I didn't go to the art exhibition. I lay down in my room and slept peacefully for once.
After dinner, Stella came to find me again, bursting with gossip about what she'd seen that day.
"Teresa, honestly? Good thing you didn't go."
"Why?"
"If you'd gone, your heart would've shattered on the spot." Stella's eyes were wide. "Nathaniel confessed his feelings for Vivian Bennett in front of everyone!"
Vivian Bennett.
I turned the name over in my mind, again and again.
In my previous life, Nathaniel never had the nerve to do something like that.
Vivian's father was a man of real standing in the city. As his only daughter, she'd been sent to our county for labor.
Labor, they called it, but her hands didn't have a single callus on them.
Every day she sat in an office sketching and writing, just waiting for someone to bring her back to the city.
That air of refinement around her pulled at Nathaniel constantly, like something he couldn't stop reaching toward.
It was because of Vivian that a place like our little county even had something as grand as an art exhibition.
Everyone knew. The whole thing existed to keep her entertained.
A girl like that wasn't someone just anyone could reach.