2. Skye
— ? —
Skye
The walk down the aisle is the longest of my life.
Most of the guests had their phones out like I requested.
My father’s arm trembles beneath my hand. He’s nervous and excited. Completely oblivious to the bomb I’m carrying in the hidden pocket of my dress.
The string quartet plays Pachelbel’s Canon, and I suddenly hate that I chose a piece so predictable, basic, and expected when I should have picked one of my favorite metal songs that sound angry.
“You okay, sweetheart?” My father whispers without moving his lips. “You’re squeezing my arm pretty hard.”
“I’m fine, Dad.”
“You don’t look fine. You look like you’re about to pass out.”
“I said I’m fine.”
I’m not fine. I’m the furthest thing from fine I’ve ever been in my entire life. But he doesn’t need to know that. Not until I’ve done what I came here to do.
Every face turns toward me. Colleagues, cousins, childhood friends I haven’t spoken to in years. Everyone is smiling and dabbing at their eyes. Everyone thinks they’re about to witness something beautiful.
They have no idea.
Jaime’s parents sit in the front row. His mother already dabs her eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief, the picture of maternal joy.
She never liked me. Even after he proposed, she still introduces me as “Jaime’s girlfriend” at family functions.
Still asks when I’m going to lose those last ten pounds before the wedding.
Still leaves bridal magazines open to articles about “how to be the perfect Miller wife.”
His father stands straight-backed and proud, surveying the proceedings with the same expression he wears during board meetings. Richard Miller doesn’t attend weddings. He audits them. He only sees me as the heir-maker, someone to pop out a baby that will continue their legacy.
And there’s Jaime.
My Jaime. The man I’ve loved for four years. The man I’ve planned a future with. The man whose baby is growing inside me right now, already changing everything.
He watches me approach with tears streaming down his face. His hands shake at his sides. His jaw works like he’s trying not to sob.
Seeing him look exactly like a man in love and everything I ever wanted makes me waver despite myself.
Halfway down the aisle, his phone burning against my hip, the doubt creeps in. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s an explanation. Maybe Leslie sent those messages and he never even saw them. Maybe the deletion was automatic, some glitch, some mistake.
Maybe I’m about to destroy my entire life over a misunderstanding.
Give it to him quietly. Pull him into the vestry and watch his face when he sees what you’ve seen. Give him sixty seconds.
He’s crying, Skye. Real tears. Men don’t fake that.
My grip loosens on my father’s arm.
One quiet conversation. One more chance. He deserves that much, doesn’t he? Four years together. A baby on the way. A whole life planned out in calendars and shared bank accounts.
I almost give him that sixty seconds until I see her.
Third row. Aisle seat.
Leslie.
She came in bright, blinding bridal white, wearing a dress that desperately screams for attention on a day that is supposed to be entirely about the bride.
Who wears white to someone else’s wedding? Who sits in the third row, aisle seat, positioned perfectly to catch the groom’s eye as his bride walks past?
Someone who’s already won.
Our eyes meet, and Leslie gives a satisfied smirk that drips with contempt rather than offering a polite acknowledgment.
The sixty seconds I was about to hand him turn to stone in my chest.
Because that smirk is the answer to the conversation I haven’t had yet. She already knows how it ends. She dressed for it. She sat in the third row in a white dress and waited for me to walk past her on my way to marry the man she’s been sleeping with.
A hard resolve replaces the heart that broke back in the bridal suite when I read those messages.
This is the first spark of a fire I’m about to set.
I reach the altar. My father kisses my cheek, eyes wet with happy tears, and steps away to join my mother. The minister opens his book with practiced solemnity.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today-”
“Wait.”
An eerily controlled voice comes out of me, sounding completely unfamiliar.
The minister blinks. “I’m sorry?”
Jaime’s brow furrows. “Skye? What’s wrong?”
“Your assistant is in love with you.”
The words crack across the silent church. The people hold their breath.
“And you’ve been texting her. And this morning, before you put on that suit, before you stood up here and cried those pretty tears, you texted each other again but your mistake is that you forgot to delete it.”
The gasp ripples through the pews. I hear my mother’s strangled cry. I hear whispers starting, spreading, multiplying.
Jaime’s face drains of color. “Skye, it’s not-”
“Don’t.”
I hold up his phone. His precious phone that he can’t live without. The phone he sleeps with, showers with, brings to every meal and every meeting and apparently every secret conversation with his mistress.
“You don’t get to explain messages you erased.”
“Baby, please.” He steps toward me, hands raised, voice dropping to that soothing tone he uses when he thinks I’m being irrational. “You’re confused. You’re stressed. The wedding pressure has been-”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Let’s just go somewhere quiet and talk about this. Just you and me. We don’t need to do this here.”
“Confused?” I laugh, and it sounds wrong even to my own ears. “I’m confused? That’s your defense? I’m stressed?”
Movement in my peripheral vision. Leslie stands, one hand pressed to her chest, her face arranged into perfect sympathy. Every eye in the church turns to her.
“I’m so sorry, Skye.”
Her voice trembles beautifully. She should win an Oscar.
“I never wanted you to find out this way. Jaime and I... we tried to fight it. We really did.”
“Leslie, don’t-” Jaime’s voice cracks.
“She deserves to know the truth.” Leslie’s chin lifts, defiant, righteous. “We’ve been lying to her for months. It’s not fair to any of us.”
“Months?” My mother’s voice cuts through the murmuring. “Did she say months?”
“Sometimes you can’t help who you love.” Leslie’s eyes meet mine, and the sympathy drops away for just a second. Just long enough for me to see the triumph underneath. “I’m sure you understand.”
The church erupts.
Voices overlap. Gasps and whispers and one clear “Oh my God” from somewhere near the back. Someone starts crying. Someone else laughs.
Jaime’s mother covers her mouth, mascara already running down her cheeks. She’s not looking at her son. She’s looking at the crowd. At the witnesses. At the social destruction unfolding in front of her.
His father’s face goes purple with fury.
But he’s not looking at Jaime. He’s looking at me.
“You’re embarrassing this family.” Richard Miller’s voice cuts through the chaos, cold and sharp. “Whatever this is, you handle it privately. Not here. Not in front of everyone we know.”
I turn to face him. This man who’s criticized every decision I’ve made for four years.
The venue’s too simple. The flowers are too cheap.
The bride’s family isn’t contributing enough.
The bride herself isn’t quite up to Miller standards, but Jaime seems to like her, so we’ll make do as long as she can bear a child.
Now his son gets caught cheating, and somehow I’m the embarrassment.
“Privately?” I hear myself laugh again. “He’s been handling things privately for months. How’s that working out for everyone?”
“This is neither the time nor the place-”
I step toward him, and he actually flinches. Richard Miller, who’s never flinched at anything in his life. “Your son has been sleeping with his assistant. Your son deleted months of messages. Your son looked me in the eyes and cried fake tears while his mistress sat in the third row wearing white.”
I point at Leslie.
“White. To my wedding. And you want to talk to me about embarrassment?”
“Skye, please.” Jaime reaches for my hand. His fingers brush my wrist and I jerk away so hard I nearly fall. “Let me explain. Just give me five minutes. That’s all I’m asking. Five minutes.”
“I gave you two chances to explain.”
My voice finally shakes. Just enough to remind me that underneath the rage, underneath the cold clarity, there’s still a woman whose heart is breaking.
“I asked you about her twice. And you made me apologize. Both times.” The memory rises up. “You made me feel crazy for seeing what was right in front of my face.”
“You were paranoid! You’re always paranoid!” His voice pitches higher, desperate. “This is exactly why I couldn’t tell you. You overreact to everything!”
“Couldn’t tell me what?” I step closer, close enough to see the panic in his eyes. “That you’ve been sleeping with her? That you’ve been planning what happens to her after the wedding? That you text her don’t text me when Skye’s around because I’m just an obstacle? Someone you learned to avoid?”
“I never said-”
“You did.”
I shove the phone at his chest. He catches it on reflex, staring down at the screen like he’s never seen it before.
“It’s right there. In the messages you forgot to delete. The ones she quote-replied to this morning. The ones that prove everything you told me was a lie.”
His face crumbles as real tears and visible shaking take over, though it clearly stems from pure fear rather than love or remorse.
Fear of losing everything he built. Fear from his father’s disappointment and from being seen for exactly what he is.
“Skye, I love you. I’ve always loved you. Leslie is... she’s nothing. She doesn’t mean anything. She’s making things up.”
From the third row, Leslie makes a small wounded sound. “Jaime.”
“Shut up.” He doesn’t even look at her. “Just shut up.”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” I say, and even I’m surprised by my own voice. “She’s the one you chose. She’s the one you’ve been texting for months. She’s the one you invited to our wedding. Own it.”
“I didn’t invite her. She works for the company. She was on the general list.”
I reach up and rip off my veil.
The pins tear at my scalp, pulling out hair, drawing blood. I don’t care. I throw it at his feet and watch it pool there in the silence.
“Explain to someone who still loves you. Because I’m done.”
I run.
The heels slow me down. Expensive, custom-made, completely useless. I kick them off halfway down the aisle and they skitter across the marble, crashing into a pew. The floor is cold under my bare feet. My dress drags behind me, catching on something, tearing.
I don’t care about any of it.
I don’t stop even when someone calls my name, ignoring whether it is my mother, Shelby, or one of the witnesses I just left in my wake.
I burst through the church doors into blinding sunlight. The heat hits me. My lungs burn and my eyes water. I can’t tell if I’m crying or if it’s just the brightness after the dim sanctuary.
I keep running.
Across the courtyard. Past the fountain where we were supposed to take photos, where I’d imagined him lifting my veil and kissing me while everyone applauded. Past the vintage car decorated with streamers and a “Just Married” sign that suddenly seems obscene.
Fast footsteps behind me.
“Skye! Skye, wait!”
Shelby catches me in the parking lot, breathless. She grabs my arm and spins me around, and for a second we just stare at each other.
“Holy shit.” She’s laughing and crying. “Holy shit, Skye. You actually did it.”
“I did it.”
“That was...” She shakes her head. “That was the most insane, incredible, terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Is he following me?”
She glances over my shoulder. “No. His dad’s got him by the arm. They’re arguing. Leslie’s crying. Your mom is... actually, I think your mom is yelling at his mom. It’s chaos in there.”
“Good,” I say again.
“Are you okay?” She grabs my face with both hands. “Stupid question. Of course you’re not okay. Where do we go? What do we do?”
My hand presses against my stomach. Against the secret only we know. The secret that changes everything.
I’m not just a jilted bride anymore. I’m not just a woman who got cheated on. I’m a mother. That tiny spark of life has become the only thing that matters.
I’m not running for me anymore.
“Anywhere but here.” I grab Shelby’s hand and pull her toward her car. “Just drive. Get me away from this place.”
She doesn’t argue. She digs her keys out of her clutch and unlocks the car.
I climb into the passenger seat, ruined wedding dress pooling around my feet, and I don’t look back.
Shelby peels out of the parking lot, tires squealing, and the church disappears in the rearview mirror.
“Where to?” she asks.
I close my eyes. Press my palm flat against my stomach.
“I don’t know yet.” I open my eyes and stare at the road ahead. Empty. Open. Full of possibilities I never let myself imagine before today. “But wherever it is, he’s never going to find us.”
Shelby reaches over and squeezes my hand.
“Then let’s disappear.”
The church shrinks to nothing behind us. The future stretches out ahead, terrifying and unknown.