Chap­ter 4 begins with the pro­tag­o­nist return­ing to his bed­room, where the after­math of the pre­vi­ous night has been erased, leav­ing a space that is pris­tine and order­ly. The scent of fresh linen lingers in the air, a stark con­trast to the dis­ar­ray he had left behind. It’s clear that a house­keep­er has metic­u­lous­ly restored order—his suit­case is neat­ly unpacked, his bath­room, once clut­tered with damp tow­els and rem­nants of hasty groom­ing, is now spot­less. Even the cedar clos­et, where dad­dy lon­glegs had once lurked, is now cleared, mak­ing the room feel less suf­fo­cat­ing. As he moves through the space, he feels a tem­po­rary sense of relief, appre­ci­at­ing the illu­sion of con­trol, how­ev­er fleet­ing it may be. His mind, how­ev­er, is far from at ease, weighed down by the grow­ing unease about the events sur­round­ing the wed­ding.

Deter­mined to focus on the cer­e­mo­ny ahead, he method­i­cal­ly pre­pares his attire, extract­ing his hand-tai­lored, pearl-gray tuxe­do from Italy. The fab­ric is smooth beneath his fin­gers, and the crafts­man­ship is evi­dent in the per­fect stitch­ing and struc­tured fit. He unpacks a crisp white dress shirt, pair­ing it with sleek black onyx studs that gleam under the soft light. There’s a moment of sat­is­fac­tion as he ties a prop­er bow tie, refus­ing to set­tle for the pre-tied option includ­ed in his acces­so­ry kit. Yet, as he adjusts his reflec­tion in the mir­ror, he can’t shake the feel­ing that his pol­ished appear­ance masks a deep­er dis­com­fort. The tuxe­do is flaw­less, but he feels like an imposter wear­ing it, stand­ing on the edge of some­thing irre­versible.

His phone vibrates on the dress­er, break­ing his thoughts, and he glances at the screen to see Vicky’s name flash­ing. She’s con­cerned, her voice edged with wor­ry, and she doesn’t both­er with small talk, instead get­ting straight to the point—she’s heard about what hap­pened the night before. The con­ver­sa­tion takes an uneasy turn as Frank hes­i­tates before respond­ing, care­ful­ly choos­ing his words. He men­tions an inci­dent involv­ing a trou­bled girl and the dis­cov­ery of drugs in her cot­tage, though he dances around the details. There’s also the mat­ter of Dawn Tag­gart, which he delib­er­ate­ly down­plays, dis­miss­ing it as a sim­ple mis­un­der­stand­ing. Vicky, uncon­vinced, ques­tions whether he’s tru­ly alright, her tone betray­ing the fact that she doesn’t buy into his reas­sur­ances.

Frank sens­es her skep­ti­cism, but he isn’t pre­pared to unrav­el the tan­gled web of com­pli­ca­tions he’s caught in—not over the phone, not now. He deflects, chang­ing the sub­ject to the wed­ding and empha­siz­ing that the cer­e­mo­ny is about to begin. Vicky press­es him to promise he’ll call her once he’s home, and though he agrees, there’s a part of him that doubts whether he actu­al­ly will. He can tell she’s not sat­is­fied, but the con­ver­sa­tion ends with an air of unfin­ished busi­ness. As he sets the phone down, he lets out a breath, wish­ing for just a moment of peace before step­ping into the whirl­wind of the wed­ding day.

Reach­ing into his pock­et, he pulls out a fold­ed sheet of yel­low-lined paper, the words of his wed­ding toast care­ful­ly writ­ten in neat hand­writ­ing. He smooths it against his palm, read­ing through the lines that he has prac­ticed, the words that are meant to be heart­felt and gen­uine. But as he stands there, tuxe­do per­fect, speech pre­pared, an unset­tling truth set­tles in—he doesn’t believe in what he’s about to say. The praise, the sen­ti­ments, the reflec­tions on love and fam­i­ly, all feel emp­ty, forced. He won­ders if any­one will notice, if any­one will hear the false­hood laced beneath the care­ful­ly curat­ed words. The thought lingers as he places the paper back into his pock­et, a weight press­ing against his chest, heav­ier than the tuxe­do, heav­ier than the expec­ta­tions he is about to ful­fill.