I don’t know what to do, so I slip the envelope inside my jacket pocket to figure out later, then head to the storage room where my suitcase is to find something clean and dry to wear. After all, I’m still in my clothes from last night.
The same ones in all those photos.
And no one has yet noticed.
THE STORM RAGES ONfor the next few hours, echoing my own brooding, and in the afternoon, the power goes out completely.
I happen to be in Mom’s sewing room, freshly showered and wearing cozy sweatpants, when it happens. I’d been carefully filling pale purple organza bags with candy-coated almonds (and hiding from Nate. Given the storm, he hasn’t been able to finish the final touches on the gazebo and has been milling around the house, trying and failing to be useful). But now it’s too dark to see.
Down in the kitchen, I find my mom and dad pulling out matchboxes to light various candles around the house, and I grab a few to carry into other rooms.
In the late afternoon, everyone from the bridal party comes back over, and we do a rough run-through of the ceremony, all of uscrowded into the living room, pretending it’s the backyard—and pretending not to notice that the room smells faintly of wet dog.
By dusk, the power’s still not back on. Cooper calls it—tells the bridesmaids and groomsmen to head back to their hotels while there’s still a little light outside. “No point in everyone sitting around in the dark,” he says, and no one argues.
The elaborate rehearsal dinner my mother had planned is scrapped.
Instead, we order pizza.
We crowd around the formal dining room table—a room that, like the living room off the front door, almost never gets used—with one of Dad’s battery-powered camp lights as a centerpiece. The kids are growing cranky—the novelty of the power outage rubbed off around the time Linney’s iPad died.
Cara’s eyes are red and swollen from crying. I hear Mom discreetly offering her a soothing eye gel mask, so that they won’t look so red tomorrow.
No one is talking about the elephant in the room. At least the Wi-Fi being down gives us all a reprieve from constantly checking what the internet has to say about Cooper and Cara. (And me. And Aaron.)
I’m still furious that someone sold those photos to the tabloids. It was probably just some random person from the bar last night, but I can’t help but wonder if Mary Moore Musgrove is somehow behind this.
If not, I’m sure she’s at least reveling in the fact that I’m once again at the center of the gossip.
I rip off a bite of pizza more forcefully than I mean to. I don’t taste the peppers or mushrooms.
Down the other end of the table, Cooper is even more fidgetythan usual, bouncing his leg and tapping his fingers relentlessly on his glass of water.
“Cooper, please,” Mom says, rubbing her temples. He forces himself to stop… only to start up again a few moments later.
Meanwhile, I’m battling my own compulsion. My gaze has sought out Nate at least three times since sitting down to eat—though we haven’t made eye contact yet. He’s as quiet as I’ve ever seen him, mouth a grim line. I can feel the tension radiating off him.
My eyes are still on him when he stands, muttering something about checking the generator. That’s when I remember—his jacket. It’s still draped on the floor in my makeshift room.
“Hang on,” I say. “You’ll need something.”
When I come back down, he’s standing in the dining room doorway. I hold out the jacket, and for a second, he just looks at me. We both know that before now, I would have been way too worried about people finding out about us to do something as obvious as give his jacket back in front of everyone.
But we also both know that it doesn’t matter anymore.
“Thanks,” he says with a sad half smile. Then he clears his throat, slips his arms into the sleeves, and sticks his hands into the pockets, like he’s grounding himself.
That’s when his expression changes. His fingers close around something, and he pulls it out slowly.
A single envelope, creased and smudged at the corners.
My stomach drops.
“Oh!” I say quickly, reaching for the envelope. “I’ll take that.”
But he’s already seen the name on the front.
“Why are you writing to him?” Nate doesn’t take his eyes off the envelope.
