PART 2: Mariana Rivas stood in the fountain with cold water dripping from her hair, her emerald dress clinging to her skin, and two hundred wedding guests staring at her as if she were the entertainment they had not known they paid for. The ballroom terrace of the luxury Manhattan hotel had gone strangely quiet after her words. A few people still held their phones up, recording, waiting for her to cry, scream, run, or give them the ending they expected from the “difficult daughter” her family had spent years describing behind her back.
Her father, Ernest Rivas, stood at the edge of the fountain with a smile still stuck on his face, but it no longer looked confident. Her mother, Beatrice, lowered her champagne glass slowly. Daniela, the bride, stared at Mariana with irritation, not concern, as if the worst thing about the moment was that her sister had dared to ruin the elegance of her reception by being visibly humiliated.
Then Mariana’s phone vibrated again in her wet hand.
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