Chương 7
The angry version of me would have wanted everyone to see exactly what had been done.
The person sitting there was somewhere between those two.
Rachel entered a few minutes later with Alexander beside her.
She looked nervous.
Not the polished nervousness she had shown during interviews.
Real nervousness.
Her hands were slightly unsteady.
She looked at the crowd.
Then she looked at me.
I did not nod.
I did not smile.
I simply stayed there.
Because support did not always mean making someone comfortable.
Sometimes it meant allowing them to face what they had done.
Rachel stepped toward the microphone.
"My name is Rachel Carter."
The room remained still.
"Three days ago, I married Prince Alexander."
She paused.
"Many people have described our wedding as a perfect moment."
A few reporters looked down at their notes.
Rachel continued.
"It was beautiful."
Her voice became quieter.
"But it was not perfect."
The first questions began immediately after her opening statement.
Some were respectful.
Some were not.
A reporter near the front raised his hand.
"Rachel, are you saying you were manipulated by your consultant?"
Rachel looked at the microphone.
Then back at the reporter.
"I am saying I made my own choices."
That answer surprised me.
She could have blamed Marianne.
She could have used the easier path.
Instead, she continued.
"Marianne Vale influenced decisions during the planning process, and some of those decisions were wrong."
The room became more active.
Cameras clicked.
People whispered.
"But I was the person who approved those decisions."
Rachel swallowed.
"I was the person who allowed fear to become more important than family."
I looked away for a moment.
Not because I was uncomfortable.
Because hearing someone admit something they had spent years avoiding was strangely painful.
The reporter asked another question.
"Commander Carter, do you feel your sister used your military service as a public relations opportunity?"
The microphone moved toward me.
I had expected that question.
I still did not like it.
I leaned forward.
"My sister hurt me."
The room went quiet.
"But that does not mean every action after that was fake."
I looked toward Rachel.
"People are complicated."
A few reporters seemed disappointed.
They wanted a villain.
A clean story.
A person to blame.
Real life rarely offered that.
"Was what happened acceptable?" another reporter asked.
"No."
"Do you forgive her?"
That question irritated me.
Not because it was wrong.
Because people loved forgiveness when they were not the ones who had been hurt.
I took a second before answering.
"I am working toward understanding what happened."
I looked at Rachel.
"Forgiveness is not something you perform for an audience."
Nobody wrote for a few seconds.
Then the room exploded with questions.
The press conference lasted almost an hour.
By the end, the public story had changed.
Not completely.
Some people criticized Rachel.
Some people criticized me.
Some people said the whole thing was a publicity stunt.
That was the strange thing about public attention.
Everyone believed they understood your life because they had seen ten minutes of it.
Afterward, I walked outside alone.
The palace gardens were quieter than they had been before.
A gardener trimmed flowers near the walkway.
Two tourists argued quietly over a map.
A child chased a bird that immediately flew away.
Normal life continued.
I sat on a bench and checked my phone.
There were hundreds of messages.
I ignored most of them.
One message caught my attention.
It was from an old Navy friend named Jessica.
You okay?
I stared at the words.
Not proud of you.
Not saw the news.
Not congratulations.
Just that.
You okay?
I called her.
She answered immediately.
"About time."
I laughed.
"I was busy."
"You are always busy."
"True."
There was a pause.
Then she said, "I saw everything."
I looked at the garden.
"That bad?"
"No."
Her answer was quick.
"Actually, it was probably the most Emily thing I have ever seen."
I smiled.
"What does that mean?"
"You showed up, refused to make it about yourself, and somehow still ended up being the person everyone talked about."
"That sounds annoying."
"It is."
I laughed quietly.
For the first time in several days, it felt normal.
Jessica and I talked about ordinary things.
Work.
People we knew.
A restaurant near the base that had apparently gotten worse.
A supervisor who still printed emails instead of reading them digitally.
Small things.
Unimportant things.
The kind of things I had missed while my life became a headline.
When the call ended, I stayed on the bench a little longer.
Later that afternoon, Alexander found me there.
He sat down without asking.
"I hope this is not another royal intervention."
He smiled.
"No."
"Good."
"I think we have had enough interventions."
I looked at him.
"How is Rachel?"
He took a moment.
"Tired."
"That sounds accurate."
"Also relieved."
I nodded.
Alexander looked toward the palace.
"She has spent years trying to become someone everyone would accept."
"And now?"
"Now she is learning that acceptance is not the same as approval."
That was a surprisingly wise answer.
"She still has work to do."
"Yes."
"So do I."
He looked at me.
"I know."
That surprised me.
"Most people would tell me I was completely right."
"Are you looking for that?"
"No."
He smiled slightly.
"Good."
I looked at him.
"Why did you marry her?"
The question came out more directly than I intended.
Alexander did not seem offended.
"Because before all of this, before the attention and the expectations, she was kind."
I waited.
"Not perfect."
He smiled.
"Definitely not perfect."
That almost made me laugh.
"But kind."
He looked down.
"The person I love is not the person who made the mistake."
I considered that.
It sounded simple.
But it was not.
Love rarely survived because people were flawless.
It survived because people were willing to confront the parts of themselves they did not want to see.
May you like
That evening, Rachel knocked on my hotel room door.
She was carrying two cups of tea.
