Reduced to Embers

I had been with Peregrine for five years, from school uniforms to a wedding dress, from naive innocence to ruthless decisiveness. On the day he was supposed to wash his hands clean of his old life, I heard his brothers hooting and calling another girl "sister-in-law." I stood in the shadow of a large tree, watching as his hands, once stained with blood, carefully wiped away her tears. "Cordelia, you and she are different." "She was born rolling in the mud, while you are the pure white lotus in bloom." I looked at the wedding photos saved on my phone, dated for next week. At the same time, another message popped up on the screen. Late-stage pancreatic cancer.