Chapter 4

By morning, my palm had six stitches.

The pain was not what kept me awake.

My mother’s portrait lay wrapped beside my bed, the tear through her face hidden beneath a clean sheet.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Sloane stepping away from my blood to protect the wedding dress.

Then Tessa showed me her phone.

Sloane had posted an edited video from the wedding.

It showed me entering the groom’s suite, removing my ring and leaving the hotel.

It did not show my mother’s veil tied around her thigh.

It did not show Daniel continuing after his blindfold slipped.

It did not show her heel tearing the lace.

Her caption read:

When the bride abandons your best friend at the altar, so you save the day. Please don’t attack Elena. She has never recovered from losing her mother.

The comments arrived immediately.

It was just a veil.

Daniel wasted eight years on her.

Then someone I had invited to the wedding commented.

Daniel always said she was controlling.

That one hurt.

I had spent eight years protecting Daniel from other people’s judgment. I hid our arguments, defended his absences and pretended his friendship with Sloane did not make me feel like a guest in my own relationship.

He had spent those same years teaching people to doubt me.

Tessa reached for my phone.

“Don’t read any more.”

“I’m not going to answer them.”

Sloane wanted me angry and desperate. She wanted another reaction she could record, edit and use against me.

I would not give her one.

That afternoon, the wedding coordinator returned a box of belongings left at the hotel.

Daniel’s tablet was inside.

“The photographer used it for the reception slideshow,” she explained.

After she left, I placed the tablet on the table.

The passcode was my birthday.

It opened on the first attempt.

Daniel’s cloud account was still connected, and the video-editing app used for the reception slideshow was still signed into Sloane’s account.

A red notification marked its deleted-drafts folder.

I opened it.

One thumbnail stopped me.

Sloane’s dog sat on our bedroom floor wearing a silver birthday hat. Balloons floated behind it.

Daniel was lying on our bed, his shirt open.

Sloane’s head rested on his bare chest.

The date beneath the video was the night of my mother’s funeral.

That night, Daniel had told me Sloane’s dog was dying. He said she had no one else to help her.

A few minutes before midnight, he called me from the “emergency clinic” and told me he wished he could hold me.

But he had been in our bedroom with her.

Tessa stared at the screen.

“Elena, what are you going to do?”

I saved the video to my phone.

Then I sent it to Daniel.

Beneath it, I typed one sentence.

I know where you were when we buried my mother.

His reply arrived seconds later.

How much did you see?

I pressed play.

On the screen, Sloane climbed onto my side of the bed and rested her head against Daniel’s chest.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he murmured.

“Do what?” she asked.

“Every room feels like grief. Elena cries all the time.”

Sloane touched his face.

“She needs me,” Daniel whispered, “and I can’t breathe.”

Sloane smiled.

Then she said the sentence that made my hand go still over the screen.

“Even if Elena finds out you lied about the clinic and spent tonight here with me, she still won’t leave.”

Daniel opened his eyes.

He didn’t disagree.