“I did the same thing,” I said. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t just you. I—I can’t believe I shut down like that.”
“It was rough on everyone,” he said gently. “If you let me stick around after this, I’ll tell you how Mason complained about—and openly examined—his scrotum that whole night.”
“No, you actually don’t need to explain that. I’m more than content with just that bit of info, thanks.” A laugh shook his shoulders and we shifted at the same time, looking toward the sofa. “I’m having it picked up for reupholstery next week.”
“That’s good. That’s…a really good idea.”
“I am sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry about the way I latched on to your challenges and?—”
“About that,” he said carefully. “You were right. You are a challenge.” He tapped the keypad, waking up the screen. “And you have been for a really long time. Last week—when I said that I didn’t know—I meant that I didn’t know how to explain that I want this because there hasn’t been a minute since meeting you that I didn’t want it.”
He motioned to the screen. I didn’t understand any of it. “Okay. What am I looking at?”
“It’s a folder I created in June.” He pointed to the date and then the name of the folder.Wedding Whitney. “You asked me for evidence. This is the best answer I can give you.”
I blinked at the screen. The back of my neck heated. “Am I supposed to know what any of this means?”
He pointed to the files. There werehundreds. “Open the first one.”
I clicked on the name, simply labeled1. It was a distant photo of the bridal party while the photographer was staging them.
“There you are,” he said, a hand on the back of my chair as he leaned forward to point at the screen.
I zoomed in and found a blurry bit of me glancing over my shoulder. “How did you even catch that? And where is this from because the photographer is actually in the photo.”
“One of Mason’s cousins’ social media.” His knuckles grazed my spine. “Open the next one.”
The second image was a wide shot of the tent during dinner and, once Henry told me where to look, I found what appeared to be the back of my head. The detailing on my dress was the only real giveaway. I opened another five files, all photos with the vaguest of glimpses of me. Eventually, still in the dark over here, I said, “I’m not sure what this is.”
He pointed to the date stamps beside the file names. June, July, August of this year. “I searched for you,” he said. “I lookedeverywhere.”
I didn’t know what to say. I clicked through several more files.
“When I woke up the morning after the wedding,” he continued, “I turned the hotel upside down. I interrogated the front desk staff for information about you until they called security, and then I asked security to pull up surveillance footage from earlier in the day. I talked to all the bridesmaids, though it wasn’t without its costs. Due to that legendary toast, half of them slapped me before I could say a word and the other half tossed their mimosas at me. I almost missed my flight to come here. I was ready to skip orientation and you know that’s as good as throwing away my spot in this program.”
I nodded, still staring at the screen.
“I watched Mason and Florrie’s god-awful wedding video dozens of times for a glimpse of you. I went through thousands of photos to find you. Literally thousands. These are just ones that seemed like a lead. And formonths, this”—he motioned to the blurry images—“was the best proof I had that you were real and not a gorgeous goddamn dream who turned my life upside down.”
He’d searched for me and then he’d waited—and then he waited again while I made sense of myself. All this time. I brought a hand to my chest, tangling a finger in my necklace as my heart raced and the images flew past.
With a stiff laugh, he said, “I’ve been calling this my psychopath wall since the summer. Though that might not help my case.” He pulled a stack of papers from his bag and set them on the counter. The top sheet was covered in numbers and notes. “From there, I started matching the photos to people on the guest list. It didn’t occur to me that you weren’t on the list. Obviously my first mistake, given your flexible relationship with invitations.”
I opened more files. Most featured Florrie, Mason, and their families or the bridal party. As I scrolled through, Henry offered brief footnotes likeI thought that was your armandI wasn’t sure if that was us on the dance floorandNothing useful in that one.
“The guest list led nowhere, but then I figured I’d focus on your table. Someone had to know who you were and all I had to do was compare the seating chart to the photos. That logic held water until the end of July when I realized most of the people at your table weren’t sitting where they were assigned.”
He dropped another stack of papers on the island. The seating chart, complete with thumbnail photos of people positioned around the table. It was a little messy, a bithaphazard. I could see what he meant about the psychopath wall now. Throw in some red yarn and we’d be in business.
“Apparently, no one sat where they were assigned,” he said, his outrage obvious. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong in life, but it’s never occurred to me to disregard my assigned seat at a wedding.”
“That’s because you’re one of the good ones.”
His hand settled on my shoulder, tentative at first, and then I covered it with mine. I heard him exhale though I didn’t dare glance up because I knew I’d jump out of this chair and into his arms, and we had to get through this. We had to go back to the beginning so we could start again.
“August was almost over when I’d nailed down the majority of the tables, but I still couldn’t getyourtable right. There was one guy I couldn’t place at all and?—”
I slapped my hands on the countertop.“Was it Simon?”
