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The mattress doesn’t move again.

The warmth fades.

When I open my eyes, I’m alone. I reach across the bed anyway, searching the cold sheets for a hand I know I’ll never find.

Then I bring the bottle back to my mouth and drink until the room goes dark.

Astra

My open suitcase sits on my bed, and I stare at it like it might tell me what a person who has no intention of coming back is supposed to pack.

Clothes seem obvious, but even that becomes complicated when nearly everything hanging in my closet belongs to a version of me I’m trying to leave behind.

Tailored suits for internships I never wanted. Silk dresses for fundraisers where my parents introduced me to people whose names I was expected to remember. Blouses my mother insisted looked professional. Shoes that pinch my toes and make my feet ache before dinner’s served.

I pull one of the suits from its hanger, stare at it for a moment, then put it back. Wherever I’m going, I refuse to wear navy wool while pretending I care about corporate law.

The thought nearly makes me laugh.

Nearly.

My favorite pair of faded jeans, the ones that always get an eye roll from my parents, goes into the suitcase instead.

My hands are shaking. I press them flat against the edge of the bed and take a slow breath, but it doesn’t help much. My heart’s been beating too fast since I woke up, as though it knows what I’m about to do and is trying to escape before the rest of me catches up.

Outside my windows, Brooklyn Heights is already awake. A car horn sounds from the street below. Someone calls to a dog. The low murmur of traffic drifts up between rows of brownstones that cost more than most people will earn in a lifetime.

From here, I can see the tops of trees lining the promenade and, beyond them, the Manhattan skyline rising through the morning haze. I used to think it was the most beautiful view in the world. And maybe it still is. But beauty doesn’t keep something from becoming a cage.

My phone lights up on the nightstand. I already know before I look at it that it’s Graham asking about dinner tonight and reminding me that his mother wants to go over the revised guest list afterward. A second message follows almost immediately. It's softer, an apology tucked into the reminder that I have orientation in the morning. She’s just excited, he says, like that explains anything.

Of course she is. Everyone’s excited.

Our parents have been waiting for this engagement since Graham and I were children running through adjoining backyards at our summer home in the Hamptons while the adults drank wine on the patio and joked about merging the families someday.

They said it often enough that, somewhere along the way, the joke became an expectation. Then an assumption. Then a plan.

Graham asked me to marry him six weeks ago in the private garden behind his parents’ home. There were candles in the trees, white roses around the fountain, and a photographer hidden near the hedges to capture the moment.

It was thoughtful.

Beautiful.

Perfect.

When he lowered himself onto one knee, everyone I loved stepped out onto the terrace behind him.

My mother cried. His mother covered her mouth with both hands. My father stood beside Graham’s father with a glass of champagne already waiting. I looked at all of them before I looked back at Graham.

And I said yes.

Not because I wanted to marry him.

Because I couldn’t imagine saying no with everyone watching.

The diamond catches the light as I reach for my phone.

It’s elegant rather than flashy, though elegant in Graham’s world still means it could pay off someone’s mortgage. He chose it himself. He remembered that I never liked square stones, that I preferred yellow gold, and that I once said halos made rings look too busy. He listened, and that almost makes this worse.