"I keep thinking I should have known," I said.
"Known what? That she would say something like that on the eve of the wedding? Nobody can predict every decision someone else will make."
"There were signs. Alex. The messages. The way she made me feel guilty for asking normal questions."
"Then learn from those signs," Caleb said. "But don't turn every good memory into proof that you were stupid. You loved somebody. That isn't a mistake by itself."
I stayed outside until the light began fading. At six, the band would have been setting up for our first dance. At seven, the caterers would have been clearing dinner plates. By nine, Lauren's college friends would have been shouting requests at the DJ, and my mother would have begun slipping tiny slices of cake into containers for relatives who wanted a piece to take home. I let each imagined moment arrive and pass. They were only ghosts now, and I did not have to follow them.
When I came inside, Priya had made pasta for dinner. She handed me a plate without asking whether I was hungry, and for the first time that day I ate a full meal. My phone, which had spent the afternoon on silent, showed another message from Lauren.
This one said, "I went to the apartment. Your side of the closet is empty. Please tell me where you are. I'm scared."
I had taken only an overnight bag from the apartment, not emptied the closet, so I understood she was exaggerating to make the distance feel more permanent. But I also understood the fear underneath the message. The man she expected to find waiting had stepped away from the role she had always counted on him to perform. I didn't want to hurt her for being afraid. I simply couldn't solve that fear by returning to a relationship that required me to deny what had happened.
"I'm safe with friends," I wrote. "I have not moved all my belongings, and we will make arrangements for the apartment this week. I need you to respect my space. Please don't come here."
She replied, "Can we meet tomorrow? Just the two of us. No parents, no friends."
I looked at Caleb, at my mother, and then at the table where we were all eating an ordinary dinner on the evening I was supposed to be newly married. I didn't want to keep running from a conversation forever. But I wasn't ready to meet her alone or to place myself in a situation where I could be drawn back into an argument through guilt and exhaustion. I told her I would consider a brief meeting after we had both slept, in a public place, with the understanding that I was not reconsidering the wedding.
For several minutes she didn't reply. Then came a single word. "Please."