The music was soft, the kind that wraps around a room and makes everything feel slower, warmer, more meaningful. I was standing in the center of it all—white dress, flowers, laughter, everything I had imagined for years finally happening in real time. People were smiling, glasses were clinking, and for the first time in a long time, nothing felt uncertain.
Then my phone buzzed.
I almost ignored it. Who checks their phone during their own wedding reception? But something about the timing—sharp, insistent—made me glance down. The screen lit up with a message from someone I never expected to hear from that day: my boss’s son.
