Chapter 16 - Ashley Without the WeddingFor months, strangers asked Ashley the wrong question.
“How are you doing after the wedding?”
There had been no wedding.
No vows.
No signed marriage license returned for recording.
Legally, Ashley remained unmarried.
Emotionally, she felt divorced from an entire imagined future.
The venue refunded part of the ceremony cost.
Some vendors kept deposits.
Insurance covered a portion.
The financial loss was significant.
But money bothered Ashley less than the rituals that had nowhere to go.
The honeymoon itinerary.
Monogrammed luggage.
Thank-you cards.
A seating chart.
A reservation under Mr. and Mrs. Reed.
She deleted slowly.
One object at a time.
Her mother suggested therapy.
Ashley laughed.
“You?”
“Yes.”
“That’s new.”
“I’m evolving.”
Ashley went.
Dr. Camille Harris asked what she missed about Marcus.
Ashley resisted.
“I don’t miss him.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Ashley stared at the floor.
“I miss who I was around him.”
“Who were you?”
“Less responsible.”
The answer surprised her.
Marcus had planned vacations.
Chosen restaurants.
Handled small problems.
Ashley ran operations for a hospitality company and spent her life deciding things.
Marcus often told her:
Let me take care of it.
She had loved those words.
Now she saw what lived inside them.
Marcus preferred taking care of things people did not inspect.
“Do you think you ignored signs?” Dr. Harris asked.
“Yes.”
“Which?”
“He hated questions about money.”
“Anything else?”
“He always had a solution before I knew there was a problem.”
Ashley thought.
“That used to impress me.”
“Now?”
“Now it scares me.”
Meanwhile Simone faced her own relationship autopsy.
Danielle asked her to document personal payments to Marcus.
Dinner.
Travel.
Apartment.
Shared expenses.
Simone discovered another pattern.
Marcus almost never allowed her to pay for luxury experiences.
But he happily accepted her monthly “rent.”
Why?
The answer became obvious.
Visible generosity fed his identity.
Invisible extraction fed his problems.
He bought dinners with one hand and took her housing money with the other.
Keisha listened as Simone described it.
“That man gave you a two-hundred-dollar dinner after taking sixteen hundred dollars.”
“When you say it like that…”
“How else would I say it?”
Simone laughed.
Then cried.
Keisha moved beside her.
“I miss him.”
“I know.”
“I hate that.”
“Why?”
“He did all this.”
“People don’t become emotionally erased because evidence arrives.”
Simone wiped her face.
“I still wake up expecting his text.”
“That’ll stop.”
“When?”
Keisha shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
Simone laughed through tears.
“Terrible comfort.”
“I’m a baker, not a therapist.”
Weeks passed.
Then Marcus’s criminal attorney—not Leonard—contacted Danielle.
The change meant the investigation had moved.
Marcus had been formally charged with offenses related to financial fraud and unauthorized computer access.
The exact counts would be litigated.
Simone felt nothing at first.
Then nausea.
Danielle explained that an indictment was not a conviction.
That prosecutors would have to prove their case.
That Simone might be interviewed or subpoenaed.
“Will I have to see him?”
“Possibly.”
Simone looked toward the kitchen.
“I can do it.”
“Good.”
“Does Ashley know?”
“Bennett’s counsel will.”
That evening Ashley called.
“Did Danielle tell you?”
“Yes.”
They were quiet.
Ashley said, “I thought I’d feel relieved.”
“Me too.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“What do you feel?”
Simone considered.
“Like something became permanent.”
Ashley understood.
Until formal charges, a tiny part of the mind could treat catastrophe as reversible.
Now the institutions of consequence had entered.
Marcus was no longer merely a lying boyfriend or runaway groom.
His actions had names other people would decide.
Ashley whispered, “My mother cried.”
“Because of him?”
“Because she thinks Dad helped create this.”
Simone sat.
“That’s heavy.”
“Yeah.”
Then Ashley asked, “Do you blame me?”
“For what?”
“The apartment. The company money. Any of it.”
“No.”
Ashley exhaled.
“Do you blame me?”
Simone asked.
“No.”
Another silence.
That simple exchange closed something neither knew remained open.
They were not friends.
Not exactly.
But they no longer needed to wonder whether the other woman secretly held them responsible.
Ashley said, “I’m changing the company apartment lease.”
Simone stiffened.
“What does that mean?”
“Bennett is terminating corporate housing.”
“Oh.”
Simone knew logically it would happen.
Still, her home disappeared beneath her feet again.
“How long?”
“Ninety days.”
Ashley added quickly, “Standard transition, not a favor.”
Simone almost smiled.
“Thank you for saying that.”
“I figured you’d care.”
“I do.”
After hanging up, Simone looked around the apartment.
Marcus had chosen the building.
Ashley’s company had paid the rent.
Simone had filled it with furniture and memories.
For the first time, she wanted a place nobody else had selected.
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She opened a rental website.
This time, she would read every page herself.
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