Marcus used to complain about overpriced sandwiches, send me pictures of weird coffee shop wall art, or call me from the car just to talk for five minutes. Suddenly, his days became foggy. If I asked a follow-up, he would sound affectionate but slightly rushed, like I was adorable for caring and inconvenient for noticing.
He also kept bringing up the resort.
“You have to go, Claire.”
“Your friends worked hard on this.”
“Don’t cancel just because wedding stuff is stressful.”
“You deserve to enjoy yourself.”
Then, one night, he said the line that lodged in me like a splinter.
“Don’t make it weird by staying home.”
Don’t make it weird.
Why would it be weird for a bride to stay home the week before her wedding unless someone really needed her gone?
On Thursday night, the evening before I was supposed to leave, I stood in our bedroom trying to zip a duffel bag that did not need to be as heavy as it was. I had packed three outfits for two days because bachelorette weekends require women to prepare for several emotional climates: cute brunch, casual hike, fake-relaxed dinner, emergency crying in the bathroom, and one backup dress in case everybody else looked hotter than expected.
Marcus came up behind me while I was kneeling on the floor, sat on the edge of the bed, and watched me fight with the zipper.
“You’re bringing half the closet.”
“I’m preparing for weather, photos, and regret.”
He laughed, but the laugh was a touch too loud.
Then he leaned forward, wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, and rested his chin on my shoulder.
The gesture should have comforted me. Instead, my whole body stiffened before I could stop it.
“I want you to have fun,” he said. “Stop worrying about me.”
It would have been cute if it did not sound exactly like a man auditioning for a jury.
I forced a laugh. “I’m not worrying.”
“Good,” he said, too fast.
Then he kissed my cheek like we had landed something important.
I looked at us in the dresser mirror: me in leggings and an oversized shirt, hair clipped messily, eyes tired; Marcus behind me, handsome and gentle-looking, arms around me; our wedding clothes hanging in garment bags on the closet door. From the outside, we looked like a couple on the edge of a happy life.
Inside my own body, something was knocking softly from the basement.
On Friday morning, my friends filled the group chat with voice notes while I drove toward the resort. Hannah complained that she had forgotten mascara. Priya sent a video of herself wearing the bride squad sash she had sworn she would not wear in public. Lauren sent a photo of the resort sign with the caption: If there is no hot tub, we riot.
I laughed when I heard it, but I kept staring at the highway like maybe my body knew something my brain was refusing to sign for.
I told myself I was being unfair. I told myself stress makes everything suspicious. I told myself weddings make people weird. I told myself not every strange vibe is betrayal. Sometimes a man is just distracted. Sometimes he is anxious. Sometimes your nervous system is a rude little alarm that goes off because someone breathed too hard in another room.
Still, when I pulled into the resort parking lot and my friends ran toward me holding plastic cups of champagne, cheering like I had returned from war instead of I-40 traffic, I felt split down the middle.
Half of me smiled and let them pull me into the noise.
Half of me stayed back home, staring at our front door in my mind like it already knew more than I did.
That first night at the resort should have been easy. Fire pit. Cheap wine hidden in expensive glasses. A cheese board we all pretended counted as dinner because nobody wanted to admit we needed fries. Someone brought a question game that started sentimental and somehow turned into soft public humiliation. Everybody was warm and loud and emotional in the way women get when they are happy for you and secretly relieved it is not their turn to make decisions about napkin colors.
I laughed where I was supposed to laugh. I made the little bride speech. I let them put a ridiculous veil on me for photos. I even posted a picture of myself in front of the fire, smiling with a plastic crown tilted on my head, because sometimes you perform happiness for the record before you know the record is about to become evidence.
Marcus commented almost immediately.
Most beautiful bride in the world.
Heart emoji. Ring emoji. Fire emoji.
Hannah squealed when she saw it.
“He is so obsessed with you.”
I looked at the comment and felt nothing but a drag under my ribs, like my brain had one hand on the emergency brake.
Lauren noticed first.
She always does, and I hate that for me.
She sat beside me with a drink and bumped my shoulder.
“Why do you look like you’re about to either cry or commit tax fraud?”
“I’m just tired.”
She raised one eyebrow, deeply annoying and entirely earned.
“Wedding tired, or Claire pretending something isn’t wrong tired?”
“Wedding stress.”
“Lazy answer.”
“My mother keeps asking if eucalyptus is too casual.”
“Still not it.”
“Too many opinions about flowers.”
“All true, none of it central.”
I took a sip of wine that tasted like regret wearing a fruit costume.
“I don’t know,” I said finally. “Something feels off.”
“With Marcus?”
I shrugged, which was cowardly because, of course, I meant Marcus.
“Maybe I’m being unfair.”
“Maybe,” Lauren said. “Or maybe you’re not.”
I hated that she did not comfort me with certainty. That would have been easier. I wanted someone to say, “No, he loves you, you’re just stressed,” and hand me permission to ignore myself for one more week.
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