If he went there, there’d be no going back. He’d have to be Corteś, burning the boats before plunging into the jungle. Then he remembered Derek shrugging. “It’s my body. My life.”

And he had his answer.

18

When Eden was twenty, she’d lived in Belgium, traveling the countryside. She mostly stayed in a share house with eighteen other people, and it was so cramped and vile-smelling that she slept there as little as possible. One night she’d been walking home from a gig when she passed a wedding dress shop. She paused, staring at the dresses hanging in the window like ghosts. She imagined being married, having a husband and a baby. A big house not far from her parents. Hunger ripped through her, and she pressed her hands to the glass. If she was married everything would be better. Her parents would be happy. Sienna would be her bridesmaid. Everyone would want to talk to her. They’d love her.

Eden knew it wasn’t true, but the pinch was she wanted it to be true.

She’d fallen to the footpath and cried until a woman opened a window and told her to fuck off in Dutch. Eden had refused to go home, walked the pitch-black streets until dawn, drinking cheap coffee and throwing stones into the river. When the thrift stores opened, she’d raced around until she found what she was looking for—a cheap, puffy-sleeved wedding dress. In the bedroom she shared with five girls, she tore the dress open at the chest, threw red and silver nail polish all over it, and paired it with green Converse All-Stars and a gorilla mask.

That night, she had a gig at a bar whose name she couldn’t remember, playing a mix of synthpop, trance, and her own songs. Everyone loved her outfit. Damien Grigg, who ran an indie festival in Brussels, offered her a slot. Eden knew she’d found her niche. She could be the fucked-up bride. The bastard princess who would never wear the crown. But the satisfaction she found in desecrating her fantasy felt even better than the gigs.

But as Eden sat in her bedroom staring at her rack of cheap, ruined wedding dresses, she found herself crying yet again. Tearing open that first gown, she’d wanted to corrupt her dream. Instead, she’d built a temple to it. She ruined wedding dresses every weekend only for the glowing fantasy to be reborn.

I could be married.

I could make it work with mum and dad.

Everything could change. I could be transformed, like a bride on her wedding day, and it would all stop hurting.