The Wedding #2
Red flushes across her cheeks. She glances back at the man beside her, then gestures toward me with something that looks like reluctance.
"This is Liam."
He steps forward, offers his hand. It’s a firm grip and friendly in that effortless way that comes from never having to fight for anything.
"Nice to meet you," he says in a well-toned East London accent. "Nora's told me a lot about this place."
I shake his hand, force something resembling a smile.
"Hope it lived up to expectations."
"It has." He looks at Nora with genuine affection, and something in my chest twists. "She wasn't exaggerating. This place is beautiful."
"It has its moments."
Nora studies us closely, like she's bracing for something that hasn't happened yet. Like she's waiting for me to make this awkward or painful or difficult.
"I'm going to grab us drinks," Liam says, leaning in to kiss her cheek.
A casual gesture that speaks of intimacy and comfort and all the things I used to have with her. She smiles at him—small but real—and something in me breaks a little more.
She used to smile at me like that.
As soon as he walks away, the space between us shifts, like all the air has been sucked out and replaced with memory.
"I wasn't sure you'd come," she says, and her voice has an edge now.
"It's Ollie's wedding."
"Right." Her jaw tightens slightly.
Silence stretches between us, then she exhales, and when she speaks again, her voice is quieter but sharper.
"Why'd you disappear, Nate?"
The question lands like a punch and I don't have it in me to argue.
My throat closes up. My pulse races.
"I went to rehab. You knew that."
"Yeah, and then you vanished." There's pain in her voice now. Raw and unfiltered. "Two years. Two years of nothing. No calls. No texts. Nothing. I had to find out through Jay that you'd moved back to Eden."
The words confuse me because that's not true. That's not what happened.
I wrote to her every week for two years.
Poured my heart into pages and pages when it felt like I was losing everything.
I told her about the hard days and the small victories.
About how I was getting better for myself but also for her.
Told her I still loved her, still believed in us, still hoped that when I was whole again we could try.
And she never wrote back.
Not once.
I thought she'd moved on. Thought she'd decided I wasn't worth waiting for. I thought the silence was her answer. But looking at her now—at the hurt written across her face, the genuine confusion in her eyes—a different possibility begins to take shape.
"Nora, I—"
"I waited," she says, and her voice cracks. "I waited for months thinking you'd reach out. That you'd call or write or something. And then I realized you weren't going to. That you'd decided recovery meant cutting me out completely."
"That's not—"
Before I can finish, Liam returns with two glasses of champagne.
"Did I miss anything?"
"No." Her voice is flat.
Liam looks between us, sensing the tension but not understanding it.
She hesitates, then says, "Enjoy the wedding, Nate."
And just like that, she walks away, Liam's hand finding the small of her back again, guiding her toward a group of people I don't recognize.
I stand there, holding my sparkling water, mind racing.
She never got the letters.
Two years of thinking she'd chosen silence. Two years of believing she'd moved on, found someone better, decided I wasn't worth the wait. And she thought the same about me.
"Nate."
Ollie's voice pulls me back.
He's standing beside me, face pale, looking like he's carrying something heavy and isn't sure how to put it down.
"Can we talk?"
We walk past the lights, the laughter, the celebration, until the lake hums softly beside us and the music is just a distant murmur.
"There's something I need to tell you."
I turn to face him. "Are you okay?"
"No." His voice is strained. "Because you're probably going to punch me after I tell you this."
"Tell me what?"
"She never got your letters."
The words land slowly, carefully, but they still hit like a fist to the gut.
"What?"
"The letters you wrote, the ones you sent every week for like two years? She never got them."
"You knew?" My voice is low.
"I made sure of it."
The admission hangs between us.
"You—" I can't finish the sentence because I can't process it. "You kept them from her?"
"She was falling apart when you went to rehab," he says, and there's desperation in his voice now. Guilt. "Nate, you didn't see her. She couldn't eat. She couldn't sleep. She'd lost Dad, then Jake died, then you left, and she was just breaking."
"So you decided she couldn't handle hearing from me?"
The anger is building now, hot and sharp.
"The first few letters came when she was completely spiraling. She locked herself in her room for days and wouldn't talk to anyone. Mom was worried and I was fucking terrified."
"So you took them."
"I was trying to protect her." His voice cracks. "You were fighting for your life. She was trying to build a future. I didn't want either of you dragged backward by this impossible situation where you both wanted each other but couldn't have each other."
"That wasn't your choice to make Ollie.” My whole body is rigid. "Those letters were mine to send and hers to receive. You had no right—"
"I know!" Ollie shouts. "Don't you think I know that?
I've carried this guilt for two fucking years.
But I saw what losing you did to her, Nate.
I saw how much pain she was in. And I thought if she could just move on, if she could just heal without the constant reminder of what she couldn't have, maybe she'd be okay. "
I look across the lawn.
At Nora laughing with Liam. At the life she's built without me and that same aching pain that once numbed me completely, surfaces again.
"She looks happy."
"She is happy," Ollie confirms.
"With him."
“He's good to her." He follows my gaze. "Good for her. Gives her stability and support and all the things she needs."
All the things I couldn't give her before.
“But he still isn’t you.”
There’s a brief moment of silence that passes between us.
“Listen, I still have them," Ollie says quietly.
"The letters, all of them. I couldn't bring myself to throw them away. And after seeing the two of you talk, I think she deserves to know.” He pauses, taking in a breath filled with guilt.
“Deserves to know that you didn't just disappear. That you wrote to her. That you—"
"No."
The word comes out sharp.
Ollie stares at me.
"Nate—"