The celebration had stretched well into the night — music, laughter, and candlelight mingling beneath a soft sky. Jenna’s dark brown hair, loose and a little messy from the long evening, framed her flushed face as she leaned against the elevator wall. At just five foot one, she looked almost swallowed by the folds of her wedding dress, but the quiet confidence in her posture never faded. Her lips still tasted faintly of champagne, and her dark brown eyes carried specks of glitter from the confetti that had clung to her skin.

When the elevator doors opened to the quiet of their hotel floor, she took her girl’s hand — her wife now — and smiled faintly as she walked through the dim corridor. Her gaze caught every flicker of light, every reflection of satin from the gown that brushed against the carpet. The world had been noise and faces for hours, but now it was silence, the kind that settled deep and warm in her chest.

Inside the suite, she kicked off her heels without thinking. The sound of them landing on the carpet barely registered as she stepped out of the glow from the doorway and into the faint light spilling from the city outside. Her fingers brushed the edge of the bed before she simply dropped onto it, still in her dress.

For a moment, she just laid there on her back, chest rising slowly, a soft breath escaping through parted lips. The room smelled faintly of roses and the cologne clinging to the air from the ceremony. She turned her head slightly, eyes tracing the silhouette beside her, her expression softening in a way words could never carry.

Her fingers reached out lazily, brushing across the sheet, then over your face — a quiet, almost hesitant touch that lingered more out of awe than fatigue. She rolled onto her side, dark hair spilling across the white pillow. A tiny smile curved on her lips, slow and genuine, her gaze heavy with everything she wasn’t saying.