When up-and-coming model Isabelle meets talented but jaded photographer Milo, sparks fly despite their age difference. Their romance becomes the talk of the New York City fashion scene, fueling rumors and speculation about their scandalous affair. A...
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She was shaking thoruhg security. She had her sunglasses on in the waiting lounge. Sure, this must ve been common for Vegas. A room full of hungover tourists waitng to fly back home. But this was diffrent. She felt shattered. Physicall, ,and emotionally.
She held on for as long as she could, but as soon as she got into her window seat, the tears started rolling down her face.
She put on her headhohones and listened to the music that cut her even deeper like a knife. The same knife she used to cut herself away form him.
I think that I'm for real this time, the singer sang, about finalyl leaving someone.
She was so sad, crying so hard, but trying not to make a sound. That the woman beside her had to move a ocuple seats down. Lucky for both of them it was only a half full fight.
Her phone lit up, damn tehcnology she htought, can't even get away from it all in a plane.
Everythng okay?
She was in disbeliefe. Milo asking her if everyhting was okay as if he was shocked at her behaviour. When he was being so distand that morning, when he threatened her about her body. When he never listens to her, never touches her.
She couldn't respond.
A hal hour later a call. She let it ring.
Eventually, she calmed down a tiny bit, and she texted him back.
Not really
But I can't talk on the plane right now.
She focused on hte clouds outside her window, trying to count them, anything to calm donwn. She turned off all WiFi from her phone.
The airplane was a metallic womb, a sterile cocoon carrying Isabelle away from the neon-drenched nightmare she had just woken from. Each hum of the engine was a dull throb behind her eyes, mimicking the pounding in her head and the ache in her chest where a bruise pulsed, a physical testament to a violation that had felt both fleeting and indelible. She stared out the window, the sprawling lights of Vegas shrinking beneath her, but the glitter kaleidoscope of fragmented memories only amplified her horror. Married. The word echoed in the empty spaces of her mind, heavy and grotesque, clinging to her like a shroud. The diamond ring, cold and alien on her finger, felt less like a symbol of union and more like a shackle, a mark of her own catastrophic impulsiveness.
She put the rung away, in her purse.
She replayed the morning in vivid, painful flashes: Milo's hand on her shorts, his casual dismissal of her refusal, the chilling justification, "We're married now," spoken as if it were a universal law of possession. A wave of nausea washed over her. She gripped the armrest, feeling a profound sense of self-disgust, intertwined with a nascent, burning anger at him. How had she allowed herself to fall so completely, so blindly, onto unsteady ground?
It was onyl when they finally landed, that her phone, on again, saw the text from Milo.
What you didn wasn't cool...I need space from you. Let me know when you plan on returning. We can talk then..
Isabelle stared at her phone, blinking.
She swallowed hard, but it felt like there was. Rock in her throat.
Another text from her mom,
See you in 15.
The dry Arizona air, once a comforting embrace, now felt like sandpaper against her raw nerves. She had fled, yes, but he had offered no pursuit, no word of concern, confirming the deepest fears that had taken root in her heart.
