But “here” was all they had ever understood. Public settings. Appearances. What people would think. That was the only moral language Bianca and Diane had ever really spoken fluently, and now it was failing them.
Guests had begun to shift uneasily, half wanting to leave, half desperate not to miss the ending. A bridesmaid near the sweetheart table was crying from sheer stress. Someone’s phone camera was up until a security staff member moved in and hissed for them to put it away. The band remained frozen, instruments in laps, staring anywhere but directly at the implosion in front of them.
Julian stepped farther back from Bianca.
He loosened his collar once, as if the room had grown too hot, and said, “I’m sorry. But I won’t marry someone who thinks humiliation is acceptable when she believes the victim has less power than she does.”
“That’s not fair,” Diane snapped, the first flash of her own temper breaking through. “You are judging her on one moment.”
Julian’s expression didn’t change. “No. I’m judging her on the moment that revealed everything else.”
Diane fell silent.
My father turned to me one last time.