"Good morning, Layla, dear," Loretta said when she walked into the kitchen that morning. The older woman cupped a mug of tea in her hands, clad in jeans and a white linen blouse. "How did you sleep?"

Translation: you look tired. She plastered on a fake smile. "Fine, thanks."

"I hope my grandchildren aren't giving you too much trouble."

Loretta's diction gave Layla an odd sense of violation, as though her mother-in-law were laying claim to something that had always been Layla's own. Someone that had always been her own. "No, no, not at all."

They had kicked a few times in the night. She'd woken up and stared at the back of Hayden's head. Sometimes, they fell asleep facing one another. More often than not these days, it was back to back.

"I'm glad to hear it." Loretta sipped her tea, stirring the ugly china set that she had bought for Layla and Hayden as a wedding gift. "I have a favour to ask you."

Layla picked at her bowl of rice. The only thing she didn't mind about Loretta's presence was that she cooked, though more often than not she made traditional Korean foods that reminded Layla too much of home. Her own mother, despite being Chinese, would often have similar items at the breakfast table at all. "What is it?"

"You know that Haoran and I have decided to get married this weekend," she began, which was spoken in a tone too casual not to make Layla's spine stiffen. "Well, I'd like you to be my maid--my matron of honour, as it were. Do you accept?"

Her mother in law was asking her to be her maid of honour? What Twilight Zone parallel universe had she stepped into? Layla blinked. "I..."

Well, she could hardly refuse, could she? How would a normal married woman act? She would say yes, wouldn't she, to keep the peace with a husband she loved? But Layla had never been particularly good at compromising. She'd grown up as essentially an only child, choosing herself over everyone, choosing her wants over anyone's needs.

"Of course," she said with a smile. "I'd be more than happy to."

"Perfect!" Loretta's smile was so bright it nearly blinded her. It was startling the effect that her fiance had on her. "Don't worry about shopping or anything, I know it's on a late notice. This whole love affair has really been a whirlwind. I do apologize for springing this whole visit on the two of you, Layla. I'm sure you have a lot on your plate as is."

She hadn't noticed Loretta's concern for anyone's convenience but her own, considering she'd made thinly veiled comments about Layla working too much during her pregnancy and how they ought to live closer to her so that Loretta could have time to help with her grandchildren. The idea of her actually holding the twins was like a fever dream.

Now, she was supposed to say that actually, the visit hadn't been a bother at all, that she loved having her here, that she wouldn't mind if she stayed longer at all. But that would be a lie. And Layla may have been selfish, but she was honest at least.

"I'm going to go talk to Hayden," she said suddenly, abandoning her half-eaten bowl of rice with egg. "Enjoy your breakfast."

Layla walked up the stairs to their room. Hayden wasn't where she'd left him—staring groggily at the light coming through the sheer curtains—but in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. This was their typical routine, sans all of the interruptions that had occurred these past few months. Amara's reappearance in her life. Loretta's rude barging-into both of their lives. And now... this wedding.

This small bubble of time, this pocket enclosed and away from the stresses of life, should have been an oasis. She watched him brush his teeth through the crack in the bathroom door. He stared down at his phone in one hand, swiping through emails. Her towel was slung over the rack, crooked next to his neatly folded one. The roll of toilet paper was backwards, Hayden having put it on without a care for the proper order of things. Aside from that? Nothing was out of place or astray in the scenario. It could have been a slice of life, for crying out loud.

If this was their normal, why did it feel so wrong?

"Morning." Hayden's voice made her jump.

She pushed the door open the rest of the way and brushed past him, picking up a t-shirt that she had left draped over the chair. "Morning."

"You look distressed." His eyes met hers in the bathroom mirror. "Something wrong?"

"Your mother just asked me to be her bridesmaid." she said, folding the t-shirt into quarters, taking her time and using the methods she'd learned from teenage summers working in JCPenney's.

"She... what?" He blinked, wiping his face with a damp towel.

"I had to agree, of course," she said, tucking the folded shirt under her arm.

He scowled, an expression that was becoming all-too-common on his face these days. "Great."

Hayden wasn't the type to bottle his emotions or keep a filter over his thoughts. It was what they'd always had in common:  their characteristic bluntness. So she was hardly surprised by his clear, visceral disgust at his mother and Haoran's wedding.

He rubbed his hand over his jaw, looking like he wanted to rip out someone's throat with his bare hands. It was hard to picture him doing anything so violent, which should have been odd, considering his previous line of work. She couldn't even picture him holding a gun.

You still don't know why he left the FBI, though.

Shut up.

"You'd better watch out, then. You're liable to become their best man at any moment if you're not careful." Part of her savoured his discomfort. His slow unraveling. For a man usually so controlled, he seemed to have lost every aspect of it these past few months.

"Don't you joke about that," he said, and it was half a snarl.

The animal breaking free from the civilized facade. They were all nothing more than instincts and neurons and chain reactions fighting beneath a veneer of civility. "Sorry."

She held up her hands as if in surrender, to show that they held no weapons. Her greatest weapon, she saved for her own demise.

"I need to finish getting ready."

Something about his words was final, cold, cutting into her. Had she finally broke him? Like poking a sleeping bear and half-hoping it would wake up? He never shut her out like this.

But maybe she'd closed down from him for too long.

Maybe she'd broken him. Maybe they'd broken each other.

"Okay," she said, and it was in a voice that felt as small as her conscience.

Layla stepped out of the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

#

Hayden drank his fourth Prosecco of the night and stared bleakly out the window. The drink was as sour as ever, making him wish it was socially acceptable to drink anything other than champagne at a rehearsal dinner.

Sadly, he was still stuck in a three-piece suit, with a gaggle of Haoran's and his mother's society or church friends that had been able to make the drive to Maryland. They were wearing staid tweed suits or high-collared sheaths in pastel colours, surrounding his mother, who wore a white dress and a smile bigger than any he'd seen from her in recent years.

It won't last, he thought, but he didn't know if he was talking about her happiness, their love, or something else entirely. But this night felt like a precipice, like he was standing on the edge of something great and terrible.

"Are you seriously hiding in the corner and leaving me to deal with your mother alone?" Layla's voice rampaged into his solitude. She held a flute of sparkling apple cider, clad in a dark red dress that flowed smoothly over her body, obscuring any signs of her pregnancy. He would have forgotten that she was bearing their children at all, if it weren't for the nagging voice in his head and the fact that she was wearing flat shoes, not her usual heels.

"Yes, and isn't she surrounded by her adoring friends and future husband?" he said, taking a sip of the still-sour Prosecco. What had they mixed it with, vinegar? "She hardly needs her son by her side."

"No, but apparently she needs the friendship of a woman she met two weeks ago." At that remark, both of them glanced over to see Amy Tang, clad in a sleek black dress and holding a flute of champagne, making his mother laugh at something she'd said.

The two of them stared at her, parallel lines trained on one target, but never to meet at the bulls'-eye. They had a common enemy for now, but what did it mean? Would this last, this fragile, tentative alliance between them?

"You want to go back first, or should I?" he said, breaking the silence.

"I need a moment alone," she said, her voice wavering. In the dim light of the restaurant, she looked pale. "I'll just be in the ladies' room."

He nodded. She wanted him to care. But he'd done nothing but care, nothing but give, nothing but let her take from him, let everyone take from him these past five years. It was selfish, he knew, but he couldn't bring himself to inquire. He couldn't bring himself to give one more ounce.

He wasn't sure he had anything left to give to her.

Rejoining the crowd surrounding the happy couple, he said, "I'd like to make a toast."

They all smiled and lifted their glasses in eager anticipation. "Hear, hear!"

"To... my wonderful mother, and the lucky man who's marrying her!" He took the excuse to empty his glass.

His mother wrapped her arm around his shoulders and kissed his cheek. "Thank you, Hayden, that was lovely."

She felt skinnier than she had in recent years, bonier. He frowned. Was it the normal wasting away that came in one's sixties, or was there something else? His mind swam with possibilities: terminal cancer. Multiple sclerosis. Any number of reasons for this remarriage and whirlwind courtship. What if Haoran was taking advantage of her for a life insurance payout?

Layla would say, you've been watching too many episodes of Forensic Files.

She might be right. He might have taken her as right, if he could only shake this burning sensation that something was about to go horribly wrong.

Haoran tried to strike up a conversation with him. "So, Hayden, your mother mentioned you worked in the FBI before. What was that like?"

"Classified," he said, too bluntly. Usually he would soften his harshness with niceties. He had no more pleasantries to spare.

When everyone laughed, trying to take it as an awkwardly timed joke, he sighed, seeing that he was backed into a corner, being given no choice but to be polite.

"It was... It was good to have a purpose," he said, clearing his throat and giving an honest answer. Perhaps the first honest answer he'd given in weeks. "It was good to know that I was contributing to the safety of our country and its citizens in a tangible way."

"I can see why Loretta speaks so highly of you." Haoran smiled. The two men were of almost equal height, Haoran a few inches shorter.

"And here I thought it was because I'm her only son," he said, trying to smile back. He seized upon any reason to leave, to stop feeling like any goodness that had ever been in him was slowly leaching out, replaced by nothing but bitterness and loathing. "If you'll excuse me, I need to go find my wife."