Chapter 3 #2
The reception was chaos. The good kind.
Shane gave a speech that made everyone cry, then laugh, then cry again—something about Brian's terrible cooking and his better heart, about running into a burning building and the morning he'd finally admitted what everyone else already knew.
Rodriguez's kids ran between tables. Lucia still in her flower girl dress. Marco finally released from the torture of sitting still. Zoe filming everything on her phone.
Shane and Maya ended up wrapped around each other on the dance floor like teenagers. I looked away. Watching them was harder than it should have been.
Brian couldn't stop smiling. Ava couldn't stop looking at him.
I drifted to the edge of the celebration. Found a quiet spot near the garden's perimeter where the noise faded. Champagne I wasn't really drinking. Fountains splashing behind me.
I was happy for them. Genuinely. Brian deserved this—deserved someone who saw him, chose him, stayed.
But watching my friends build the lives I'd almost had...
Sloane would have loved this.
The thought ambushed me. I pushed it away, but it lingered. Stubborn as smoke in fabric.
She would have been the one dragging me onto the dance floor. Making friends with everyone from the caterers to the grandparents. Charming Rodriguez's kids and stealing appetizers off my plate and leaning into my side during the slow songs.
She would have made this night brighter just by being in it.
I pulled out my phone.
The photo was buried deep in my camera roll, but I knew exactly where to find it. I'd looked at it more times than I'd ever admit.
Eight years ago. The night I proposed.
We were on the rooftop of our Brooklyn apartment. The city spread out behind us, a million lights against the dark. Sloane laughing, head thrown back, the ring catching the glow on her finger. I was looking at her like she was the answer to every question I'd ever asked.
We looked so young. So certain.
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.
Go to her. Some part of me screaming. Move. Now. Before she disappears again.
Someone stepped between us. A guest crossing the room, oblivious, carrying two glasses of champagne.
When the path cleared, she was gone.
I searched the crowd. The champagne table. The seats near the pergola. The path toward the exit.
Nothing.
She'd left. Seen me and left.
Of course, she had.
I set down my champagne. Made my excuses to Brian. Walked out.
The park stretched around me, the sounds of the reception fading as I followed the path toward the street. I stood on the sidewalk outside the garden gates, breath fogging in front of me, and told myself it was fine.
She didn't want to talk to me. She'd made that clear eight years ago when she stopped answering my letters. Stopped returning my calls. Let the silence stretch until it became permanent.
I'd accepted it. Moved on. Built a life that didn't include her.
Except I hadn't.
Not really.
I was still waiting for someone who'd already left.
I'd been trying to stop thinking about her for eight years.
Any day now, it was bound to work.
I hailed a cab. Went home to my empty apartment, surrounded by her words, carrying the weight of everything we'd lost.
She was still running.
And I was still letting her go.