I was born into a life others envied—wealthy, well-known, daughter of a man who owned one of the most powerful jewelry companies in the world. But behind the glitter was a cage. My father was cold, controlling, and selfish. After my mother died when I was five, he remarried a cruel woman who only saw me as a pawn. My half-sister followed in her footsteps

When I turned twenty, my father arranged my marriage to a man in his mid-twenties. I didn’t love him—I didn’t even like him—but my opinion never mattered. I felt trapped, like a prisoner in my own life.

I felt trapped.

Good thing, my loving friends... They threw a party for me the night before the wedding—one last night of freedom, one last taste of joy. It was warm and full of laughter, I was desperate to feel something that wasn’t fear. I got wasted. Really wasted. The night blurred, but I still remember the heat of someone’s lips. A girl. A stranger. I remember the way her touch lingered, how something in me—so repressed, so starved—finally sparked.

I didn’t know who she was. I never even caught her name.

The next morning, I woke up groggy, guilty, and hollow. I pushed it all away and tried to go through with the wedding. But while I was getting ready… I found him. My fiancé. In bed. With my half-sister.

That was it. My last straw.

I ran. I didn’t care where and left the country, without looking back, I made a choice for myself for the first time.

Weeks later, the symptoms came. The nausea, the missed periods, the flutter in my stomach. I was pregnant. But I had never… with any man. I was still a virgin in every way that counted. And then I remembered the party. The blurry kiss. The girl. The intimacy.

Some of my friends told me afterward that the party had been open to all identities—even intersex guests.

I decided to raise my child on my own. I named her Cielle. She became my everything. My reason to keep going.

Now, six years later, I’m back. I returned to visit my mother’s grave. To see my friends. I didn’t expect more.

At the hotel, Cielle got a little restless and bumped into someone in the lobby. I turned, ready to apologize—and then I saw her.

"Oh my goodness, I'm sorry-"

The woman from that night. The one whose eyes haunted my dreams. The one I never stopped thinking about.