The cold of the marble seeped through the thin silk of my dress, but it was nothing compared to the white-hot agony radiating from my knee. My vision blurred at the edges, tunneling until the only thing in focus was Brielle’s perfectly manicured face staring down at me, a twisted smirk playing on her lips.

“You aren’t sorry you pushed me, Brielle,” I said gently, looking her dead in the eye. “You are just sorry that there was a camera.”

Brielle gasped, stepping back as if I had struck her.

“And as for you two,” I said, turning back to my parents. “You didn’t come here to apologize for leaving me alone in a hospital room on the day of the wedding. You came here because you are out of money and out of friends. You made your choice a year ago. You chose her. Now, you get to live with her. In whatever house the government lets you keep.”

“You vindictive, ungrateful little wretch,” my mother hissed, standing up, her face twisted in an ugly mask of rage. “We are your family!”

“No,” I said, pointing to the door. “You are my biology. My family is a golden retriever and a quiet life where nobody pushes me down the stairs. Your ten minutes are up. Get out of my office.”

My father grabbed my mother’s arm. “Eleanor. Stop. It’s over.”

He looked at me one last time, a look of profound, crushing defeat, before turning and leading my mother out the door. Brielle lingered for a fraction of a second, opening her mouth to speak, but finding no words, she put her dark sunglasses back on and fled down the stairs after them.

I stood in the center of the room, listening to the chime of the door downstairs, and then the sound of their luxury SUV starting up and pulling away from the curb.

I waited for the tears to come. I waited for the guilt, the crushing weight of turning my back on my own parents, to settle over my shoulders.

It never did.

Instead, a profound, buoyant lightness filled my chest. The last lingering shadow of Newport, the final ghost of my past, had been excised.

Barnaby whined softly, nudging my hand with his wet nose.

“I’m okay, buddy,” I smiled, sinking to my knees and wrapping my arms around his thick, golden neck. “I’m more than okay.”

That evening, the doorbell of my cedar-shingled house rang.

I opened it to find Thomas standing on my porch. He was wearing a thick flannel shirt, holding a cardboard carrier with two cups of clam chowder from the local pub and a six-pack of dark stout. The wind ruffled his hair, and the sight of him sent a warm, familiar rush of adrenaline through my veins.

“Hey,” he smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Liam is out on a date tonight, believe it or not. First one since the disaster. Figured I’d drive up and see if you wanted to eat soup and watch the Bruins game.”

“You drove three hours for clam chowder?” I laughed, stepping aside to let him in.

“I drove three hours for the company,” he corrected softly, pausing in the doorway.

He walked into the kitchen, setting the food on the counter. Barnaby immediately trotted over, doing a happy dance at Thomas’s feet. Thomas scratched him behind the ears before looking up at me, his expression turning serious.

“I saw a Rhode Island license plate pulling out of town when I was coming off the highway,” Thomas said carefully. “Black SUV. Looked a lot like your dad’s.”

I pulled two spoons out of the drawer. “It was.”

Thomas stopped petting the dog. He stood up, closing the distance between us, his brow furrowed with concern. “Are you alright? Did they try to start something? Because I will turn this truck around right now and—”

“Thomas,” I interrupted, reaching out and placing my hand flat against his chest. His heart was beating fast beneath the flannel. “It’s fine. They came looking for a lifeline. I didn’t throw them one.”

He looked into my eyes, searching for any hidden cracks, any lingering trauma. Finding none, his shoulders relaxed, and a slow, incredibly handsome smile spread across his face.

“Good,” he whispered.

He didn’t pull away from my hand. And for the first time in a very long time, I didn’t want him to.

“The soup is getting cold,” I said softly, though I made no move toward the counter.

“Let it,” Thomas replied, leaning in just a fraction of an inch closer.

Outside, the Maine wind howled against the storm shutters, wild and untamed. Inside, the fire cracked in the hearth, warm and unyielding. My knee still ached, my past was still broken, but as I stood there in the quiet sanctuary of the life I had built with my own two hands, I knew I would never, ever fall again.