Chapter 2

"Mr. McGraw, that isn't what I meant.

"I handled this badly tonight.

"We'll keep the original seating. Mr. and Mrs. Bennett can sit at the adjacent family table.

"Is that enough?"

He said it as though he were granting us a favor.

I looked at him calmly.

"Derek, do you still think I'm fighting over a chair?"

He frowned.

"Then what are you fighting over?"

Even Dad closed his eyes when he heard that.

Suddenly, I no longer had the energy to argue.

If Derek still could not understand, he never would.

I stood and helped Mom from her chair.

"Dad, Mom, we're going home."

Paige immediately began to cry.

"Hannah, please don't do this.

"I truly didn't mean any harm.

"I said it without thinking. If you don't like it, my parents won't sit there.

"But if you make a scene like this, how is Derek supposed to face all his relatives?"

I looked at her.

Her eyes were red, and her fingers clenched the tablecloth as if she had suffered some unbearable injustice.

But that expression would never fool me again.

"Paige Bennett, don't you disgust yourself putting on this performance?"

Paige went pale.

Derek's voice turned cold at once.

"Hannah!"

I gave a humorless laugh. "Derek, stop shouting.

"I've heard enough."

With that, I guided my parents toward the door.

Derek followed us into the foyer and seized my wrist.

"If you walk out that door tonight, both families will be humiliated!"

I turned back to him.

"Derek, you humiliated yourself.

"Let go."

Panic flickered in his eyes.

"Hannah, we're getting married in two weeks.

"Don't say something like this because you're angry."

I looked down at his hand.

Seven years earlier, he had held me the same way.

We had just graduated from college, and my parents wanted me to return home and accept a permanent teaching position.

At the train station, Derek had held my hand with red-rimmed eyes and said:

"Hannah, stay.

"I'll build a home with you."

So I stayed.

I ate instant noodles beside him for a month when money was tight.

I sat with him at two in the morning while he revised proposals, and I was there when he earned his first real bonus.

Later, when he bought a house, he said the mortgage would be simpler if only his name went on the deed.

When he ran short during the renovation, I contributed ten thousand dollars I had saved over four years.

My parents quietly gave me another seventy-five hundred, saying a bride should always enter a marriage with something of her own.

That money became the cabinets, sofa, and curtains in Derek's house.

I had truly believed it would become my home.

But that night, I finally understood that a house was not the same thing as a home.

Home was any place where someone was willing to stand between you and harm.

I peeled his fingers from my wrist one by one.

"Derek.

"I'm not acting on impulse.

"I'm finally thinking clearly."

The door closed behind us.

Mrs. Matthews's furious voice carried from inside.

"She isn't even part of this family yet, and she already thinks she can storm out whenever she wants.

"Once she's married in, she'll think she can run the entire house."

Mom's step faltered.

Dad's hand trembled too.

I tightened my hold on them and didn't look back.

When we reached home, I called the manager of the Grand Briar Hotel.

She answered with her usual professional warmth.

"Ms. McGraw, are you calling to confirm the wedding schedule?"

"Ms. Parker, I need to change the purpose of the event."

There was a pause.

"Change the purpose?"

"The wedding is canceled."

I looked at the invoices spread across our kitchen table, and my voice remained steady.

"But don't cancel the dinner.

"Convert it into my parents' thirtieth-anniversary celebration."

The other end of the line was silent for several seconds.

"Ms. McGraw, are you certain?"