#2 The Quiet Collapse Of Scarlet Rubies!

The laughter outside the bridal suite echoed like it came from a different world, polished, planned, and practiced.

Scarlett closed the bathroom door behind her and locked it with trembling fingers.

The room smells like roses and hairspray. Like pressure. Like panic dressed up as celebration. The silence is so loud. It rings.

However, the bridal suite bathroom was too white. White walls. White tiles. White light so bright it made her feel translucent, like the truth might start bleeding through her skin if she stayed too long.

She stood in front of the mirror again. But this time, there was no audience. No stylists. No mother. Just a girl in silk and lace. The mirror greeted her with a stranger's face. Her hair was curled, pinned with pearls. Her eyes were lined in gold. Her lips wore a shade her mother had picked. She looked beautiful. Untouchable. Finished.

But her eyes... God, her eyes!

They looked like someone standing on the edge of a cliff and realizing they were never taught how to fall without vanishing.

My reflection in the mirror doesn’t look like me. She’s beautiful, they all said. “You look like a dream, Scarlett.” But dreams are soft and fleeting. This feels like drowning in silk.

The gown clung to her ribs like it didn’t want to let go.

My hair is pinned perfectly. My eyes are lined just right. And yet, I’ve never seen someone look so… trapped. I don’t know who she is. I don't think she knows either.

Her fingers went to the necklace, her grandmother Marianne’s rubies, too warm on her skin, too alive for a day that felt like mourning. Then not with a scream. Not even a sob. Just a slow, shaking release, like a dam cracking quietly at the seams.

Is this what they all did? My mother? My grandmother? Smiled and stepped forward?

Her mother’s words echoed back:

“Marriage isn’t always easy, but you’ll learn. How to be quiet when it matters. How to bend without breaking.”

But Scarlett was already bending. Had been for years. She was bent so far she no longer knew where her voice ended and her silence began. She thought marriage would be different. That it would mean freedom. A chance to be herself in a new home. To be loved. To be safe.

However, Damien didn’t ask questions, he issued instructions. He liked her soft. He praised her silence. He loved her beauty, not her voice. She had ignored the signs at first. The way he brushed aside her opinions like lint on his suit. The way his touch became possessive during the engagement photoshoot. Not loving. Claiming.

Scarlett gripped the sink, her knuckles pale against the porcelain. Her reflection didn’t look back at her. It stared past her. Through her. She gripped the porcelain edge with both hands and leaned in, as if staring hard enough could summon someone, her grandmother, maybe. Or a version of herself that hadn’t disappeared under other people’s decisions.

Her fingers clutch the edge of the sink, knuckles pale, trying to breathe,

But it’s tight. Everything’s tight.This dress. These expectations. That future... Him.

She again tried to take a deep breath. It broke halfway. She blinked once. Then again. But the tears wouldn’t fall. Her chest ached, lungs wrapped tight in lace and silence.

Her grandmother had once said to her, “Marry someone who listens, and... if no one listens, marry yourself first.”

But Marianne wasn’t here now. She wasn’t here to pull her from the altar or rip the veil off. Only her words remained, clinging like thorns.

Scarlett tried to breathe. Instead, her mind slipped unforgivingly, unavoidably into the one memory she had buried beneath white roses and polite silence.

... It was a family dinner at the Ashwood Estate, two months ago.

She had worn a formal white top with green embroidery that her mother picked and a soft green long skirt she adored, simple, floaty, the kind that moved like spring. She recalled stepping out of the car, adjusting the hem nervously, only to find Damien already watching.

He had looked her over, gaze deliberate but unreadable.

Then he said, “Next time, wear something that knows you better. That outfit doesn’t do your figure justice.” He’d said it lightly. Almost like a compliment.

She had laughed flushed taking it as a... complex compliment. But she felt the weight of his stare linger longer than the words.

Scarlett remembered how heavy everything felt that night.

The forks. The chandeliers. The silence.

She tried her best to sit straight under the weight of staring eyes. It was her official welcome dinner into the Ashwood family though it felt more like an interview she hadn’t prepared for.

At the long, polished table sat five Ashwoods and one stranger with a sharper smile than Scarlett had expected.

The Ashwood estate’s chandeliers burned brighter than the conversation.

Damien sat in front of her across the table, quiet and composed.

On Damien’s right sat his father, Thomas, distracted and curt. And on left was Edmund, Damien’s uncle, who kept his tone light but had the warmth of a closed vault. Next to Edmund sat Maria Alden, Edmund’s secretary. Beautiful, complacent, and somehow already inside every conversation.

Scarlett had no idea why she was there.

To Scarlett's right sat his mother, Margaret Ashwood, her back impossibly straight, her eyes sharper than her words.

And at the far right end, silently watching everyone, sat Alaric Ashwood, Damien’s grandfather. His silver cane rested beside his chair. His eyes held something different: not warmth, but... humanity.

While Margaret’s gaze had been unblinking.

“Your voice is delicate,” she had said to Scarlett, “but I hope your convictions aren’t.”

Scarlett had nodded, unsure what to say.

Margaret had taken the silence as weakness. Edmund had taken it as amusement.

And then there was Damien. “Scarlett doesn’t speak unless she means it,” he said calmly, without looking up from his glass. “That’s why I like her.”

The room shifted.

Scarlett smiled, small and careful. “And I suppose I like people who let me speak.”

It was meant as a light remark.

But Margaret had gone still.

Edmund had smiled like he’d heard a joke with teeth.

“You’ll learn to choose your words more wisely,” Margaret said, placing her fork down. “In this family, silence is not submission, it’s strategy."

“I do hope you’re prepared,” Maria said, cutting her salmon with unshaken grace. “Being an Ashwood bride requires more than just good breeding.”

Margaret had looked unimpressed.

Thomas had cleared his throat and gone back to his plate.

Damien didn’t look up from his glass.

Scarlett had smiled politely. She didn’t yet know how sharp dinner could feel.

“Scarlett,” Edmund said, pouring himself another glass of wine, “you’ll find Maria indispensable. She runs my office and keeps this family from falling into scandal.”

Maria smiled without looking up.

“I work in diplomacy,” she said, lightly. “Especially when it concerns Damien’s... attachments.” Her eyes flicked to Damien, not long enough to accuse, but just long enough to linger. Scarlett kept her posture polite. She wasn't sure what Maria was implying, but the air around the table stiffened ever so slightly.

Margaret finally spoke, eyes trained on Scarlett. “Being an Ashwood wife requires more than elegance. It requires discipline.” Thomas made a noise under his breath but didn’t speak. And Maria just smirked knowing very well what Margaret meant.

“It requires obedience,” Edmund said, with no inflection at all.

Scarlett’s fork paused mid-air. “I believe it requires strength more,” she said, gently but clearly.

Maria smiled and cut in again, this time more directly.

“Strength is overrated in housewives,” she murmured, still smiling, voice light like a compliment.. “What matters is alignment.” Her eyes now on Scarlett. “Knowing when to blend in instead of standing out. When to stay still.”

“Maria,” Damien said without raising his head.

He didn’t say more. He didn’t need to. The command was in his voice.

“Just trying to help,” Maria replied smoothly, but the smile she gave Scarlett was anything but genuine. “I only meant, she seems kind. It’s not always a good thing, Damien.”

Scarlett’s fork paused mid-air again. Her stomach curled.

“Being kind isn’t weakness,” she said softly.

“No,” Margaret replied with sudden coldness. “But it often leads to it.”

Scarlett glanced at Damien, hoping, foolishly, for something... A defense. A look. A single word that told her she wasn’t alone. Instead, he set down his wine glass calmly and spoke like he was commenting on the weather.

“Scarlett doesn’t stir where she doesn’t need to. That’s what makes her right for this family.”

Scarlett blinked. He didn’t say she was strong nor compatible. He said she was right that too not for him but for the family. Like a well-fitted furniture. She looked down at her plate, hands suddenly shaking.

It wasn’t an insult.

It was worse.

It... was the truth he believed.

Her throat went tight. She remembered the knot in her throat. How Damien never contradicted his mother. How Thomas looked down at his plate and didn't care to acknowledge her presence for once let alone speaking up for her. How Edmond took her as nothing more than an amusement. And how Maria, an outsider gave her a mocking pitiful look.

And that’s when she felt the certainty for the first time, that this room, this family, this name… would not let her be loved without being managed, being compromised.

Then, softly, unexpectedly came another voice.

“You remind me of someone,” Alaric Ashwood who was quiet the entire dinner said, his voice aged but clear. He was speaking to Scarlett. “Someone who married into this family before she knew the cost.”

Everyone fell silent for a moment.

Thomas blankly stared at his father with something deep swirling in his eyes. While Margaret entirely avoided the remark.

Alaric’s eyes, kind in a way none of the others’ were, settled on her.

“Don’t mistake silence for loyalty, dear. And don't let others make decisions for you.”

It was the only thing that reached her that night.

And the only thing she remembered with warmth when she woke up sweating the next morning as well at present when the rubies are heavy on her throat and the dress already beginning to feel like a cage.

Especially after how, Damien held her hand firmly, led her to his car after leaving the dining hall and whispered slowly to her in his usual deep tone:

“Don’t worry. They’ll respect you… once you belong to me.”

Not with me. To me.

The way he said it soft, almost reverent, terrified her more than if he’d shouted. The look of possession in his eyes scared her beyond limits. She had heard that he was dangerous but how much no one knew because no one survived him. And neither she believed she could. Cause the uncertainty was horrifying.

Her chest caved. Her eyes burned. The tears didn’t fall yet, they hovered, waiting for permission. The bouquet she had set down earlier tipped over and spilled onto the floor, white roses collapsing with more grace than she could ever manage.

Scarlett sank to the floor, gown pooling around her like like a cage made of lace, the ghost of a future she hadn’t written. She let out a breath that sounded too much like a sob and pulled her legs close to her chest, hugging them beneath the layers of tulle. The rubies on her neck hot now. Like fire trapped in gold.

“This is not me,” she whispered.

Not the dress. Not the rubies. Not the obedient silence wrapped in ivory.

“This is not what I wanted.”

She pressed her hand to her mouth as a quiet sob slipped out, sharp, fast, like a bruise she’d been hiding too long. Her body folded forward, fists tightened around the knees over the ivory train of her wedding gown.

I always thought I'd feel something different. Not joy, maybe but certainty. Peace. That soft, glowing kind you see in movies when the bride walks down the aisle and everyone forgets to breathe. Instead, I’m sitting on the cold tile of a hotel bathroom, knees tucked to my chest, in a dress that cost more than my grandmother’s home, trying not to cry in case someone hears.

The lace tore slightly where her fingernail caught the edge. And still, no one knocked. Because no one knew the bride was breaking.

In that moment, she wasn’t Scarlett Jonathan. Not a name on a guest list. Not the woman in Damien Ashwood’s future. Not even the girl her grandmother once named after courage.

She was just a girl with a neckline too tight, a future too silent, and a mirror that wouldn’t look away.

But Scarlett snapped back to the side-mirror. Her face now blurred. Her shoulders trembling.

He’s waiting down the floor. Smiling. Confident. Always saying the right things.

I didn't pay any heed to the rumours & used to think he was sweet. Until I learned he only liked me when I was quiet. I wasn’t marrying a man. I was surrendering to one.

Like a whisper too soft to be heard, “I don’t want this.”

“I don’t want him.” she whispered, to no one.

It didn’t sound like rebellion.

It sounded like truth.

Like a quiet little bird fluttering inside her ribcage, desperate for air.

She looked beside at the side-mirror again.

And this time, she didn’t see a bride.

She saw a girl on the verge of disappearing.

For a moment, she pictured her mother in her wedding dress. Quiet. Compliant.

She imagined herself ten years from now, obedient, silent,... lifeless.

"No!"

My chest aches with the kind of sadness that feels ancient like I inherited it from every woman who said “yes” when she wanted to scream “no.” My heels lie near the bathtub. I stare at them like they might change their mind for me. But I already know. I’ve known since last night when they told me I was "lucky to be chosen." Since I laughed politely and folded myself smaller, like I always do.

I’m not lucky. I’m scared.

And this is the moment I realize, I can’t do this.

She clutched her stomach, trying to quiet the trembling. But it was no longer nerves.

And suddenly, the decision was no longer a question.

Not in anger. Not in panic. But in a kind of terrifying peace she made her decision.

Everyone’s waiting.

For me to disappear into a version of myself they can live with.

Her mother’s words echoed in her mind again:

“All brides get scared. You’ll find your own happiness in time.”

But she wasn’t afraid anymore.

It was a pulse.

It was a scream stitched in silence.