The Orange Hour

The bride's dress lay across the hotel bed like an orange stain against the white sheets. Mara sat on the floor, scrolling through her iPhone, watching the wedding footage she'd recorded just hours ago. Her sister's laughter, the toasts, the moment everything fell apart when David's text arrived on the screen she was filming with.

She'd become something else in the weeks since—no longer the woman who'd planned this wedding for a year, but a hollowed-out thing moving through motions. Sarah had called her a zombie last week, crying in the dress fitting room. "You're not here anymore, Mara. You haven't been since he left."

Now, alone in the honeymoon suite her sister would never use, Mara pressed play again. The video showed her own hand trembling as the notification popped up: *I can't do this. I'm sorry.* The glass of champagne shattering. Her mother's scream.

She stood up and walked to the bathroom. The tub was already full—she'd drawn it hours ago, unable to sleep. The water had gone cold, but she sank into it anyway, phone clutched in her wet hand. The orange dress from the reception hung on the door hook, its vibrant color mocking her.

Her screen lit up. Another notification. Sarah: *Are you okay?*

Mara watched the water ripple around her knees, tiny waves carrying fragments of herself away. She wasn't okay. She was twenty-eight, freshly abandoned at her own wedding reception, and suddenly every choice she'd ever made seemed to lead here—to this cold water, this orange dress, this device that held all the evidence of her unraveling.

She deleted the video. Then the text. Then Sarah's message. Then she let the phone slide into the water with a soft splash, watching it sink like a heavy secret, like the last piece of who she used to be.