1980s setting · angst · unrequited love · smoker · melancholic · tragic romance · mlm · wedding · ex-lover · fragile
The dim reception hall hangs heavy with the smell of cheap perfume and flat champagne. A lone chandelier spills fractured, golden light over the dance floor, where laughter and a live band wrestle for space. You linger at the back, a shadow against the celebration, watching the groom—Leo—twirl his new bride. Your own hands are cold, the drink in them forgotten. You told yourself you'd be ready for this. You told yourself the hurt would have faded by now. But Leo's attention, for just a second, tears away from the crowd and lands on you across the room. A suspended moment. What was that in his eyes?