WHILE I WAS VOLUNTEERING OVERSEAS, MY SISTER STOLE MY WEDDING DRESS AND MARRIED MY FIANCÉ — WHEN I CAME BACK AND LAUGHED, SHE HAD NO IDEA WHAT SHE’D MARRIED INTO

I believed I was too smart to be used.

That’s the funniest lie smart women tell themselves.

Julian, at least, looked at me like I was real.

He praised my dedication. He kissed my forehead when I talked about the clinic I’d be working in. He said words like “admire” and “respect” and made it sound like he meant them.

“We’ll marry the moment you get back,” he promised, warm breath against my hair. “Six months is nothing. I’ll be right here.”

I left with his kiss still on my lips, the taste of him like a vow.

The plane carried me out of the U.S. and over an ocean, over deserts and clouds that looked like torn cotton, until the world turned brown and blistered and endless. The clinic was dusty and loud and full of the kind of pain that doesn’t fit into neat American narratives. Heat pressed against the walls. Flies hovered. Children watched with solemn eyes far older than their faces.

I did what I came to do.

I treated infections that had been allowed to fester because the nearest pharmacy was too far and too expensive. I stitched wounds in bad light. I held hands that trembled. I wrote reports. I wrote letters. I sent Julian messages whenever the satellite connection allowed it—short bursts of love across a fragile signal.

At first, he replied.

Then his replies came slower.

Then my parents went quiet.

I blamed the connection. I blamed chaos. I blamed time zones. I blamed anything except the two possibilities I didn’t want to touch: that the man I loved wasn’t the man I thought he was, and that my sister’s hunger had finally found a new meal.