Reality snapped into place.
Ethan scrambled back, trying to cover himself, horror flooding his face. “Claire,” he choked. “Claire, please.”
There were no words big enough for what tore through me. It wasn’t rage. Not even heartbreak.
It was betrayal. The past rewrote itself in a single breath.
Every kiss felt counterfeit. Every promise echoed thin. The future I’d built dissolved grain by grain.
My bouquet slipped from my hand.
The wildflowers scattered across the hardwood, asters, cornflowers, violets, everything bright I’d brought into that moment crushed underfoot before they ever touched a vase.
I stepped back.
And again.
And again, until I was in the hallway, until I was in the living room, until the air became something I could breathe again, even if just barely.
I walked out.
Ethan didn’t follow.
That hurt too, sharp and humiliating, but I couldn’t feel it yet. The numbness came first, filling me like cold water.
Outside, the sunlight hit me too bright, clean, like the world hadn’t just collapsed behind me. My legs moved without my permission, carrying me down the porch steps.
Jenny’s footsteps stumbled behind me, then straightened as she caught up, sobered by the devastation she’d seen on my face.
“Claire,” she whispered. “Claire, honey, look at me.”
I couldn’t.
If I lifted my eyes, the reality would be too sharp.
The bouquet, or what remained of it, was still in my hand. Crushed petals clung to my palm. Jenny gently pried the stems from my fingers.
Her touch undid me.
My breath broke. My body folded. A sound tore out of me, raw and strangled.
“Oh God please,” I rasped. “Jenny… Oh God.”
She caught me before I hit the ground. Her arms wrapped around me with steady, instinctive strength. I collapsed into her; my legs folded from under me.
The sobs tore through me, not loud, but deep and uncontainable. Grief flooding through the cracks of everything I’d tried to hold steady.
“I can’t,” I choked out. “I can’t breathe.”
“I know,” she whispered fiercely, her hand warm between my shoulder blades. “I know, sweetheart. I’ve got you. Let it out.”
And I did.
My future, my plans, my trust, all of it dissolved into the fabric of her shirt. Because the life I thought I was stepping into hadn’t been real. The love I thought I’d anchored myself to, hadn’t been true. And the version of me who believed in it, the hopeful naïve girl with wildflowers in her hands, felt cheap and impossibly far away.
Minutes lost shape.
Eventually, Jenny pulled back just enough to cup my face, her thumb brushing a tear from my cheek.
