Marry Your Best Friend Instead

1 Before we moved out of the three-bedroom brownstone the five of us had shared since college, Gemma proposed a game: ruthless Swedish death cleaning. The rule was simple. If no one immediately claimed an item, it went into the trash. No debates, no sentimentality. Brett picked up a bottle of charcoal face wash from the bathroom ledge. “Anyone using this junk?” I opened my mouth. “That’s mine—” Before the words fully left my throat, Harper had already swept it off the counter and dropped it into a heavy-duty black contractor bag with a dull thud. Paige hauled a charcoal-gray cashmere scarf from the hall closet. It was a limited-run piece I’d spent three weeks hunting down through European consignment shops for her twentieth birthday. “Who left this behind?” Paige asked, shaking off the dust. “I bought that for your—” Brett was already holding the mouth of the garbage bag wide open. My birthday gift to Harper—an amber-and-clove diffuser she had sworn smelled like luxury hotel lobbies—followed. Then the leather messenger bag I’d given Brett for his first corporate internship. Both were swallowed by the black plastic without a second glance. Then I reached into the back of the bottom cabinet and pulled out a chipped, dented stainless-steel thermos. The powder coating was peeling around the rim, faded from years of dishwashers. Gemma lunged forward and snatched it straight from my fingers. “Don’t you dare throw that out,” she said, her voice dropping into an instinctive warmth. “Brett carried this through every finals week in college.” Brett leaned in, grinning, and within seconds, the four of them were huddled over that beat-up tumbler. They traded memories at a clip, laughing over cold library coffee and all-nighters from six years ago. Behind them, at the bottom of the contractor bag, lay the matching ceramic toothbrush set Gemma and I had picked out during our first weekend trip to Vermont. Beneath that was the linen sundress I’d bought her for our first anniversary. When the last closet was bare, Brett leaned against the kitchen island, looking at the tower of taped cardboard boxes with a satisfied sigh. “Hard to believe the four of us accumulated this much stuff.” Gemma slid her arm through his, leaning her shoulder against his bicep. “Five of us, actually,” she teased gently. For half a second, the breath caught in my chest. I thought she had finally remembered I was standing there. Then she pointed her index finger at the three of them, swept it to herself, and finally tapped the orange tabby curled in Brett’s arms. “You forgot Barnaby.” Six years. In Gemma’s universe, even a stray cat had an assigned seat at the table. I was the only one who didn’t exist. I looked down at my phone, opened the catering portal, and canceled our wedding—three days before we were scheduled to walk down the aisle. This time, I wanted to see how long it would take for them to realize the groom was gone. After I submitted the cancellation request, I slid the phone back into my pocket. The movers took the final wardrobe box and rattled down the stairs. Gemma stood by the threshold, her gaze flicking across the hardwood. “That’s everything, right?” “All set,” Harper called out. Paige nodded from the hallway, checking her lip gloss in her phone screen. Brett shifted the cat carrier to his other hand. “I’ve got Barnaby’s gear. We’re good.” “Great. Let’s hit the road.” Gemma pulled the door shut behind them. The lock clicked. Their laughter tumbled down the stairwell, bouncing off the exposed brick, bright and effortless. Not one of them looked back to check if I was behind them. My mind drifted to the early days, when Gemma’s hand would search for mine the second we crossed any doorway. Once, sprinting for the last uptown express train after a concert, she had already cleared the doors when the crush of the crowd pinned me on the platform. The chime was already sounding, but she threw her weight against the closing rubber edges, wedging herself back out into the humid station just to stand with me. I could’ve just caught the local, I’d told her then, breathless. She had squeezed my fingers until our knuckles ached. We leave together, we come back together. What’s the point of an adventure if you’re not in it? Footsteps echoed outside. The door swung open again. My heart did a pathetic, involuntary leap. She noticed. Gemma didn’t look up. She marched past me, dropped to her knees beside the radiator, and fished a rubber chew stick from the dust bunnies underneath. “Found it,” she muttered, blowing on it. I stood less than six feet away from her. “You came back up three flights of stairs just for that?” “Brett realized he didn’t have it the second we hit the lobby,” she said, dusting off her jeans. “Barnaby won’t touch the new ones. He only chews this brand.” She turned around, and only then did her eyes finally register my face. “Why are you still standing here?” she asked, her brow pinching into that familiar crease of irritation. “They’ve been waiting by the curb forever. Why does it take you so damn long to gather your things?” I looked at the cheap strip of rubber in her hand and let out a quiet, dry laugh. When Harper’s mother had emergency gallbladder surgery two years ago, I was the one who sat in the waiting room for three consecutive nights, trading off updates with the nurses so Harper wouldn’t have to forfeit the bar exam she’d spent twenty-four months preparing for. When Paige was laid off from her design firm and spent six months spiraling, I spent my weekends revamping her portfolio, pulling strings with college alumni, and quietly paying her share of the utility bills so she wouldn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of asking. When Gemma started her boutique PR consultancy, I clocked out of my day job and spent my evenings driving her across the tri-state area in my beat-up Civic to pitch local accounts. She would sit in the passenger seat with her heels kicked off, resting her cold feet on my lap, her hand resting against my neck. Nate, she’d whispered against my collarbone, the second this company is in the black, I’m buying you that vintage Alfa Romeo you’ve always wanted. And Brett? Brett was my friend first. He had transferred in sophomore year on a partial grant, wearing thrift-store flannels that smelled like laundry mats, completely out of his depth among the prep-school cliques. I found him eating a cold turkey sandwich alone in the dining hall basement, walked over with my tray, and introduced him to Gemma and the girls. Sit with us, I told him back then. You’re one of us now. Because I was terrified of him feeling like an outsider, I invited him to every dinner, saved him a seat at every movie, pulled him into every inside joke until the seams dissolved. And slowly, they grew closer. Closer than I had ever anticipated. Until eventually, the man who brought him into the circle became the only stranger in the room. Brett’s cat was missing a four-dollar chew toy, and four grown adults realized it before they reached the sidewalk. Yet four people walked out of that apartment, leaving me behind, and not a single one felt the silence. Seeing that I hadn’t moved, Gemma was already turning back toward the stairs. “Come on, Nate. We have the tasting at the venue at two. Don’t make the whole party wait on you again.” I followed her down the stairs. Don’t worry, I thought, watching the bounce of her ponytail. Soon enough, you won’t have to wait on me ever again. At the hotel’s banquet hall, the event coordinator handed me the leather-bound catering menu. Before my fingers could even settle on the binding, Gemma reached across the linen table and plucked it from my hands. “Give it to Brett,” she instructed the coordinator, without looking at me. “He has the most sensitive palate out of all of us. If it passes his test, the guests will love it.” Harper and Paige immediately flanked Brett’s chair, leaning over his shoulders like royal advisors. “Cross off anything with cilantro,” Harper said, tapping the page. “Brett can’t stand it.” “And swap out the hamachi crudo,” Paige added. “He hates anything overly fishy.” Brett turned the page, his nose wrinkling slightly. “Wait, honey-bourbon glazed sea bass? Why is there a sweet glaze on the main fish course?” Gemma took a pen from the coordinator’s tray and drew a sharp, black line through the entry. “Gone. We’ll do the herb-crusted halibut instead.” I stared at the black ink bleeding into the cardstock. The winter after graduation, Gemma had been rejected from eleven consecutive job applications. I carried our rent, survived on instant ramen, and cashed out my holiday travel fund so she wouldn’t have to face her parents as a failure over Christmas. When she finally landed her first junior account role, she took her entire first paycheck and brought me to a tiny French-American bistro in the West Village. She ordered the pan-seared sea bass with honey-citrus glaze, watched me take the first bite, and looked at me with tears in her eyes. When we get married, Nate, this exact dish is going on the menu. Because it’s your favorite, and because you kept us alive. Next came the soup. Then the dessert. Then the wine pairings. Out of the twelve courses I had spent weeks curating, seven were struck down in less than twenty minutes. Not once did anyone turn to ask what I thought. The event coordinator looked visibly uncomfortable, shifting her weight from heel to toe. She cleared her throat softly. “Ms. Bennett, normally for the final tasting, we like to ensure the bride and the groom are completely aligned on—” “It’s the same thing,” Gemma said dismissively, waving her pen. “Their tastes are basically identical anyway.” A quiet, bitter smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. Six years. She couldn’t identify the face wash I used every single morning of my life, but she knew Brett got migraines from cilantro, gagged on raw fish, and preferred his pastries half-sweet. Finally, the coordinator laid out the seating chart for the head table. Brett scanned the diagram, suddenly looking hesitant. “Wait… sitting directly next to your parents, Gemma? Won’t that be kind of stiff? Your dad always looks like he’s interrogating me.” Gemma didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the blueprint. “Then you sit next to me.” With two casual strokes of her pen, she scratched my name off the chair beside hers and nudged it one spot to the right, sliding Brett into the seat directly beside the bride. I looked at the ink. The paper seemed to vibrate under the glare of the chandeliers. “Gemma,” I said. My voice was quiet, but it sliced clean through their chatter. “Whose wedding is this?” The table went completely dead. The easy, boyish smirk on Brett’s face instantly froze. Harper was the first to bristle, her arms crossing over her chest. “Nate, seriously? We’ve all been best friends since freshman year. What’s the big deal about who sits where at the head table?” Paige chimed in, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. “You are being ridiculously territorial. It’s literally just a chair.” Gemma’s expression hardened into cold irritation. “It’s our wedding, Nate. It’s not your personal solo performance. Does every single detail have to cater to your ego?” I looked at her, searching the lines of her face for any trace of the girl who once jumped out of a subway car for me. There was nothing. An overwhelming wave of exhaustion washed over me, drowning out any desire to fight. At my own wedding, wanting the food I loved was considered selfish. Wanting to sit next to my bride was an unreasonable demand. Yet if Brett didn’t like an entrée, three women tore up the menu. If Brett felt awkward in a seat, the groom could simply be shoved down the line. I picked up the seating chart and pushed it back toward the center of the table. “You’re right,” I said calmly. “Let’s just do whatever Brett likes.” Gemma’s features relaxed, vindicated. “See? Was that so hard? We’re all family here. There’s no reason to make a scene over nothing.” The three of them instantly swarmed back around Brett, dipping four silver spoons into the dessert sampler. Silver clicked against porcelain. Laughter sparked again. Nobody looked at me. As I stepped into the carpeted corridor to get some air, the event coordinator hurried after me, her heels clicking softly against the marble. “Mr. Hayes,” she whispered, glancing nervously back toward the private tasting room. “I received the formal cancellation request you submitted online this morning. Corporate has already processed the authorization. I just… I need to confirm. Are you completely certain you want to forfeit the date?” Through the floor-to-ceiling glass wall, I watched Brett lean over Gemma’s plate, carefully picking the candied walnuts off her lemon tart with his fingers. Harper made a joke, and Paige threw her head back in laughter. Gemma smiled—that dazzling, crinkled-eye smile she used to give only to me. They looked complete. A self-contained ecosystem of four that didn't have room for a fifth wheel. I turned my back on the glass. “I’m certain,” I said. After the tasting, Gemma insisted on swinging by our new townhouse—the place we had purchased to start our married life. When we reached the front stoop, I pulled out my phone, scrolling for the temporary door code Gemma had texted me three days ago. Before I could find it, Brett stepped forward and casually pressed his thumb against the biometric scanner. The deadbolt retracted with a clean beep-clack. The door swung inward. I froze on the welcome mat. The keypad lit up beneath his hand, displaying the backup PIN he had just used to bypass the sensor: 0-4-1-8. Brett’s birthday. Gemma kicked off her loafers in the foyer, tossing her keys into the ceramic bowl. “Brett was here almost every day last week supervising the painters,” she said offhandedly. “It was easier to set it to his birthday so he wouldn't have to keep buzzing me.” I stared at the lock. “And my fingerprint?” She didn’t even look back as she walked toward the kitchen. “Forgot to program it. We’ll get around to it later this week.” Harper slipped into a pair of plush slippers she had clearly left in the hall closet. Paige walked straight to the Sub-Zero fridge, pulling out a seltzer like she owned the place. Brett walked straight in, carrying Barnaby toward the sunlit back patio. A home intended for two people. Four people had total, unfettered access. And the man whose name was on the mortgage had to wait on the porch for someone else to let him in. When I stepped into the living room, my stomach dropped. The mid-century walnut pieces I had spent two weeks measuring and sourcing—warm wood, clean lines, a home designed to feel grounded—were gone. In their place sat an ultra-modern, industrial modular sofa in cold gray, flanked by matte-black steel accents. Even the southern-facing balcony I had specifically set aside for an herb garden now featured a massive woven wicker hanging pod chair. “I thought we agreed on the Scandinavian minimalist look,” I said, looking around the unrecognizable room. Before Gemma could answer, Harper laughed from the kitchen counter. “Oh, please, Nate. That walnut stuff looked like an estate sale from 1974. Brett threw out a few ideas over drinks last Tuesday, and this is ten times sleeker.” Brett sank into the sectional, kicking his boots up onto the marble coffee table. “Honestly, Nate, I just threw out some rough Pinterest boards. I had no idea Gemma was actually going to order the whole catalog.” A few passing comments from Brett had erased two weeks of blueprints and late-night measurements I had drawn up for our future. I didn’t argue. Instead, I walked down the hall and pushed open the door to the room that was supposed to be my study. Inside sat a dual-monitor gaming rig, an expansive floating wardrobe, and a queen-sized bed dressed in navy percale sheets. “Gemma set this up for me,” Brett called out from the living room, flashing me an easy grin as he walked past to grab a glass of water. “Said that once you guys are hitched, I’ll always have a crash pad whenever I’m in the city.” I stood frozen in the doorway, staring at the desk. I remembered the only non-negotiable request I had made when we signed the contract on this house. “Where is my study, Gemma?” Gemma walked over, her arms crossed, her patience visibly thinning. “You work in corporate finance, Nate. You barely write anymore. What do you need a dedicated study for?” “I told you,” I said, my voice dangerously level. “I wanted a quiet desk by the window. I wanted to finish my essays.” “Nate.” She sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Brett’s apartment lease is up in three months, and he crashes here on weekends anyway. He needs a proper place to sleep.” I gestured to the wardrobe, already half-filled with flannels and denim jackets. “This is supposed to be our marital home.” Harper walked up behind her, the smile fading from her face. “It’s just a marriage, Nate. Are you seriously telling us that the second you put a ring on her finger, the rest of us aren't allowed to exist in your lives?” Paige crossed her arms, chiming in with a scoff. “We’ve lived together as a pack for six years. Now you’re drawing property lines? It’s pathetic.” Brett put his glass down, his expression shifting into that practiced, sorrowful martyr routine he’d perfected in college. “Look, Nate, if you have an issue with me being here, just say it straight,” he said, his voice dropping into quiet remorse. “There’s no need to take it out on Gemma.” He walked over to the closet, began pulling down hangers, and piled the shirts over his forearm with exaggerated care. “It’s fine. I’ll pack my things. I’m just an outsider after all. I shouldn't be intruding on a married couple’s sanctuary. I just feel bad… Gemma went through all that trouble curating this room for me.” The reaction from the women was instantaneous. Harper lunged forward, slamming her palm against the wardrobe door to stop him. “Brett, put those down! Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Paige snatched the stack of flannels straight out of his arms, shoving them back onto the bed. “This room was prepped specifically for you! Don't you dare let him bully you out!” Gemma turned on me, her eyes flashing with pure fury. “Are you happy now, Nate?” A suffocating pressure clamped down on my chest, hot and sharp. “Did I tell him to leave? Did a single word come out of my mouth telling him to pack?” “You didn’t have to say it!” Gemma snapped. “Everyone in this room heard exactly what you meant!” She turned her back on me and began re-hanging Brett’s clothes. One hanger at a time. Smoothing the shoulders, aligning the collars with a delicate, rhythmic tenderness she had never once shown while packing my things that morning. “And let’s get one thing straight,” she said, shutting the wardrobe door with a firm, decisive click. She turned to face me, her jaw set. “I paid the down payment on this property. It’s my name on the primary deed. I decide who gets a bedroom, and I decide who stays.” The hallway fell dead silent. I looked past her, into the house. Harper had a custom walk-in dressing nook. Paige had a soundproofed media lounge in the basement. Brett had a private guest suite, a full wardrobe, a registered fingerprint on the front lock, and his cat had a custom plush tower in the sunroom. And I? I had no desk. No registered thumbprint. Not a single square inch of this structure bore the mark of my existence. From the old rental to the new house, they had packed everything without missing a beat. They simply hadn't packed me. I looked at Gemma for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Okay.” Gemma blinked, caught off guard by my sudden surrender. Then she scoffed, shaking her head. “Was that so hard? If you’d just been reasonable from the start, we wouldn’t have had to ruin the entire afternoon.” Harper smiled, clapping her hands together. “That’s more like it! Getting married doesn’t mean the band breaks up. It’s still the five of us, always.” Brett bumped his shoulder against mine, offering a tentative, apologetic smile. “You’re sure you’re cool with this, Nate? No hard feelings?” I stepped back, neatly dodging his touch. “None at all.” Why would I care? The wedding in three days was already dead. I would never sleep a single night under this roof. How they carved up the carcass of this house was entirely up to them. The next afternoon, Gemma finally remembered that we had our mandatory rehearsal at the venue. Her voice over the phone was crisp, laced with her usual breezy condescension. “Where are you? We’ve been here for twenty minutes. Everyone’s waiting on you.” I looked at my laptop screen. The email from the banquet director sat open: Formal Cancellation Acknowledged — Contract Void. “I’m on my way,” I said quietly. Might as well see the farce through to the curtain call. When I stepped into the grand ballroom, the four of them were already up on the elevated stage. Brett stood squarely beneath the towering floral arch, grinning while Harper adjusted the silk cuffs of his suit jacket. Paige was crouched below the steps, angling her phone to catch the light on his profile. Gemma caught sight of me and gave a quick flick of her chin. “Finally. Get up here. We need to run your processional walk.” The sound engineer cued the strings. I walked down the long, carpeted center aisle alone. Halfway down the runner, I stopped. “Gemma, the spotlight is way too dim. It’s casting heavy shadows across the altar.” No one answered. Harper was showing Brett the photos on her phone. “Look at this one—your jawline looks insane in this lighting.” Paige giggled. “Brett’s literally built for a camera.” I raised my voice, pointing toward the rafters. “And the floral arch needs to shift about two feet to the left. The way it’s angled right now, it completely blocks the view from the primary family tables.” Gemma was looking down at the audio coordinator’s tablet, entirely tuned out. I closed my mouth, lowered my arm, and finished the walk in silence. A minute later, Brett glanced up from the screen, casually tapping his chin. “Hey, Gemma… does it feel kind of dark up here to you?” Gemma’s head snapped up immediately. “You think so?” She turned to the stage manager without missing a beat. “Bump the house key lights up two stops. Make it brighter.” Brett took two steps back, squinting at the arch. “And is this frame kind of obstructing the view for table one?” “Move it two feet to the left,” Gemma ordered the stagehands instantly. Within seconds, two crew members rushed forward, hauling the heavy metal arch over until it settled precisely on the tape mark I had pointed to sixty seconds earlier. I stood at the foot of the stairs, watching the iron legs scrape across the floor. A laugh caught in the back of my throat. It wasn't that they couldn't hear. My voice simply operated on a frequency that didn't register in their world. As they reset the cues, Gemma gestured broadly toward the thousands of white roses cascading down the newly positioned pillars. “See? I even had the florist upgrade the florals for you,” she said, looking at me with an air of self-congratulation. “All white roses. What do you think?” I glanced at the stark white petals. “I don’t like white roses.” Her expression faltered. “What are you talking about? You’ve always loved white roses.” Harper immediately backed her up. “Yeah, Nate, stop being contrarian. You literally said in college that you wanted your wedding overflowing with white roses.” Paige nodded vigorously. “I distinctly remember that too.” I kept my mouth shut. Brett let out a soft, embarrassed chuckle. “You guys have it backwards,” Brett said, scratching the back of his neck. “I’m the one who loves white roses. Senior year, after we watched that movie, I said that if I ever made it down an aisle, it had to be a sea of white roses. Nate’s favorite flowers have always been lisianthus.” Gemma froze for a fraction of a second. Then she brushed it off with an airy wave of her hand. “Roses, lisianthus—they’re flowers. They look basically identical from the guest pews anyway.” Brett reached out, resting a companionable hand on Gemma’s shoulder, his tone dripping with self-deprecating charm. “Careful, Gemma. Your aesthetic is starting to mirror mine a little too closely. Don’t go neglecting the groom on my account.” I thought, foolishly, that this might be the moment shame finally pierced their armor. Instead, Gemma’s brow furrowed, her defensiveness flaring instantly. “Why are you apologizing, Brett? It’s not your fault.” Harper chimed in, rolling her eyes at me. “Exactly. Nate says ‘whatever you want’ to literally everything. How is anyone supposed to read his mind?” Paige scoffed. “Don't take the blame for him, Brett. Nate has a mouth. If he actually cared, he would have spoken up.” I looked at the three of them. “I did speak up,” I said. Silence. “I said it twice,” I repeated, looking directly into Gemma’s eyes. “Ten minutes ago.” Gemma threw her hands up, her voice sharp with exasperation. “Enough, Nate! Jesus Christ, is this really the time for a petty meltdown? Brett took three hours out of his workday to help us block our cues, and you’re humiliating him in front of the entire hotel staff?” The air left my lungs. If I stayed quiet, I was passive-aggressive. If I spoke up and they ignored me, it was still my fault for not making myself heard. Before I could say another word, an ear-splitting groan of shearing metal ripped through the ceiling above us. A rigger shouted from the catwalk: “LOOK OUT! MOVE!” A heavy, ten-foot steel lighting truss, laden with iron brackets and floral wire, broke from its safety cable and plummeted straight toward the stage. I didn't even have time to brace myself. In that split second of terror, Gemma didn't look left. She didn't look for me. She threw her entire body forward, wrapping her arms around Brett’s neck and yanking him backward off the platform. Harper grabbed his left arm, dragging him into the safety of the wings. Paige threw herself in front of his chest like a human shield. Three women. Not one of them looked toward the center of the stage, where I was standing directly beneath the falling iron. The jagged corner of the steel frame grazed my left shoulder with bruising force. The impact threw me violently off balance, sending me crashing off the two-foot stage riser. I hit the floor hard, my right palm slamming directly into the shattered remnants of a decorative glass vase. The pain was instantaneous—white-hot and blinding. Blood welled up instantly, pooling thick and dark between my fingers. “Brett!” “Where did it hit you? Are you okay?” “Let me see your hands! Breathe, Brett, look at me!” The voices sounded like they were underwater. My shoulder throbbed with a dull, nauseating ache, and my vision swam. The three of them had their backs completely turned to me. Gemma was on her knees on the parquet floor, cradling Brett’s right wrist, inspecting a faint, superficial red scrape against his skin as if it were a fatal hemorrhage. “Gemma,” I choked out. She didn't move. “Gemma.” Nothing. It was Brett who finally looked past Harper’s shoulder and saw the puddle of red spreading across the white runner. “Holy shit—Nate’s bleeding!” Gemma finally turned her head. Her eyes dropped to my shredded palm. Her expression barely shifted, lingering on the open wound for perhaps two seconds. “That looks pretty deep,” she said flatly. She flagged down a horrified banquet manager. “Could you grab a first-aid kit or take him over to urgent care down the block?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned right back to Brett, her thumbs brushing against his knuckles. “Does your wrist feel sprained? Can you rotate it?” Brett shook his wrist out, waving his hand with theatrical bravery. “I’m fine, really. Nate’s the one who took the hit. God, if you three hadn't tackled me, that metal would have crushed my skull…” Gemma cut him off fiercely. “Don't even say that. As long as you’re safe, that’s all that matters.” Harper patted his back reassuringly. “Just a freak accident.” Paige smiled warmly down at him. “Stop worrying about Nate. The venue staff will patch him up. Let’s make sure you aren't in shock.” I looked down at the blood dripping through my fingers, staining the cuffs of my dress shirt. A sound tore out of my chest—halfway between a sob and a laugh. I was the one bleeding onto the floor. Yet Brett was the one receiving the vigil. The banquet manager drove me to the emergency room three blocks away. It took seven stitches to close the laceration across my palm, and a tetanus booster in my bruised shoulder. The entire procedure took two hours. When I walked back into the hotel ballroom at five in the afternoon, the rehearsal was already back in full swing. Brett stood squarely on the groom’s marker beneath the newly secured floral arch. Gemma held his hand, her fingers interlaced with his, patiently coaching him through the pacing of the vows. Down below, Harper and Paige were whistling and cheering, snapping candid videos. Not a single person turned their head when the double doors swung open. Not a single person noticed the thick, white medical dressing wrapped around my hand, or the dark sling supporting my arm. I stood in the darkness at the back of the house, watching them for thirty seconds. Then I turned around, walked out into the crisp evening air, and caught a cab to my old apartment. At eleven o'clock that night, my phone buzzed on the nightstand. It was the first time Gemma had initiated a call all day. “You home?” she asked, her voice slightly muffled, the ambient hum of a restaurant patio in the background. “Yeah.” “Good. You need to call Brett.” I closed my eyes in the dark. “Why?” “He feels terrible about what happened with the truss. He actually wanted to come find you at the hospital, but I told him you were probably sleeping it off. Just call him, tell him you’re fine, and let him off the hook so he doesn't stay up feeling guilty.” A slow, hollow smile spread across my face. “Sure,” I said softly. “I’ll make sure he knows.” Gemma seemed surprised by how quickly I folded. Her tone softened, taking on that slightly patronizing edge she used when an unruly child finally behaved. “That’s my guy. See you tomorrow.” She hung up. I didn't call Brett. Instead, I opened my airline app and booked a one-way ticket on the 6:15 AM flight to my hometown. The second the payment cleared and the mobile boarding pass dropped into my wallet, the phone chimed with two incoming texts from Gemma. By the way, how’s the hand? A five-second pause, then the follow-up: Get some sleep. Don’t be late tomorrow. It’s our big day. I placed the phone face down on the scarred wood of the nightstand and didn't reply. She had finally remembered the groom. Too bad. Tomorrow, there would be no wedding. And there would be no groom.