Page 11 of Meadowsweet and Marigold
Marigold slumped against the vanity, her reflection fragmenting as her vision blurred. The weight of Magnolia's betrayal pressed down on her shoulders, a physical presence crushing her spine, forcing her to bend where she once stood tall.
Her mind drifted back to the opening night of Swan Lake six months ago — her last performance before everything crumbled. The theater lights had dimmed, and she'd stepped onto the stage, her body transforming into pure movement.
"I was born for that role," she murmured, eyes closed, remembering.
The audience had been utterly silent during her thirty-two fouettés — those impossible spinning turns that separated great ballerinas from merely good ones.
Then came the thunderous applause, the standing ovation that seemed to last forever. Bouquets at her feet.
Rowan waiting backstage with that look in his eyes —pride, desire, possessiveness.
"You were transcendent tonight," he'd whispered in her ear. "The pack is honored to call you ours."
Magnolia had been there too, green hair perfectly styled, golden-orange eyes glittering as she'd embraced Marigold.
"No one could ever dance it like you," she'd said, her voice dripping with what Marigold had mistaken for sisterly admiration.
The memory shattered against the harsh reality of her present.
Now she sat alone in a dressing room that would soon belong to someone else, her reflection a stranger — red-eyed, hollow-cheeked, a shadow of the dancer who had once commanded the stage.
"Look at yourself," she told her reflection. "What are you now? An omega rejected by her Alpha, a dancer without company, a sister without..." Her voice broke. She'd almost said "family," but the Everharts had made their choice clear.
They stood with Magnolia now.
No family. No pack.
In a few short hours, she was all alone in this grand world…
Marigold uncurled her fist, letting the crumpled letter fall to the floor. She stared at her empty palm, the same hand that had once expressed every emotion through dance, now just trembling flesh and bone.
"I'm nothing like her," Marigold said, straightening her shoulders slightly. "I wouldn't have done this to anyone, especially not my own sister."
The realization didn't comfort her, but it steadied something deep inside — a small flicker of self-recognition amid the chaos of betrayal.
Marigold pulled her large suitcase from the closet with unexpected force, sending a cascade of ballet slippers tumbling to the floor. They scattered like fallen petals — pink satin monuments to a life now ending.
She didn't bother picking them up.
"I won't need these where I'm going," she whispered, turning to her wardrobe with newfound determination.
Each item she packed carried the weight of memory.
The sapphire dress she'd worn to the company gala last winter.
The cashmere sweater Rowan had complimented during their third date.
The practice leotards, each worn thin at different spots from countless hours at the barre.
"Willowbend," she murmured, testing the name of her destination as she folded a simple blouse. "Where no one knows my name. Where no one has seen me dance. Where no one has watched me fall."
Her hands stilled over a framed photograph.
She and Rowan at the season's opening night, his arm possessively around her waist, her smile radiant with the triumph of her performance and the security of belonging to an Alpha who seemed to adore her.
"You never really saw me, did you?" she asked the image, tracing Rowan's confident smile with her fingertip. "Was it always her you wanted?"
The memory of his public rejection flooded back — standing before the entire pack, his voice cool and controlled as he announced that their courtship was over, that he'd made a mistake in choosing her.
