Chapter 53 Madness comes with the dress
Adeline did not slow down as she walked through the building. The sound of her heels against the floor was fast, echoing louder than usual, almost like each step was chasing the next one. People greeted her as she passed, some with polite smiles, some with curious looks, but she barely noticed any of them. Her face was set, her eyes forward, and there was something about the way she moved that made it clear she did not want to be stopped.
It was not her usual controlled calm. There was a tightness to her movements, something rushed and strained, like she was holding herself together by force.
Her assistant stepped forward the moment she got close to her office, clearly ready to speak, probably with updates or questions or something important that needed her attention, but Adeline did not even give her the chance. She lifted a hand slightly, not even looking at her, a silent command that was enough to stop her in place.
Without a word, she reached her office door, pushed it open, stepped inside, and shut it behind her. The sound of the door closing felt louder than it should have, and for a second, she just stood there, staring at it.
Then she turned the lock.
The click of it sliding into place felt like a barrier between her and everything else. The world outside, the people, the questions, and the expectations, all of it was suddenly kept out, and for the first time since she stepped out of Julian’s car, she allowed herself to stop pretending.
Her breath came out uneven.
At first, it was just a small shift, a slight loss of rhythm, but then it grew worse. Her chest started to rise and fall too fast, her lungs pulling in air like it was not enough, like something was sitting heavy on her chest and refusing to move. She pressed her hand against her stomach as if that would help, but it didn’t. The room felt too quiet, too still, and somehow that made it worse.
“No,” she whispered to herself, her voice barely steady. “Not now.”
She moved quickly, almost stumbling as she made her way toward the small bar cabinet in her office. Her hands were not as steady as she wanted them to be, and when she reached for a glass, her fingers slipped slightly before she caught it. The sound of the glass touching the counter was sharp, and she flinched at it, her nerves stretched too thin.
She grabbed the bottle of water and poured, the sound of liquid filling the glass louder than it should have been. Her hand trembled just enough that a few drops spilled over the edge, but she didn’t care. The moment the glass was full enough, she picked it up and brought it to her lips, taking a long, deep drink like she needed it to breathe.
The cold water hit her throat, and for a second, it helped. Just a little. She swallowed hard, then took another sip, then another, until the glass was almost empty. When she lowered it, her breathing was still uneven, but it had slowed slightly.
She leaned with both hands on the counter, her head dropping forward as she tried to steady herself.
It took time, more time than she wanted to admit.
Minutes passed, though it felt longer, and she stayed there, focusing on her breathing, forcing herself to slow down, to regain control. Inhale and exhale, again, again, and again. It was something she had learned to do years ago, something she had practiced until it became automatic, but today it felt harder. Today it felt like her body was fighting her.
“I’m fine,” she muttered, though there was no one there to hear it. “I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t. The image was still there, sharp and clear in her mind, like it had been burned into it. The white dresses in the shop. The way they hung in neat rows, like something out of a dream. The way the light had touched them, making them glow. The way they had looked so… pure.
Her stomach twisted.
She hated it.
She hated that something so simple, something so normal for other people, could still affect her like this. She hated that she had lost control, even for a moment, and worse, she hated that Julian had seen it. Maybe not fully, maybe not enough to understand, but enough to notice that something was wrong, and Julian was not someone she could afford to be weak in front of.
Her jaw tightened at the thought. “That son of a bitch,” she said quietly, the words tasting bitter.
Julian wasn’t stupid. He had seen the way she reacted, the way she shut down, the way she had insisted on leaving. He had asked questions, and she had brushed them off, but he was not the type to just let things go. He would think about it, he would look into it, and he would try to figure it out, and that was a problem.
Because the last thing she needed was for him to find out that something as basic as a wedding dress could shake her like this. It sounded ridiculous even in her own head. Weak and fragile, exactly the kind of thing someone like Julian could use against her if he ever decided to.
Her fingers tightened against the edge of the counter. “I won’t let that happen,” she said under her breath, but even as she said it, her mind betrayed her, because the memory came back. Not gently, not slowly, but all at once, like a door had been thrown open and everything she had tried to keep buried rushed out at the same time.
She was younger, much younger.
The house had felt too big back then, too quiet in some ways, too loud in others. It had always been a strange place, filled with things that looked perfect from the outside but felt wrong on the inside. She remembered standing at the top of the stairs, her small hands gripping the railing as she looked down into the living room.
Her mother was there, wearing the dress.
It had been white, bright against the light of the room, the fabric flowing around her like something out of a story. For a second, it had looked beautiful, and for a second, it had looked like what a wedding dress was supposed to look like, but then her mother turned, and the moment shattered.
Her hair had been messy, falling out of whatever style it had once been in, strands sticking to her face. Her eyes had been wide, too wide, shining in a way that didn’t feel right. There had been a smile on her lips, but it wasn’t a happy one. It was strained, almost desperate.
“Do you see me?” her mother had said, her voice too loud in the quiet house. “Do you see how beautiful I am?”
Adeline had not moved. She had just stood there, frozen, and watching. Her mother had spun slowly, the dress moving around her, and for a second, she had laughed, a soft sound that didn’t match the tension in the room. “He loved me in this dress,” she had said, almost to herself. “He said I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.”
The words had sounded rehearsed, like something she had said too many times before. Then the laughter had stopped, and the silence that followed had been worse because her mother’s expression had changed, the softness draining from it, replaced by something darker. Her hands had clenched the fabric of the dress, gripping it tightly, wrinkling it.
“He said he loved me,” she had repeated, her voice sharper now. “So why does he keep going back to them?”
Adeline had swallowed hard, her small fingers tightening on the railing. She had known better than to answer, she had learned that early, but that hadn’t stopped her mother from continuing.
“They think they can take him from me,” her mother had gone on, her voice rising. “They think they’re better than me.”
The glass had shattered against the wall. Adeline flinched at the memory, her body reacting before her mind could catch up.
Back in the present, her breath hitched again, her heart beating faster. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to push it away, but it didn’t stop, and the memory kept going.
Her mother had been pacing now, the dress dragging slightly on the floor, the once beautiful fabric now creased and uneven. Her hands had been shaking, and there had been a bottle in one of them, the smell of alcohol filling in the air.
“They don’t know what it means to be a wife,” she had said, almost spitting the words out. “They don’t know what I’ve given up.”
“I was perfect for him,” she had said, her eyes darting around the room like she was looking for something that wasn’t there. “I was everything he wanted.”
And then, suddenly, she had turned. Her gaze had landed on Adeline, and for a moment, there had been silence, but then…
“Why are you just standing there?” her mother had snapped, her voice loud enough to startle young Adeline. “Don’t you see me?”
Adeline had frozen completely.
“I asked you a question!” her mother had yelled, taking a step forward, the dress brushing against the floor. “Do I not look beautiful to you?”
“Yes,” Adeline had whispered, her voice small. “You do.”
But it hadn’t been enough. It had never been enough.
Her mother had thrown the bottle then, not at her, but near her, the glass hitting the wall and breaking apart. The sound had echoed through the house, loud and violent, and Adeline had flinched again, her body reacting before she could stop it.
“Then why does he keep leaving me?” her mother had cried, her voice breaking now, but still loud, still unstable. “Why am I not enough?”
The memory cut off there. Adeline opened her eyes sharply, her chest rising and falling too fast again. Her hands were gripping the counter so tightly her knuckles had turned white, and the office felt too small, too suffocating, and way too much like that house had felt back then.
She pushed herself upright, stepping away from the counter, running a hand through her hair as she tried to steady herself again. Her heart was still racing, the echo of that memory still sitting heavy in her chest, and she hated it.
She hated that it still had this much power over her.
A wedding dress, just a dress, and yet, to her, it had never been just that.
It had been the start of everything that went wrong. It had been the symbol of something that had broken her mother piece by piece until there had been nothing left to fix. It had been the thing her mother clung to, the thing she used to pretend that everything was still perfect, even when it wasn’t.
To Adeline, it had never meant love, it had meant madness, it had meant loss, and it had meant watching someone she loved turn into someone she didn’t recognize.
Her jaw tightened, her hands curling into fists at her sides. “I’m not her,” she said firmly, her voice stronger now. “I will never be her.”
She would never let herself get to that point. She would never let a man, or a marriage, or anything like that break her the way it had broken her mother, and she would never, under any circumstances, put on a wedding dress, not for anyone.
Not even for Julian, especially not for Julian, because the moment she did, it would feel like stepping into something she had spent her whole life trying to stay away from, and that was something she refused to do.
No matter what.
Slowly, her breathing began to even out again. The panic faded, leaving behind a heavy silence. Adeline straightened her shoulders, smoothing down her outfit as if nothing had happened. The reflection in the mirror across the room showed a woman who looked composed and controlled, exactly as she always did.
No one would ever know what had just happened, no one would ever see the cracks in her wall, and she would make sure it stayed that way.