Before I say I do - episode 3 - by Matilda🪷🫧

Morning light spills through the tall windows, cooler now than the night before. The wedding dress still hangs in the doorway, untouched. The champagne glasses are gone, replaced by a single mug of coffee, half-finished, cold. Amara sits at the dining table, still in yesterday’s clothes, staring at the flowers meant for tomorrow. Her phone is face-down beside her. The bedroom door opens. Daniel steps out, exhausted, clearly hasn’t slept. DANIEL: “You’re still here.” AMARA: “It’s still my apartment too.” He sits across from her, the same distance as the night before, like nothing and everything has changed. DANIEL: “Amara, I need you to hear me out.” AMARA: “I heard plenty last night.” DANIEL: “Not everything.” She looks up at him, arms crossed, waiting. DANIEL: “Sarah and I — it ended four years ago. Badly. I called her because I panicked. Not because I wanted her. Because I was scared, and she was the person I used to run to when I was scared.” AMARA: “And now?” DANIEL: “Now I know it was the wrong person to run to.” A silence. Amara’s jaw tightens not quite convinced, not quite unmoved either. AMARA: “Do you love her?” DANIEL: “No.” AMARA: “Did you ever consider not marrying me because of her?” He hesitates. Just a beat too long. DANIEL: “I considered whether I was ready. Not whether it was you.” Amara stands, walks toward the window, her back to him now mirroring his position from the night before. AMARA: “You know what the worst part is? It’s not even Sarah.” DANIEL: “Then what is it?” AMARA: “It’s that you didn’t come to me. Whatever you were feeling, the fear, the doubt you took it to someone else’s door instead of mine.” Daniel has no answer for that. It lands harder than anything Sarah said. Before he can respond, Amara’s phone buzzes violently on the table. She glances at it, exhales sharply. AMARA: “It’s my mother. She’s on her way. With the aso-ebi.” DANIEL: “Today?” AMARA: “The wedding is tomorrow, Daniel. People are already flying in.” He runs a hand over his face, the weight of it all pressing down. DANIEL: “So what do we do?” Amara turns to face him, and for the first time, there’s something unreadable in her expression not quite forgiveness, not quite finality. AMARA: “We smile. We get through today. And tonight, you and I are going to have the conversation we should have had a long time ago.” DANIEL: “And the wedding?” She picks up her phone, already typing a reply to her mother, her voice flat and controlled. AMARA: “Ask me again tonight.” She walks toward the bedroom, toward the dress and pauses at the door without looking back. AMARA: “Oh — and Daniel? Block her number. Today. In front of me.” She disappears into the room. Daniel sits alone at the table, staring at his phone like it’s a loaded weapon. A car horn sounds from the street below. Through the window, a car pulls up — Amara’s mother, stepping out with garment bags draped over her arm, beaming, waving up at the apartment, utterly unaware. Daniel watches her, then glances toward the closed bedroom door. DANIEL: (muttering to himself) “Twenty-four hours.”

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