Belle's POV
I was successfully the greatest joke of all time.
The walls felt like they were closing in on me, suffocating me with the weight of my impending doom. But what could I say? What could I do? So I just nodded, even though she couldn't see me, and muttered a lifeless, "Okay."
She hung up without another word, and I placed the phone back on the table, feeling even more drained than before. My mother looked at me, her eyes softening slightly as she tried to coax me into some semblance of cheerfulness.
"Belle, you made a good decision," she said gently. "This marriage will secure your future, and it's what's best for everyone. You should be happy."
Happy? The word felt foreign, like a distant memory of something I used to know. But now, happiness was just a concept that existed for other people. Not for me. Never for me.