The Gilded Cage I Escaped

“The media called my wedding to Damian Blackwood a modern Cinderella story. They didn' t know it was a gilded cage, and I was the bird about to be locked inside. As I stood in my bridal suite, my sister Jessica walked in, her husband Leo trailing behind. Her eyes raked over my expensive dress, and a look of pure acid twisted her face. "It should have been me," she hissed, her voice low and venomous. Then, with a wildness I hadn' t seen, she whispered, "You stole my life, Amy." Something sharp and cold pressed into my stomach, a silver letter opener. Warmth bloomed across my white dress as my legs gave out, and darkness swallowed me. I died, bleeding on the floor, the last thing I saw Jessica' s horrified face. But then I woke up, not on the plush carpet of a Hamptons bridal suite, but in my childhood bed, years earlier. The lumpy mattress, the stained floral wallpaper, the year on the calendar-it was all wrong. Then Jessica walked in, wearing that cheap dress, with the same resentful ambition in her eyes. She knew. She was back, too, and declared, "This time, the life of a billionaire' s wife is mine!" I knew how that story ended. Let her have him.”