When he didn’t continue, I leaned forward. “People who have doubts cancel weddings, Eric. They don’t let their fiancée attend a funeral.”

His face tightened. “I know.”

“Then tell me the part you’re avoiding.”

For several seconds, he said nothing. Finally he looked at me and said, “Jason didn’t want to marry you anymore, and when he woke up and realized everyone already thought he was dead, he didn’t know how to face you.”

I sat back slowly.

The cruelty of it wasn’t dramatic. That was what made it so difficult to process. There had been no threat, no impossible circumstance, and no reason Jason couldn’t have simply called me and ended our engagement.

He had been afraid of an uncomfortable conversation.

So he had allowed me to attend his funeral instead.

Then I remembered the woman upstairs waiting in a wedding dress.

“Who is he marrying?”

Eric looked down again. “Her name is Megan.”

“When did he meet Megan?”

The pause came before the answer.

“Before the accident.”

I reached for my phone. “How long before?”

“I don’t know exactly. A few months, maybe.”

There were hundreds of photographs of Jason still on my phone because I hadn’t been able to delete them. I scrolled past pictures of him making pancakes, sleeping on the couch, holding paint samples for the apartment we planned to move into after the wedding, and finally found the photograph I wanted.

Jason and I were standing outside our wedding venue five months earlier. His arm was around my waist, I was holding the signed contract, and the date was clearly visible in the corner of the photograph.

I stood.

Eric immediately understood what I was going to do.

“Rachel, don’t go upstairs and confront her.”

I looked at him. “Does Megan know about me?”

“She knows you exist.”

“Does she know I buried Jason?”

He didn’t answer.

That silence mattered more than anything else he’d told me.

I slipped my phone into my hand and walked toward the door.

Eric followed. “Rachel, please don’t do something you’ll regret because you’re angry.”

I turned back to him. “For three months, I regretted every stupid argument I ever had with your brother because I thought I’d never get the chance to fix any of them. I apologized to a dead man in my head almost every night.”

Eric said nothing.

“I’m done taking advice from people who knew he wasn’t dead.”

Then I went looking for the bride.

The Woman Wearing My Flowers

Two bridesmaids were standing outside a private suite near the ballroom, and one of them was holding a bouquet I had designed at six that morning. White garden roses, ranunculus, and eucalyptus were arranged exactly the way the bride had requested.

For a moment, I simply stared at it.

I had spent my morning making flowers for the woman who was about to marry the man I had spent three months mourning.

One bridesmaid noticed me. “Can we help you?”

“I need to speak with Megan.”

She gave me a cautious smile. “She’s getting ready right now. Is something wrong with the flowers?”

“No. The flowers are fine. Tell her it’s about Jason.”

The women exchanged a look, but before either could answer, the door opened.

A blonde woman in a simple ivory wedding dress stepped into the hallway. She looked about my age, with pearl earrings and her hair pinned loosely at the back. She wasn’t wearing her veil yet, and until she saw my face, she looked nervous in the ordinary way brides look nervous before a ceremony.

“I’m Megan,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“Rachel Bennett.”

Something changed in her expression.

I noticed it immediately.

“You know who I am.”

Megan hesitated. “Yes. Jason told me about you.”

That was not the answer I had expected.

“What exactly did he tell you?”

One bridesmaid started to interrupt, but Megan raised her hand and told her it was okay.

Then she looked at me. “He said you might have a hard time with today, but I didn’t think you’d actually come here.”

I frowned. “He told you I knew he was getting married?”

Now Megan looked confused.

“He said the two of you had been separated for almost a year.”

I unlocked my phone and opened the photograph.

“Look at the date.”

She took the phone from me.

At first she only glanced at the picture. Then she looked again.

“This was five months ago.”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“The day Jason and I signed the contract for our wedding venue.”

Megan’s eyes lifted to mine.

I kept my voice as steady as I could. “Three months ago, I attended Jason’s funeral.”

She stared at me.

“What funeral?”

“His.”

Megan shook her head almost immediately. “No. Jason told me there was confusion after the accident, but he said you knew he survived.”

For the first time since I saw Jason standing in that gray suit, my anger shifted.

Not away from him.

Toward something clearer.

Megan wasn’t standing in front of me like a woman who had stolen another woman’s fiancé and gotten away with it. She looked like someone had just removed the floor beneath her.

“I didn’t know he survived,” I said. “I stood beside his family at a funeral. His mother held my hand while I cried. I believed he was dead until about twenty minutes ago.”

Megan’s lips parted, but no words came out.

Then Jason’s voice cut through the hallway.

“Rachel, what the hell are you doing?”

Megan looked past me.

Jason stood beside Linda and Eric, still wearing the gray suit and the navy tie I had chosen for him.

Megan raised my phone.

Her voice was quiet when she asked, “Jason, why were you planning a wedding with Rachel five months ago if you and she had supposedly been separated for almost a year?”

For the first time that day, Jason had nowhere left to redirect the conversation.

THE WEDDING THAT NEVER STARTED

Jason walked toward us quickly and told Megan that he could explain everything if she would give him a few minutes. Megan didn’t yell or cry. She simply kept holding my phone and asked him to explain the photograph first.

When Jason asked me to leave them alone, Megan immediately shook her head. “No. Rachel stays. You’ve already told me your version. I want to hear what happens when both versions are standing in the same hallway.”

Linda tried to intervene by saying everyone was emotional and that they should move the conversation somewhere private. Megan turned toward her instead.

“Did you know Rachel thought Jason was dead?”

Linda’s expression changed.

Megan asked again.

“Linda, did you know?”

When Linda couldn’t answer, Megan looked at Eric.

He finally admitted that the family had known Jason was alive before the funeral.

Megan stepped backward before Jason could touch her. “Was there actually a funeral?”

Jason lowered his voice. “There was a terrible identification mistake after the accident. Nobody planned for any of this to happen.”

“That isn’t what I asked. Was there a funeral?”

He exhaled. “Yes.”

“And were you alive when it happened?”

Jason looked around the hallway before answering.

“Yes.”

Megan’s father had appeared near the ballroom entrance by then, but she asked him to wait because she wanted one more answer.

“Did Rachel know you were alive?”

Jason hesitated. “Not exactly.”

Megan stared at him. “There is no ‘not exactly’ here. Either she knew you were alive or she didn’t.”

Finally, he admitted it.

“No. She didn’t know.”

Jason immediately began explaining that he had been injured, frightened, confused, and overwhelmed after the accident. He said that by the time he understood the situation, people already believed he was dead and he didn’t know how to untangle everything.

Then he added that our relationship had already been having problems.

I looked at him. “Two days before your accident, we were choosing appetizers for our rehearsal dinner.”