goldleaf

I

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SUMMER 2022.

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Sang finds the necklace at the bottom of her purse, its thin chain wrapped around a palm-sized bottle of Patron.

It had been tossed aside in favour of a Cartier piece that hung off of her throat like a chandelier, shoved into her bag to live with gum wrappers and gas station receipts. Her mother had insisted on something louder than this whisper of a diamond on silver thread, but it doesn't feel right.

(Nothing does. Not completely.)

A bouquet of roses sit on the table in front of her. She had asked for red, but these are as pale as the ivory of her dress. They lay there, wrapped in a dress of silk, pristine. Mocking. The heart of them as yellow as the bile that threatens to rise in her throat.

Her mother had called them wedding nerves. That was why she threw up in the car to the chapel, why she's spent the past six months trying not to cry every time she wondered what life will be like after the veil is lifted. It's not fear—it's anticipation. Joy.

"You're just nervous," she whispers, "that's all."

Her reflection in the gilded mirror says nothing.

There's a trembling to her fingers as she reaches up, tucking a loose strand of hair back into her chignon. Then they move down to her lips; smoothing against the velvety matte, cleaning up the edges. A teardrop shaped ruby hangs between her breasts, nestled in the deep v of her neckline. Scalloped lace itches her skin along the edges.

Her focus doesn't leave the green of her own eyes as she wraps the silvery chain around her wrist once, twice, before fastening the clasp and slipping it up the sleeve of her dress. If she doesn't see it, then no one else will—this memory of love hidden above the wrist. The jewel burns a nave in the layers of her skin; buries itself deep enough to reach the heart.

Behind her is the echo of oak doors as they creak at the hinges. She was meant to have left ten minutes ago, to have walked down the aisle five, but this nerve-painted fear runs deeper than bruise, than bone. Her mind runs and it doesn't stop and she has no more movement left to give.

The doors click shut again. There's movement towards her, but it's silent, like her mother had taken off her Manolos and was padding around in the skin of her tights. It doesn't make sense, but not much does, now.

She takes a deep breath, steels herself like a deer bracing for impact in the dim blue haze of oncoming headlights.

"I'm sorry," she says, turning on her heel, "I know I'm late, I just—"

It's not her mother standing in the foyer. It's something else entirely, something ghostlike and vicious, tearing memories from between her teeth, the burn of it sweet as cinnamon down the swell of her throat.

Eyes like stone. Like salt.

"Mr. Blackbourne?"

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author's note.

gasp! welcome to part three of the afterglow series!

(if you don't know what the afterglow series is, it's my take on c.l.'s one-boy-one-book series style, where i write nine different fanfictions, each with a particular focus on sang and one of her boys! the others are still included, however, one of them just gets a little more emphasis than the others.)

this one is going to be way shorter than what i usually aim for—14 chapters, told in a non linear fashion. the parts won't all be as short as this one, as the narration jumps between past and present, with the 7 present chapters consisting of one scene altogether and the 7 others being scattered memories from sang's past.

fingers crossed that this means more regular updates, as it's already completely planned and relatively short.

let me know what you guys think!

[dedicated to @mariiaaguda]