If Mr. Sinclair saw you right now, he'd probably fall head over heels all over again."

Lily laughed.

The sound was light and carefree, completely untouched by guilt. She stuck her tongue out at the camera before shaking her head playfully.

"Thanks, but honestly, I wish I could be Mrs. Sinclair. Too bad someone won't give me the chance."

My mother's breath caught beside me.

I couldn't move, and for several seconds, I could barely breathe.

I could only stare at the screen as Lily stood there wearing the dress I had chosen for myself.

Then Lily's phone rang.

She glanced down at the screen, and her entire face lit up.

"Oh, it's him," she said happily.

She answered the call and switched it to speaker.

Derek's voice filled the room, warm, amused, and intimate, making my wolf growl beneath my skin.

"I heard you're trying on dresses," Derek said.

Lily giggled. "Maybe."

"You know," Derek said, his voice dropping into a low, teasing tone, "someday, you'll get your wish."

The video ended.

I stared at the black screen, unable to process what I had just heard.

My mother reached for my hand and squeezed it tightly.

"That," she whispered, her voice trembling with rage, "is the man you were going to marry."

My father stood by the window with his back to us. His shoulders were rigid, and his hands were clenched tightly at his sides.

"Venessa," he said quietly, "tell me what you want to do."

I looked down at my phone again.

I thought about the lullaby, the wedding dress, his promise to Lily, and all the years I'd spent convincing myself that his distance didn't mean he didn't love me.

The truth was finally impossible to ignore. He had never loved me, and now he was promising another woman that someday she would have the very life I'd spent seven years believing was mine.

Something inside me finally went still.

The pain was still there, but beneath it, something colder was settling into my chest.

I lifted my eyes to hers, and for the first time since I'd walked out of Derek's beach house, my voice was steady.

“There's no point in cancelling the wedding,” I said.”

I stood and walked into the kitchen, where I poured myself a glass of water. My hands were still trembling slightly, but I forced myself to drink slowly.

When I returned to the living room, I sat down on the couch and opened my phone.

Derek's contact was still there, with his name, his photo, and the little heart emoji I'd placed beside his name when we'd first started dating.

I stared at it for a long moment before letting out a bitter chuckle at how foolish I'd been to believe that loving someone for seven years meant they had to love you back.

Then I deleted it.

I deleted every photo of us together, watching seven years of memories disappear from my screen one after another.

Then I deleted our messages, our voicemails, and every trace of him I could find.

It hurt.

Moon goddess, it hurt more than I wanted to admit.

But with every piece of him I erased, I felt a little less like the woman who had spent years waiting for his love.

I opened my settings and changed my wallpaper.

I replaced it with a photograph of myself standing on a cliff in Big Sur, my arms stretched wide as the wind swept through my hair.

I'd taken that picture three years ago during a solo trip Derek had been too busy to join. I remembered how happy, light, and free I'd felt that day.

Looking at the photograph now, I wondered where that woman had gone.

Maybe she was still somewhere inside me.

Maybe she had only been waiting for me to choose her again.

My mother watched me silently as I continued deleting the life I'd built around Derek.

My father finally turned away from the window. His eyes were wet, and the sight of them made my chest tighten.

"Venessa," he said softly, "are you sure?"

I looked at him and nodded.

"I spent seven years loving a man who never loved me back," I said. "I spent seven years waiting for him to see me, and I spent seven years putting him first. Yet he couldn't even give me one night of respect."

My voice cracked, but I refused to let the tears fall again.

"I'm not going to spend another day begging for scraps of his attention. I'm not going to marry a man who records lullabies for another woman, and I'm not going to stand beside him as his Luna."

I looked down at my phone one last time. Derek's name, his photos, and every trace of him I could erase were gone.

For the first time in seven years, I felt as though I could finally breathe without waiting for someone else to give me permission.

I lifted my head and looked at my parents.

"I will never love Derek again," I said quietly. "From this moment on, the only person I will love is myself.”