Chapter 3

My phone buzzed against my thigh before the rideshare had even turned off the main avenue.

I pulled it from my pocket. Mom was calling.

I slid my thumb across the glass, lifting the phone to my ear.

"Brenna?" Her voice was tight, wound up with the specific anxiety she only used for family emergencies. "What happened at that dinner? Emmett’s mother just called me from the restaurant parking lot. She said you walked out."

"Did she tell you why?" I asked, looking out at the darkened storefronts passing by.

"She said you and Emmett had a disagreement about Teagan’s slideshow, and you left him standing there in front of everyone." A sharp intake of breath hissed through the receiver. "My sister paid four hundred dollars for a flight from Boise, Brenna. She’s checking into the hotel right now."

"Emmett cut me out of the video, Mom. Three minutes of Margo and him. Two shots of my back."

"I know," she said immediately.

I sat up a little straighter against the worn seat. "She told you that?"

"She said Emmett made a poor choice with the edit to keep Teagan from crying," my mother said, her tone dropping into that exhausted, practical cadence I knew too well. "Was it unfair? Yes. Was it thoughtless? Absolutely. But you don't throw away a five-year relationship twelve hours before the church doors open because a man was clumsy about his ex-wife."

"It wasn't clumsy. It was deliberate."

"Brenna, listen to me," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "You are forty-one. You built a life that hardly lets you take a day off, and you finally let someone into it. You walk away tonight, and every person in that church is going to say you were too rigid to make room for a teenager."

The car pulled up to the curb outside Joelle’s small bungalow.

"I'm not competing with a teenager, Mom."

I almost asked whether she thought I should thank Emmett for wanting me at all. The driver was glancing at me in the mirror, and my mother was waiting for me to be sensible.

I bit the question back.

"Then show up tomorrow and marry him," she pleaded. "Win the long game. Don't blow up your own life over three minutes of screen time."

"I have to get out of the car," I said quietly.

"Brenna—"

I tapped the screen, ending the call, and pushed the door open into the damp night air. The receipt confirmation popped up on my screen: payment processed automatically.

Joelle was already waiting on the front porch, the yellow overhead light catching the tired lines around her eyes. She was wearing her working apron over old jeans, a mug of coffee in one hand.

She stepped aside to let me pass through the front door.

"Couch is clear," Joelle said, closing the deadbolt behind me. "Sheets are in the closet."

I walked into her small kitchen, setting my purse on the wooden table.

My screen was lighting up with notifications from the group chat Emmett had started three years ago. Just me, him, and Teagan.

Emmett: I know tonight was stressful. Brenna was overwhelmed by the rehearsal schedule. Let's just get some rest and start fresh at the church.

He was managing the room even when the room was empty.

Two seconds later, a line of gray text appeared beneath his message.

Teagan: Stop telling people that, Dad.

I stared at the screen.

Teagan: Brenna didn't walk out because she was overwhelmed. You cut her out because Mom got upset on Tuesday, and you told me it was because the projector broke. Don't use my name to fix this.

A bubble danced at the bottom: Emmett is typing...

It flickered, vanished, and didn't come back.

Then came a direct text from Teagan to my personal number:

I'm staying at Calla's tonight. Good luck tomorrow.

She wasn't begging me to stay. She wasn't asking me to save her father.

She had drawn her own line in the sand and walked away from the mess.

"So," Joelle said, leaning against the counter, her mug held between both hands. "Are you getting married tomorrow?"

"I can’t marry him while he’s still making Teagan take the blame," I said. "I need to hear him tell his mother what he did, with me in the room."

Joelle didn't gasp. She didn't offer a hug.

She took a slow sip of her coffee and looked at me steadily.

"Okay. Then you need to figure out what happens at eight in the morning," she said, her voice entirely practical. "The hair and makeup team is booked under your credit card. The deposit on the venue is non-refundable. And half your camera gear is sitting in his front closet."

The reality of it pressed down on my chest, dry and heavy.

She was right. Walking out of a banquet room was easy.

Dismantling five years of merged logistics before sunrise was where the bleeding started.

"My gear is still there," I said, looking down at my bare left hand. "And my grandmother’s pearl earrings. They're on the dresser in the guest room."

"You want me to drive you over there?" Joelle asked.

"Yes. Stay in the car, please." I picked up my keys. "I’m going to give him one chance to tell the truth in front of his mother. I need my gear and my earrings either way."

Twenty minutes later, Joelle pulled up at the end of the suburban driveway I had pulled into thousands of times.

Emmett’s heavy pickup truck was parked near the garage, alongside his brother’s rental sedan.

The living room lights were blazing through the front bay window.

I stood on the walkway, the cool wind cutting through my cardigan, looking at the house.

Through the sheer curtains, I could see them. Emmett was standing by the fireplace, still in his dress shirt, a beer bottle in his hand.

Sitting on the sofa was his mother, talking with her hands, leaning forward with an intensity that told me exactly whose character was currently on trial.

I slipped my key into the deadbolt and turned it until the brass mechanism clicked open.