The War Ended, My Life Began

No one moved or breathed.

Julian stared at me, his hand pressed to his cheek, his eyes wide with shock.

In thirty years, I’d never once raised my voice to him, let alone hit him. I might as well have been a stranger.

My father roared with rage from the doorway.

He grabbed my arm and dragged me up the stairs, throwing me into my bedroom and turning the key in the lock.

"You can come out when you’ve come to your senses!" he shouted through the door. His heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs.

Late at night, the door was unlocked from the outside.

It was Lydia. She stood in the middle of my room, smiling like she owned the place.

"Julian loves me," she whispered. "He always has. But he’s too honorable to abandon you after all these years."

She stepped closer, her voice soft and poisonous.

"So he’ll marry you. He’ll give you his name, his house, his children. So to make up for what I sacrificed, he gave this to me."

She pulled the real acceptance letter from her coat and waved it in front of my face, the Vassar seal glinting in the lamplight.

"After tonight, you’ll belong to him. You’ll spend the rest of your life cooking his meals and raising his children, trapped in this tiny town. And I’ll be on the train to Poughkeepsie tomorrow morning. "

“Honestly, Elena, I simply don't understand why you'd give up a life of luxury just to go to university. For women like us, the priority is to marry well and look after the family. And Julian is exactly the right choice, isn't he?”

"Get out," I said, my voice shaking with rage.

"Why would I leave?" she laughed.

I lunged for the letter, but she stepped back, tucking it safely back beneath her coat.

I ran past her and threw open the bedroom door. I stormed down the stairs and found Julian in the living room, pouring himself a glass of whiskey.

"Where is it?" I demanded, slamming my hands on the table. "Where is my real acceptance letter? You gave it to her, didn’t you? You stole my life and gave it to her!"

Julian set down his glass slowly, his face hardening.

"Lydia needs Vassar more than you do," he said, his voice cold. "She has no one. Her father died saving my life, and she’s been alone ever since. You have me, Elena. You have your parents. What more could you possibly need?"

"I need my life back!" I shouted. "I worked for that letter! I studied for years, I joined the nurse corps, I did everything right! And you just gave it away to her like it was nothing!"

"It is nothing compared to what I owe her," he said, stepping toward me. "The wedding is tomorrow. You will be there. And you will not say a word about this to anyone."

I turned and ran for the front door, but he caught me by the arm, spinning me around.

"Where do you think you’re going?" he snarled. "To the school? To tell them I gave your spot to Lydia? They won’t believe you. Tomorrow morning, you’ll be Mrs. Julian Marchetti. A married woman doesn’t go off to college, Elena. No one will take you seriously."

He dragged me back up the stairs and threw me into my bedroom, turning the key in the lock once more.

"You can stay here until the wedding," he said through the door. "And don’t even think about trying to escape. I’ve posted a man outside the back door."

"Tomorrow, you won’t need the name Elena Conti anymore," Lydia’s voice whispered through the crack.

Their footsteps faded down the stairs. I slid down the door to the floor, tears streaming down my face.

A few minutes later, I heard soft footsteps outside the door.

I sat there in the dark for what felt like hours, until I felt something hard in the pocket of my dress.

It was the silver lighter Sebastian Whitmore had given me.

I pulled it out, running my thumb over the engraved name. He’d said he’d help me, no matter what.

I stood up and walked to the window. It was old, with a wooden frame that had warped over the years. I’d climbed out of it a hundred times as a kid.

I forced it open with both hands, biting back a gasp when the frame scraped skin from my palm.

The drop into the yard knocked the breath from my lungs.

I lay in the wet grass for one second, staring up at the dark window of the room where they expected a bride to wake.

Then I stood.