Here’s a continuation of your story:
For a second, I thought I had imagined it.
But then I heard it again.
My daughter’s voice.
Clear. Familiar. Right on the other side of the wall.
My heart started pounding.
The shop owner pressed a finger to her lips, her eyes wide, urging me to stay silent.
“What’s going on?” I mouthed.
She didn’t answer.
Instead, she gently guided me toward a small fitting room at the back, pulling the curtain just enough to hide me from view.
Footsteps echoed in the front of the shop.
Then the door opened.
“I just need to see it again,” my daughter said.
Her voice sounded different—tense, almost nervous.
Another voice followed. A man.
“That’s not what we agreed,” he said quietly.
I felt a chill run through me.
Agreed?
I leaned closer to the thin wall, barely daring to breathe.
“I’m getting married tomorrow,” my daughter whispered. “I just need to be sure.”
“Sure of what?” the man replied.
There was a pause.
And then—
“That she doesn’t find out,” my daughter said.
My stomach dropped.
She was talking about me.
I pressed a hand against my chest, trying to steady myself.
The man let out a soft sigh. “You’re running out of time.”
“I know,” she said. “But once the ceremony is done… it won’t matter anymore.”
Won’t matter?
My thoughts raced.
What wouldn’t matter?
Why was the shop owner hiding me?
And what was my daughter planning that I wasn’t supposed to know?
Then I heard something that made everything go still.
A zipper.
Fabric shifting.
The rustle of the very dress I had come to pick up.
If you want, I can continue with the twist (what the daughter is hiding and why the shop owner stepped in).
