So completely unaware of everything that was about to break.
We were going to have this. All of it. The wedding. The family. The forever.
I closed the photo. Locked my phone. Put it away.
Some memories were better left buried.
Then movement caught my eye.
Near the champagne table. A woman in a dark green dress—the kind of simple elegance that drew your gaze without demanding it. Dark hair pulled back. Sharp features. The posture of someone cataloging everything in the room.
My heart stopped.
Sloane.
She was here. At Brian's wedding. Twenty feet away.
Of course, she was here. She'd written the article that saved Ava's career—possibly her life. She'd been part of the investigation that took down the Langs.
Ava would have invited her. I hadn't let myself think about it. Hadn't prepared for seeing her in person, close enough to touch.
She looked beautiful. She always had. But seeing her like this—bare shoulders, that green dress, champagne glass in hand—dragged up memories I'd spent a decade burying.
Getting ready together in our apartment. Her laughing at me struggling with a tie. The way she used to lean into me at events like this, her hand finding mine under the table.
I looked away before the memories could pull me under.
She was alone. No date that I could see. Standing at the edge of the celebration, the same way I was—an observer rather than a participant.
Go to her.
The thought was immediate. Urgent.
Cross the room. Say hello.
Say what, exactly?
Hey, Sloane. It's been a while. How are you? I never stopped loving you. I still have your articles on my coffee table. I still dream about the life we were supposed to have. I never asked why you stopped writing back, because I was too scared of the answer.
I stayed where I was.
Watched her from across the room. Memorized the way she looked in that dress. The way she tilted her head when she was thinking. The way she smiled at something one of the servers said.
Then she turned.
Our eyes met.
Time stopped.
The music kept playing. The celebration kept spinning. Somewhere behind me, Shane laughing at something Maya said. The DJ transitioning into a slower song. Normal things happening in a normal world that had suddenly become very far away.
For one endless moment, it was just the two of us.
Twenty feet and eight years apart.
Something flickered across her face. Recognition. Shock. And underneath—something raw and painful she locked down before I could name it.
I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything but stand there, frozen by the weight of everything I'd never said.
