Chapter 2: What Did You Do?

Lizzie

"What did you do?!"

My mother's voice sliced through the hallway before I had both feet inside the house. The door had barely clicked shut behind me when she was in my face, eyes blazing, breath sharp with fury.

"What did you do to Kenneth?!"

I didn't answer. I stepped around her instead, slipping off my heels with deliberate calm and placing them neatly by the shoe rack. 

If I moved slowly enough, maybe the night would rewind itself. Maybe this would turn into any other evening in this suffocating house where silence was safer than truth.

"I am talking to you, Elizabeth Marie Foster!" she shrieked. "Kenneth's mother just called me."

I stopped at the base of the stairs. "Then I assume she's aware he bathes in wine now." 

My father appeared from the living room, newspaper still folded in his hand, reading glasses perched low on his nose. He took in the scene-my mother trembling with rage, me rigid and clearly exhausted.

"Carol," he said gently, "why don't you let her freshen up first? I don't think Lizzie would have done something disrespectful if Kenneth hadn't done something to offend her in the first place."

It was the usual script. Calm father. Explosive mother. Me in the crossfire.

But tonight, the script wasn't working.

"Stop making excuses for her!" my mother snapped, rounding on him. "That's why she turned out like this!" She jabbed a finger in my direction as if I were something rotten she'd discovered in her pantry. "You keep excusing her behavior until one day you'll realize you've done her more harm than good when she turns thirty in a few years without a husband and no one wants her!"

The words hit like pebbles-small, but painful. "Is that all that matters to you?" I asked quietly.

My mother blinked, thrown by the softness.

"Is that all I am to you?" My voice steadied. "A heifer on a market stall?"

Dad winced. "Lizzie, please. Go upstairs. Change. Your mother and I will discuss this like adults. The neighbors don't need to hear-"

"Why?" I asked him, turning fully now. "Why shouldn't I talk? I am an adult. I'm fucking twenty-three, dad. Not a teenager." 

"You see?" Mom cried. "You see that, Eric? Now she talks back to you too! My God. Where did I go wrong?"

I laughed under my breath. "What's so wrong with being thirty and unmarried, Mom? Because you got married at twenty-one doesn't mean I will. Because Dad was laid off and we're barely making ends meet doesn't mean I should be sold off to a pig like Kenneth Greene."

Dad inhaled sharply. "Lizzie-"

"Did he tell you what he said to me?" I pressed.

My mother's eyes turned cold. "Who cares what he said? He's a man. They say things all the time."

Silence fell.

"It's your duty to understand your husband and act accordingly," she continued, voice rising. "You threw wine on him! You created a scandal when you know he's running for mayor next year! How can you be so stupid?"

The humiliation of the evening rushed back. Maybe I had overreacted. But the wine had felt good.

"I don't care," I said, and this time I didn't bother keeping my voice down. "I don't care about his campaign or his reputation or his future. I don't care about that man or his political ambitions, and I certainly will never be his wife. That is my decision."

Dad dragged a hand down his face. "Oh good heavens."

"Your decision?" Mom echoed, her voice turning dangerously calm.

"Yes." I met her stare without flinching. "And nothing you do will change my mind. I'm not marrying Kenneth. I'm not going on another date. Tonight was the last time I let you parade me around like some prized breeding stock."

Her lips trembled. Not with hurt-with fury.

"And while we're at it," I continued, the dam fully broken now, "stop discussing my private life with Mrs. Greene or any of the other rich women you suck up to. I am not your social ladder, mom."

The slap came out of nowhere.

One second I was standing tall. The next, my cheek exploded with heat and my head snapped to the side. The taste of iron bloomed in my mouth.

Dad stepped forward. "Carol!"

"You ungrateful child!" my mother spat. "After everything we've done for you? After the sacrifices your father and I made? This is how you repay us the one time we ask for your help?"

I slowly straightened. My cheek throbbed, but I refused to touch it.

"You say it like you're asking me to pass you the salt," I said, voice trembling with contained rage. "Cut it out, Mom. Emotional blackmail doesn't work on me. Never did. Never will."

Her nostrils flared. For a long moment, we simply stared at each other.

Then she said, very softly, "I never should have let you stay with Savannah. Never."

I blinked. "What does Savannah have to do with this?"

"She filled your head with nonsense. Independence. Freedom. Career before marriage." My mother laughed bitterly. "Look at her now. She's happily married to a billionaire. Who's the fool now, Lizzie?" 

"Leave her out of this," I snapped. "She's not to be blamed. You are!" 

"You want to bring embarrassment to our family?"

"No," I said, stepping closer despite the sting still burning across my face. "The embarrassment is a mother branding her daughter a virgin bride to impress wealthy neighbors. I'm ashamed of you, mom."

If the words cut, she didn't show it.

Instead, she straightened her shoulders and delivered her verdict like a judge handing down a sentence.

"Tomorrow morning, Kenneth Greene and his family will be here. You will apologize to him and his parents for your disgraceful behavior today."

My pulse stumbled.

"Then," she continued, "you will go home with them. Your wedding will be in one week. Those were the demands from the Greenes. And we have accepted it on your behalf."

The room seemed to tilt.

Chapter 3: You're Selling Me

Lizzie 

"What?" The word came out as a breath, not a scream.

Dad's eyes were fixed on the floor. Guilty. 

I looked from him to her, waiting for someone to laugh. To admit this was emotional theatrics taken too far.

No one did.

"You can't be serious," I whispered.

"Oh, I'm very serious," she replied. "Do you know how much Kenneth's father has promised to invest in your father's new business idea? Millions, Lizzie! Do you understand what will happen if they pull out now? Do you even care about us at all?!"

The obvious missing piece clicked into place.

It was debt. Dad was in debt. And marrying into the Greene family was the ladder out of that pit. 

Dad's small side business had been bleeding money since the layoff. When he said he'd finally found footing again, it had been with backing-from the Greenes. 

My stomach twisted.

"You promised me," I said to my father, voice cracking. "You promised you'd never use me as collateral, dad. I trusted you. I believed you."

He looked up then, eyes red-rimmed. "Lizzie, it's not like that."

"Then what is it like?" I demanded.

"It's security," Mom cut in. "For all of us. Kenneth adores you. He'll dip your hands in gold."

"You don't actually believe that, do you?" I barked a humorless laugh. "He told me tonight that after marriage I'd stop writing. That my opinions would be better kept inside our home. That a good wife knows when to be silent."

Mom waved a dismissive hand. "Men say things."

"And women just endure them?" I shot back.

"Yes!" she cried, as if it were obvious. "That is how marriages last!"

"He laid claims on my body! Aren't you even disgusted?!" I screamed. "You're a woman, mom!" 

"What's so bad about that, Lizzie?!" She pulled at her hair in frustration. "If that's what it takes to get you to be his wife, then yes. He can lay claims for all I care! Don't think too much about those things." 

My vision blurred. "Is that so?" 

"Yes." She stood her ground. 

"In that case I hope you have a good excuse for him when he bundles me back home to you." I stepped forward. "I'm not a virgin, mom. I lost it. I already had sex with a man." 

She paused. Actually, she froze. 

Then she finally spoke in a chilling tone. "What was that? What'd you say?" 

Luckily my dad stepped in. "Calm down. Both of you. Carol, stop it."  

But mom was still glaring at me. 

Dad took a hesitant step toward me. "It won't be as bad as you think. Kenneth comes from a respectable family. You'll live comfortably. You won't have to worry about bills."

"I don't want comfort, dad," I said. "I want choice. I want freedom."

"And you have it," Mom said smoothly. "You can choose to support your family or you can choose to destroy us."

There it was.

I felt something inside me harden.

"So that's it?" I asked. "If I refuse, what happens? They pull their funding? We lose the house? I get thrown in jail for throwing wine on Kenneth in public?"

Silence answered.

Dad swallowed. "It's complicated."

"No," I said quietly. "It's simple. You're selling me."

"Don't use that word again," Mom hissed.

"But that's what this is. A transaction."

Her jaw clenched. "Tomorrow morning. Eight o'clock. Be dressed."

"And if I'm not?"

She smiled. "You will be, Lizzie."

I searched my father's face for resistance. For rebellion. For anything. But there was none. He looked tired. Defeated. Small.

And in that moment, I realized I was alone.

"I won't do it," I said, though my voice sounded distant, even to me.

"You will," my mother replied calmly. "Because you love us."

I let out a breath. "Love shouldn't feel like a cage."

She didn't respond. The conversation was over.

I turned and walked up the stairs slowly, each step heavier than the last. My legs trembled once I reached my bedroom. I shut the door softly behind me and leaned against it, listening to the muffled argument that resumed downstairs-my father's low murmur, my mother's sharper tone.

My cheek still burned.

I crossed to my mirror and stared at the faint red imprint blooming across my skin.

One week. They planned to marry me off in one week.

My gaze drifted to my desk, to the stack of resumes I'd been meaning to send out. To the tiny savings jar hidden behind my books. To the framed photo of dad and me at the beach last summer. 

"I never should have let you stay with Savannah." The words replayed.

My heart began to pound.

Tomorrow at eight, the Greenes would be here. By tomorrow at eight, I couldn't be.

The thought settled over me with terrifying clarity.

If I wanted to make it out of this house with my life intact-my real life, not the polished political-wife version-they were constructing for me... I had to leave. Tonight.

I pushed off the door and moved to my closet, pulling out a small suitcase from beneath the bed. My hands shook, but my mind felt strangely calm. Focused.

Two pairs of jeans. Three blouses. Underwear. Toiletries. My passport. The little envelope of cash I'd been saving for no particular reason other than instinct.

I hesitated at my bookshelf, fingers grazing the spines. I couldn't take them all.

Just one.

I chose the worn paperback my best friend, Kira, had given me years ago-the one about a woman who ran away from an arranged marriage and built a life from nothing. I slipped it into the suitcase.

I was going to run away to Philadelphia. 

No matter how bad things were the last time I spoke to Savannah, I was sure that she and her husband, Roman, wouldn't mind me crashing at their place for sometime until I figured out what to do next. 

Downstairs, a door slammed. Voices hushed. My heart jumped into my throat.

I turned off my bedroom light and crossed to the window, easing it open. The night air rushed in.

Freedom smelled like this. But fear did too.

I glanced back at my room-the bed I'd slept in since childhood, the faded curtains, the familiar walls.

But tonight, it felt like a cage. There would be no tomorrow morning for Elizabeth Marie Foster in this house.

Only escape.

And whatever waited for me on the other side of it.