I returned to the desk and read my notes one last time.
The questions had not changed.
I still didn't know who had shaved my head.
I still didn't know what Carter knew.
And I still couldn't tell whether the man I planned to marry had ever understood how deeply I trusted him.
But I had stopped expecting the fifteen million dollars to answer those questions.
Money could protect a person from certain kinds of dependence.
It could provide choices.
It could make it easier to leave a situation that had become unbearable.
It could not tell me whether Carter loved me.
It could not restore my hair.
And it could not undo the humiliation of waking up to discover that someone had treated my body as if it belonged to them.
Those were different problems.
I needed to face them separately.
I closed the notebook and placed it inside the desk drawer.
Then I picked up the photograph of my grandfather.
He had been gone for three years, but I could still remember the way he looked when he was waiting for me to understand something important.
He rarely repeated himself.
He believed advice only mattered when a person chose to use it.
I had thought he was being overly cautious about Carter.
I had wanted him to trust my judgment.
Now I realized that he had been asking me to trust it, too.
He had not wanted me to obey him.
He had wanted me to think.
I placed the photograph beside the jewelry case.
Then I looked at the ivory dress.
I had chosen it because I believed I was beginning a new life.
That belief had not been foolish.
I had wanted to marry someone I loved.
I had wanted to share my life with him.
I had wanted to believe that the promises we made to each other would mean something.
Those desires were not mistakes.
What I had to reconsider was whether Carter had shown me enough to deserve them.
I sat on the bed.
The room was quiet except for the faint sound of traffic outside.
I thought about the way my grandfather had arranged his estate.
He had not simply handed me money and expected me to manage it without help.
He had established a trust.
He had worked with Margaret.
He had taken steps to protect the inheritance long before I understood why those steps mattered.
At the time, I had been grateful without thinking much about the details.
Now I was grateful for a different reason.
I didn't have to make a financial decision while I was frightened.
I didn't have to transfer anything to Carter to demonstrate that I trusted him.
I didn't have to rush into an agreement because a wedding was approaching.
The trust would remain under its existing terms while Margaret and I reviewed any questions that needed attention.
That gave me time.
And time was what I needed most.
I looked at my phone again.
I wondered whether Carter would call.
I wondered what he would say if he saw me.
Would he ask whether I was all right?
Would he try to make me laugh?
Would he act as though the morning had been an unfortunate misunderstanding?
I didn't know.
I wasn't going to decide what he would do before he had done it.
But I also wasn't going to prepare excuses for him.
That was another habit I needed to break.
Whenever Carter disappointed me, I had been quick to explain why he might have acted that way.
He was tired.
He was stressed.
He had too much on his mind.
Sometimes those explanations had been reasonable.
Other times, I had used them to avoid admitting that something bothered me.
I couldn't continue doing that.
If I was going to marry someone, I needed to be able to speak honestly about what hurt me.
I needed to know that my concerns would be taken seriously.
And I needed to feel that I could say no without being punished for it.
Those were not unreasonable expectations.
I had simply been too afraid of conflict to insist on them.
I stood and walked to the bathroom.
My reflection was still difficult to look at.
I touched the rough stubble on my scalp.
Then I lowered my hand.
I wasn't going to spend the day trying to make myself look like the woman Carter preferred.
I could not change what had happened.
I could decide how I responded to it.
I washed my face and returned to the bedroom.
The earrings remained in their case.
I took them out and set them beside the photograph.
I wanted to keep them close.
They reminded me of my grandfather, but they also reminded me that I was allowed to make my own decisions.
I didn't need to follow his advice blindly.
I needed to understand it.
I had once believed that protecting myself meant preparing for the worst.
Now I thought it meant refusing to surrender my judgment simply because I hoped for the best.
I looked toward the garment bag.
The dress still fit the life I had imagined.
But that life depended on something the dress could never provide.
Trust.
I could put on the gown.
I could walk into a room full of guests.
I could stand beside Carter and repeat every promise I had planned to make.
None of those actions would answer the questions I had been avoiding.
I needed to know whether I could trust him before I made promises that would shape the rest of my life.
I sat at the desk again and opened the drawer.
The notebook was where I had left it.
I took it out and turned to the page with my final sentence.
I read it silently.
Then I closed the notebook and returned it to the drawer.
I didn't need to keep repeating the promise.
I needed to live by it.
I had no proof that Carter was responsible for what had happened.
I would not pretend otherwise.
But I had enough reason to stop rushing toward the future without examining the present.
I would protect the trust.
I would ask questions when I was ready.
And I would make no promise simply because I was afraid of disappointing the people who expected me to be a bride that day.
I looked at the photograph one last time.
My grandfather's expression seemed almost ordinary now.
He wasn't there to tell me what to do.
He had already given me the tools to decide for myself.
I placed the photograph back beside the jewelry case.
Then I moved the wedding dress to the chair near the wardrobe.
I wasn't ready to wear it.
But I wasn't ready to let it become a symbol of everything I had lost, either.
For the moment, it was only a dress.
My future was still mine to choose.
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: The Choice I Could No Longer Avoid
I Thought My Wedding Day Would Be the Beginning of Forever, Until I Saw What Someone Had Done to My Hair
Part 8 of 20
