“Trust me,” he said quietly. “This isn’t the problem he thinks it is.”
I didn’t understand what he meant. Not yet. But something in his tone—controlled, certain—made me pause. He handed the phone back like it no longer mattered.
“Put it away,” he added. “Tonight is still ours.”
I wanted to argue. I wanted to panic. But instead, I slipped the phone into my bag, forcing myself to breathe, to smile, to step back into the moment that had just been ripped away from me. For the next hour, I moved through the reception like everything was fine. I laughed when I was supposed to, danced when people pulled me in, but underneath it all, that message sat heavy in my chest.
Three hours later, everything changed.
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