Evan twisted away from Luke and shouted at Vanessa that she had destroyed everything.
Vanessa backed away.
I stood completely still.
Then Evan looked at me.
“Tell them to let me go.”
I did not.
His voice softened.
“Bri.”
I suddenly hated that nickname in his mouth.
“We can fix this.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“We just got married.”
“I know.”
“You love me.”
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“I did.”
His face crumpled.
Maybe the pain was real.
That was the hardest part.
People like Evan are easier to understand if you imagine every feeling they have is fake.
I don’t think his were.
I think he loved me.
I also think he believed loving me entitled him to control which truths I was allowed to know.
Security escorted him away from the reception.
Not Vanessa.
Him.
My wedding guests did not know what to do after that.
Neither did I.
My mother took me into the bridal suite.
I sat on the floor in a dress that cost more than my first car and stared at my bare finger.
Vanessa waited outside.
Eventually, I asked her to come in.
She stood near the door.
“I am sorry,” she said.
I laughed.
It came out sounding broken.
“You wore red to my wedding.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
She looked down.
“I thought if I wore something impossible to ignore, you might actually look at me before he made me leave.”
That was such a strange, sad answer that I started crying.
Vanessa cried too.
For several minutes, neither of us said anything useful.
Then I asked the question that had been sitting in my chest.
“Why didn’t you go to the police after the stairs?”
“I did.”
She told me there had been no witness.
Evan claimed she lost her balance while they argued.
The bruises on her arm were explained as him trying to catch her.
She had no recording.
No camera.
No proof strong enough to turn an ugly relationship into a criminal case.
She left him instead.
Later, when she tried to warn a woman he briefly dated, Evan told everyone Vanessa was stalking him.
