Chapter 2 - ELEVEN YEARS EARLIER
Nick asked the restaurant manager to open a private dining room upstairs.
We left the reception for twenty minutes.
I carried my braid with me.
I don’t know why.
Maybe because I wasn’t ready to leave part of myself lying on a table downstairs.
Nick, Caroline, and I sat around a small round table.
Nobody spoke at first.
Finally, Caroline placed her phone between us.
“My mother doesn’t know I’m here.”
Nick frowned.
“Why?”
“Because your mother and mine have been friends for thirty years.”
She looked uncomfortable.
“My mother knows Martha wanted us together.”
“But?”
“She always thought it was just talk.”
Caroline opened a folder.
There were screenshots.
Dozens of them.
Some recent.
Some older.
Very old.
Caroline scrolled to the earliest messages.
The date made my stomach twist.
April 2015.
Eleven years earlier.
Nick leaned closer.
“That was when Emily and I broke up.”
“I know.”
Caroline tapped the first screenshot.
It was a message from Martha.
CAROLINE, I NEED A FAVOR.
Another followed.
NICK IS WASTING HIS FUTURE WITH THAT GIRL.
Then another.
HE’S TOO YOUNG TO UNDERSTAND WHAT HE’S THROWING AWAY.
Nick’s jaw tightened.
Caroline kept scrolling.
At first, Martha had simply complained about me.
Then the messages changed.
Martha asked Caroline if she would be willing to spend more time around Nick.
Caroline refused.
Martha tried again.
And again.
Then there was a message that made my chest tighten.
I MAY HAVE FOUND ANOTHER WAY.
Nick stared at it.
“What does that mean?”
“I never knew.”
Caroline looked at me.
“Until two weeks ago.”
She opened another screenshot.
This one was recent.
Martha had written:
IT WORKED ONCE BEFORE.
I GOT THEM APART IN COLLEGE.
I CAN DO IT AGAIN.
Nick pushed his chair back.
The sound scraped across the floor.
“No.”
I stared at the screen.
My mind had already gone backward eleven years.
I had been nineteen.
Nick was twenty.
We had been attending colleges in different cities.
It was difficult, but we were making it work.
Then one night I received a message from an unfamiliar email address.
There were screenshots attached.
They appeared to show Nick talking to another girl.
The messages were flirtatious.
Personal.
One line still lived in my memory.
EMILY IS MY HIGH SCHOOL LIFE.
I’M READY FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT.
I called Nick immediately.
He denied everything.
But two days later, Nick received screenshots showing me telling a friend I felt trapped by our relationship.
I denied those too.
Neither of us believed the other.
We were young.
Proud.
Scared.
And exhausted from being hundreds of miles apart.
We broke up.
Four months later, we accidentally discovered that some dates in the screenshots didn’t match.
We realized something was wrong.
But we never learned who had created them.
Eventually, we found our way back to each other.
We told ourselves the experience had made us stronger.
Now I knew someone had designed it.
Nick stood near the window.
His hands were clenched.
“My own mother?”
Caroline nodded slowly.
“I can’t prove she created the fake screenshots.”
I looked at her.
“But she said it worked.”
“Yes.”
“Did she say anything else?”
Caroline swallowed.
“She said she learned from her mistakes.”
My stomach dropped.
“What mistakes?”
Caroline looked toward the door.
“Last time, she said she depended on anonymous messages.”
Nick came back to the table.
“And this time?”
“She wanted a real person.”
Me.
Caroline didn’t have to say it.
Martha wanted Caroline to walk into our wedding and claim she and Nick were in love.
She wanted humiliation that couldn’t be dismissed as anonymous gossip.
Caroline pushed her phone toward me.
“You should see the rest.”
I read.
Martha had promised Caroline money.
A vacation property.
Introductions to investors.
She had even suggested exactly when Caroline should interrupt the ceremony.
RIGHT BEFORE THE VOWS WOULD BE BEST.
I stared at the sentence.
My throat tightened.
Caroline continued.
“I kept refusing.”
Nick looked at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I almost did.”
She sighed.
“But your mother kept saying she was emotional and would stop.”
“She didn’t.”
“No.”
Caroline glanced at my hair.
“Three weeks ago, she sent something different.”
She scrolled.
The message was short.
IF CAROLINE WON’T HELP ME, I’LL HANDLE EMILY MYSELF.
Nick read it twice.
Then he closed his eyes.
I touched his arm.
He looked at me.
“I should have told you.”
“About what?”
“That Caroline contacted me.”
I stared at him.
“I thought I could handle it.”
“Nick.”
“I didn’t want Martha to ruin this day before it even happened.”
My anger shifted.
Not toward him.
But toward the fact that his mother had somehow managed to put secrecy between us on our wedding day.
Caroline looked uncomfortable.
“I told Nick I could come quietly.”
“Why?”
“Because Martha had started telling people you manipulated him into proposing.”
I almost laughed.
Instead, I whispered, “Of course she did.”
Caroline leaned forward.
“There’s something else.”
Nick exhaled.
“What?”
“Your mother didn’t start this because of the wedding.”
She looked directly at me.
“She started again last year.”
I frowned.
“Why last year?”
Caroline opened one final message.
It had been sent fourteen months earlier.
Martha had written:
EMILY THINKS SHE’S FINALLY WON.
SHE HAS NO IDEA WHAT I’VE ALREADY DONE.
I stared at the screen.
“What did she already do?”
Caroline shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
From downstairs, music started again.
Our guests were waiting.
May you like
Our wedding reception was still happening.
But suddenly our marriage felt connected to a mystery that had begun years before we ever walked down the aisle.
