Chapter 1: Why, David? Did I Really Disgust You That Much?

Emily's POV

The wind is screaming around me, tearing at my wedding dress like it wants to rip me apart. Each gust hits me hard, but honestly? I've never felt steadier. My left leg, the one that's been my daily reminder of David's "love" for ten years, is shaking against the stone ledge.

Below me, everyone looks tiny. Wedding guests in their expensive clothes mixing with locals who ran out to see the show. I can hear sirens getting louder. Police cars, ambulances, maybe fire trucks. Everyone's racing to save the crazy bride who lost it on her wedding day.

Except I haven't lost anything.

I turn around slowly, careful with my bad leg. It needs that extra second to find balance. The movement makes my dress billow out, and I see David's face below me. Those perfect blue eyes that fooled everyone in this town, that tricked my mother, that have been haunting my sleep for a decade. They're wide with terror now.

His fancy suit is wrinkled from running. His hair, usually so perfectly styled, is a mess from him clawing at it. He looks nothing like the smooth insurance executive who was about to marry me five minutes ago.

"Why, David?" My voice cuts through the wind somehow. "Did I really disgust you that much? So much that you had to love me this way?"

The question hangs between us. I watch his face go through emotions like he's cycling through TV channels. Shock, denial, panic. His mouth opens and closes but nothing comes out. For once in his life, David Harrison has no words.

He reaches toward me even though we both know it's impossible. His hands are shaking. When do David's hands ever shake?

"Emily..." His voice finally breaks through, all raw and desperate. "Please... come down... we can work this out..."

I can't help laughing. It's a harsh sound that gets swallowed by the wind.

"Work this out?" I taste how ridiculous it sounds. "Like ten years ago when you pushed me down those stairs? When everyone said it was just an accident and we could work it out?"

I'm not looking at him with hate. Hate takes energy I don't have anymore. There's only exhaustion, bone-deep and soul-crushing, and maybe relief.

The crowd below is getting restless. Voices murmuring, phones clicking, feet shuffling on concrete. Then another voice cuts through everything, high and desperate.

"Emily!"

Mom. Of course.

Linda shoves through the crowd like she's fighting for her life. Her pregnant belly strains against her dress, the one she bought special for her daughter's wedding to her stepson. She's crying so hard she can barely breathe. Her makeup is running down her face in black streaks.

"Emily! Mommy was wrong... Mommy was wrong about everything! Please come down, I won't make you do this anymore..."

I look down at her, this woman who gave birth to me, raised me, and chose a man's comfort over her daughter's safety when it counted. She's on her knees now, literally begging.

"Mom," I call down, gentler now. "You weren't wrong. You just picked the life that worked best for you."

But saying it cracks something inside my chest. She looks so small down there, so broken. This is the woman who used to sing me to sleep when I had nightmares. Who worked double shifts at the diner to keep food on our table when Dad was blowing our grocery money on booze.

"But Mom," I continue, my voice catching. "Next time... in the next life... don't let me meet you all again, okay?"

The words seem to physically hurt her. She collapses completely. Her sobs turn into sounds that aren't quite human anymore. People move to help her but she's beyond comfort now.

The crowd keeps growing. I catch pieces of conversation floating up:

"I knew something was off about this wedding... did you see her face during the ceremony?"

"They're saying she showed some video that exposed David..."

"Poor thing's having a complete breakdown..."

David's voice cuts through the chatter. "Emily, that's all in the past! I've changed, I love you, I'll keep you safe!"

Keep me safe. The words are so absurd I almost laugh again.

"Keep me safe?" I whisper, but somehow he hears. "You? Can you keep me safe like Sarah did?"

Sarah's name breaks something inside me that I didn't know was still whole.

Sarah. My Sarah. The only person who ever really saw me, who ever really fought for me. Who died in the rain trying to save me from David's world.

The wind picks up again. For a second, I swear I hear her voice in it: "Don't let them keep hurting you... live for yourself..."

But I did it, didn't I, Sarah? I showed them all the truth. Everyone saw exactly what kind of man David really is. The whole town knows now about the money he stole, the lies he told, what he did to me ten years ago. Now I can come find you.

I close my eyes and let the wind wash over my face. It feels like freedom. My hands slowly loosen their grip on the stone railing.

"No!" David's voice cracks. "Emily, if you jump, I won't survive it either!"

I open my eyes and look down at him one last time. He's moved closer to the base of the tower. His face is a mask of desperate sincerity that might have fooled me once.

"Then come with me," I say softly, barely audible over the wind. "At least in death, we'll be equals."

Time slows down then, like someone adjusted the speed of everything. I can see David turning and running toward the church entrance, trying to reach the stairs up to the bell tower. I can see Mom on her knees, her mouth open in a silent scream. I can see faces in the crowd, some horrified, some fascinated, some already reaching for their phones to capture this moment.

But none of it feels real anymore. Ten years of anger, of pain, of swallowing my truth to keep everyone else comfortable. It's all dissolving like sugar in rain.

The wind grows stronger, and suddenly I'm not standing on a bell tower in Millbrook anymore. I'm fifteen again, and it's raining, and I can hear footsteps on the stairs behind me, and David's shaking voice.

The present blurs and shifts around me. The crowd below becomes unclear, the church spire wavers, and the whole town shimmers like heat waves. Time is bending, folding in on itself, carrying me back to where it all began. To that rainy night ten years ago when everything changed, when the girl I was supposed to become died and this broken thing took her place.

My consciousness starts drifting away from this twenty-five-year-old body in its white wedding dress, floating back through the years to find that fifteen-year-old girl who still believed people could love you without destroying you, who still thought families were supposed to protect each other, who had no idea that the boy she was learning to trust was about to teach her the cruelest lesson of all...