GOLD DRESS, BARE FEET
Celeste did not let Avery take her coat.
Or her purse.
Or the phone charging on the upstairs vanity.
When Avery reached for the silver heels near the hallway bench, Celeste picked them up first.
“No,” she said.
Avery stared at her.
Celeste smiled softly, privately.
“The shoes were purchased with Whitmore money.”
Avery looked toward Richard, waiting for even one line of decency.
He only turned his cufflink.
Guests stood frozen in the foyer. Some looked away. Some watched with the bright, hungry eyes of people witnessing disaster from a safe distance.
Avery’s cheeks burned.
“You’re really doing this in front of everyone?”
Celeste stepped closer and lowered her voice.
“You wanted an audience when you challenged us. Now you have one.”
The front doors opened.
Rain blew in.
Avery looked beyond the doorway at the long white staircase, the wet stone, the black night pressing against the mansion gates.
She thought of Mason.
She thought of calling him.
Then she remembered her phone was upstairs.
Her husband was unreachable.
Her in-laws were watching.
The guests were silent.
So Avery lifted her chin and walked outside barefoot.
The cold stone shocked her first step.
The second hurt.
By the third, she was crying.
Not loudly.
Not beautifully.
Just broken.
Behind her, Celeste and Richard followed onto the balcony above the staircase, standing behind the white balustrade like judges waiting for the sentence to finish.
Avery kept walking down.
One step.
Then another.
Then another.
And every step took something from them.
May you like
Because she was not disappearing.
She was being seen.
