The string of disasters left me hollow. I collapsed into the hotel bed and slept until I fell into a nightmare.
In the dream I stood on a cliff's edge opposite Tristan. He had one arm around Hillary and the other clutching their child. Beside me lay my mother and my brother, broken and distant. Their faces were full of disappointment.
"I told you not to marry him!" my mother cried. "You wouldn't listen. Now he's ruined me and your brother—you don't even have a place to cry!"
"Meredith," my brother said coldly, "I spoiled you too much. That's why you let wolves into our home. I... can't rest in peace."
I screamed and reached for them, but they drifted farther away.
When I woke up, my pillow was soaked with tears. The ache in my ribs—the constant, gnawing pain—forced me back into the harshness of reality. I had once believed we would be two for life; now all that remained was regret so vast it swallowed me whole.
I regretted loving him. I regretted handing him the power to shatter everything.