The priest’s voice blurred.
Annette’s heartbeat filled her ears instead.
Loud.
Unsteady.
Demanding.
She looked down at her hands.
At the dress.
At the life she was stepping into.
“Annette?”
Her name brought her back.
She lifted her head slowly.
Met Isaac’s eyes.
For a second, everything else disappeared.
The crowd.
The whispers.
The pressure.
There was something in his expression.
Not warmth.
Not cruelty.
Something quieter.
Almost like restraint.
And without fully understanding why—
She said, “Yes.”
The word echoed longer than it should have.
Or maybe it just felt that way.
By the time they stepped outside, everything had changed.
People smiled.
Clapped.
Some even cheered.
Because to them, this was a success story.
A poor girl saved.
A family rescued.
A future secured.
But Annette felt none of that.
The drive to Kampala was long.
Too long.
She sat in the back seat beside Isaac, her hands folded in her lap, her mind racing through questions she didn’t know how to ask.
Outside, the landscape slowly changed.
The open, familiar stretches of her village gave way to busier roads, louder sounds, unfamiliar buildings.
Everything felt like it was moving forward too fast.
And she was the only one not ready.
Isaac hadn’t said much.
Only a few words here and there, mostly to the driver.
Never to her.
Until—
“Are you afraid?”
The question caught her off guard.
She turned slightly, unsure how to answer.
Because the truth was complicated.
“Yes,” she said finally.
He nodded once.
Like he expected that.
“That’s fair,” he replied.
Silence settled again.
But it felt different this time.
Less heavy.
She hesitated, then asked the question that had been sitting in her chest since the beginning.
“Why did you choose me?”
Isaac didn’t answer right away.
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