To Forget Your Abusers Is the Coldest Revenge
The cold was the first thing she remembered.
A bone-deep, suffocating cold that seeped into her lungs and turned her limbs to lead.
Water.
Everywhere.
Arden Stratford fought against the crushing weight, her limbs flailing in a desperate, clumsy ballet.
Her silk gown, a birthday present from her father, now clung to her like a shroud, dragging her down into the murky depths of the lake at Briarwood Manor.
Through the distorted veil of water, she saw a figure slicing through the dark toward her.
Gareth.
Her brother.
Her protector.
Relief, sharp and sweet, pierced through the fog of her panic.
*Brother, save me,* she tried to scream, but only a torrent of bitter water flooded her mouth.
He was so close.
His hand was reaching for hers.
Then, a voice from the shore, shrill and sharp as shattering glass, cut through the chaos.
“Gareth! Get Briar first! She’s fragile!”
It was their mother.
Arden watched, suspended in the icy water, as Gareth’s eyes met hers.
She saw a flicker of guilt, of apology, before he pulled his hand back.
He turned.
He swam away from her, toward the other flailing figure in the darkness.
Toward Briar Langley.
The girl who had taken everything.
Despair, colder and more final than the lake itself, filled the space where hope had been.
The world dissolved into a swirl of blackness.
§02
Six years ago, that lake had been her sanctuary.
On her seventeenth birthday, before Briar had ever set foot in their lives, Arden had stood on its shore, feeling like the universe belonged to her.
“Happy birthday, princess,” Gareth had said, slipping a custom-made locket around her neck.
It was a family tradition.
Every year, a new locket, each one a tiny silver promise of his protection.
That night, she’d met Holden Whitaker, her childhood sweetheart, at The Stargazer’s Observatory, the glass-domed marvel her father had built for her at the edge of the woods.
“One day, Ardie,” Holden had whispered, his breath warm against her ear as they looked through the telescope.
“I’ll replace that locket with a ring.”
He’d sealed the promise with a clumsy, sweet kiss under a canopy of constellations.
Her world had been a perfect, glittering snow globe of love and privilege.
A week later, her mother had shattered it.
She’d introduced them to Briar Langley, the daughter of her deceased college friend.
“Arden, darling,” her mother had said, her hand resting on Briar’s trembling shoulder.
“Briar has been through so much.
You’ll have to be the bigger person here.
Just let her have her way for a little while.”
“A little while” became an eternity.
§03
Briar was an artist of fragility.
Her eyes were perpetually dewy, her voice a fragile whisper.
The first day, Arden made her cry simply by saying the word “Mom.”
A wave of accusations followed.
Arden was insensitive, cruel.
The next week, Briar “accidentally” broke a porcelain music box, a gift to Arden from her late grandmother.
When Arden cried out in anguish, Briar’s own tears flowed faster.
“I’m so sorry, sister! I’m just so clumsy! Please don’t hate me!”
The result was Arden being reprimanded for her “materialism” and for upsetting their “grieving guest.”
The first month, Briar nearly drowned.
Arden had refused to take her to the observatory, her one private sanctuary.
“It’s my special place,” she’d argued, a childish possessiveness she couldn’t shake.
“Fine, sister,” Briar had whispered, tears already welling.
“I won’t go.
I don’t want to be a bother.”
Her mother’s voice had been cold steel.
“Arden, is this how I raised you?”
Reluctantly, she had led Briar toward the gardens.
Near the lake, Briar had stumbled, grabbing onto Arden’s arm and pulling them both into the icy water.
§04
The story Briar told after being rescued first was a masterpiece of victimhood.
Arden had pushed her.
Arden was jealous.
Arden wished she would just disappear.
And they believed her.
From that day on, Arden Stratford, the cherished princess, was recast as the villain in her own home.
Gareth’s lockets stopped.
Holden’s promises faded.
Her parents’ gazes grew distant, filled with a disappointment that was a constant, dull ache in her chest.
She fought back, of course.
She argued, she screamed, she reasoned.
But her struggles only made her look more like the monster they believed her to be.
Her every protest was just more proof of her “vicious” nature.
So she learned to wear a mask of indifference, a brittle shield of pride that fooled no one, least of all herself.
§05
“Arden, are you even listening to me?”
The voice, thick with disgust, belonged to Holden Whitaker.
Six years had passed since the night in the observatory.
Six years of being slowly, methodically erased.
She stood on the grand staircase of Briarwood Manor, looking down at the scene below.
Her family.
Her parents, her brother Gareth, and Holden, were gathered around Briar, who was dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief.
They formed a perfect, protective circle.
And Arden was on the outside.
It was the night before Briar and Holden’s engagement party.
An engagement that had once been hers.
“I’m listening,” she said, her voice flat.
“You’re making a scene.”
“I haven’t done anything,” she replied, a statement that was both perfectly true and utterly useless.
“You’re breathing,” Holden shot back.
“And that seems to be enough to upset Briar.”
Her mother, who hadn’t looked her directly in the eye in months, finally spoke.
“Arden, I don’t care what games you’re planning, but you will be at that party tomorrow.
And you will smile.
The Whitakers need to see a united family.”
*A united family.* The irony was so thick it was almost suffocating.
“Fine,” she said, the fight draining out of her.
“I’ll be there.”
She turned and walked back up the stairs, the weight of their collective animosity a physical force on her back.
Pride was all she had left.
Pride, and the hollow echo of a promise made under the stars.
§06
The engagement party at The Veridian Grand Hotel was a symphony of quiet wealth and loud hypocrisy.
Arden moved through the crowd like a ghost, her presence tolerated but not welcomed.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the ice princess herself.”
Jenna Kirk, Briar’s most loyal sycophant, sidled up to her, a malicious glint in her eyes.
“Still pretending you don’t care?”
“I’m not pretending,” Arden said, her voice cool.
“Then you won’t mind that they’re a perfect match, will you?” Jenna purred, before “accidentally” sloshing the contents of her red wine glass all over the front of Arden’s cream-colored dress.
“Oh my god, Arden! What did you do?” Jenna shrieked, drawing the attention of everyone nearby.
Heads turned.
Whispers erupted.
It was the same script, just a different stage.
Gareth was at her side in an instant, his face a mask of weary frustration.
“Arden, not here.
Not tonight.”
“She did it on purpose,” Arden stated, her voice trembling slightly.
“Of course she did,” Gareth sighed, as if humoring a difficult child.
“You just can’t accept it, can you? That Holden moved on.
That he fell for someone kind and gentle like Briar.
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