Chapter 5 - The Toast He Didn't Give
The DJ called my name for the toast and I was still holding the folded deed in my inside pocket. I could feel the corner of it against my ribs every time I breathed. The ballroom was warm and loud, glasses clinking, and the photographer was already crouched near the signing table where Soielaydo stood with his hands behind his back like he was just a guest waiting his turn.
I didn't get to the microphone. She found my sleeve first.
Her hand slipped around my wrist and pulled, not hard, but enough that everyone would think it was affection. Her smile was fixed for the room. "One second," she said to the DJ, and then to me, quieter, "Can we talk? Real quick?"
I followed her out of the ballroom and into that same hallway near the bridal suite. The warm yellow light was still there, the same cream walls, the same soft carpet that swallowed sound. The door to the suite was cracked but no one was inside now. It was just us and the air-conditioning hum.
She shut the hallway door behind us and let her smile drop. She took both my hands like we were about to pray.
"Hey," she said. "You're spiraling. I can see it. That paper is freaking you out and it shouldn't."
I didn't take my hands away. I didn't hold on either.
"It's just for protection," she said quickly. "If something happens to either of us. Soielaydo said it's standard. Married couples do it. It just makes sure the house is covered for both of us. For her, too." She glanced down the hall toward the ballroom, where the music was still playing. "For your daughter. It's about her security. If something happened to you, I couldn't even keep a roof over her head. I wouldn't have any rights. That's all this is."
She said it smooth and practiced, eyes wide and steady on mine, her breathing a little fast. Her fingers tightened around mine.
I asked the only thing I could.
"Then why did your phone say the house is ours before I ever agreed to sign anything?"
Her hands froze. Just for a half-second, then she recovered.
She laughed once, a short breath. "What? No, you read that wrong. Soielaydo was joking about an investment property. We were looking at a rental house near his office, by the highway. He always talks like that. 'The house is ours' like we're going to flip it. It had nothing to do with your house."
She kept eye contact when she said it. That was the tell. She held it too long without blinking.
I took my phone out of my pocket with one hand. She watched it come up. I didn't give it to her. I just turned the screen toward her and let her see.
I'd taken a screenshot at 19:48 when I first picked up her phone off the vanity. Black screen, gray bubble, her contact name at the top. Once he signs after the ceremony, the house is ours. The keyboard still visible at the bottom. Time stamped, lit up in that dim hallway light.
I didn't say anything. I just held it there.
She stared at it and her mouth opened a little, then closed. The color went out of her face. She didn't reach for the phone. She didn't try to explain the rental story again. She just went silent, her eyes darting from the screen to my face and back, her breathing shallow now.
After a few seconds she let go of my hands.
"Where did you get that?" she whispered.
"It was on your phone," I said. "On the vanity. Next to your daughter's dress."
She swallowed and looked down at the carpet, then back at me. Her jaw tightened.
"You're keeping that?" she said.
"Yes," I said.
She nodded once, slow, and took a step back toward the bridal suite door, putting distance between us. Her voice changed, colder and flatter.
"So you don't trust me," she said.
I folded my arms, the paper still against my ribs. "I don't trust what you asked me to sign right after that message."
She looked at me for a long moment, tears not crying but held right behind her eyes. Then she wiped at nothing on her cheek and straightened her dress.
May you like
"Okay," she said. "Then you should know if you don't sign it tonight, I'm leaving. My family will come get me right after the reception. Don't make me choose between being your wife and being stupid. If you don't trust me with your house, I can't stay here and pretend this is a marriage."
She didn't wait for me to answer. She opened the hallway door and the ballroom noise came back in, bright and warm and completely unaware. She walked back in first, shoulders back, smiling again before she even crossed the threshold. I stood there another few seconds in that yellow light, my phone still lit in my hand, and then I slipped it back into my pocket and followed her.
