My wedding day began beautifully.
The church smelled like lilies and candle wax. Ryan waited calmly at the altar looking steady and safe and kind.
After the ceremony, everyone moved to the reception downtown.
But Claire never arrived.
I kept checking the entrance. Calling her phone. Watching voicemail answer again and again.
Dad insisted she’d calm down eventually.
Mom told me not to let her spoil my day.
So I smiled for photographs while anxiety twisted inside my chest.
Then my mother’s phone rang.
She answered.
And went white.
“There was a crash,” she whispered.
Everything after that blurred together.
Rain slashing sideways across dark roads.
Flashing lights near the riverbank.
Mud soaking through the hem of my wedding dress while rescue workers searched the water below.
Claire had taken the river road shortcut.
Her car went over the edge.
The next day they found her body.