Five years after my fiancé slept with my cousin, she arrived at my wedding carrying flowers.
“We were young,” Vanessa said, reaching for me.
I stepped back.
Behind her stood Aunt Lydia, wearing the same expression she had worn when she told me not to destroy the family over “one mistake.”
The ceremony would begin in twenty minutes. Beyond the hallway doors, seventy guests were finding their seats. My bouquet rested on a bench beside me.
“You weren’t invited,” I said.
Vanessa glanced at the doors. “Can I at least meet the groom?”
Then Andrew stepped out of the bridal suite.
The flowers shifted in her hands.
He looked at me, then at her.
“Is this the cousin you told me about? Because she introduced herself differently yesterday.”
For a moment, nobody moved.
“What did she tell you?” I asked.
“That she was helping our videographer.”
Vanessa recovered quickly. “I wanted to arrange something special.”
Andrew’s expression hardened. “You said you needed a few words for the wedding film.”
I looked down at the flowers. White roses. My favorite when I was twenty-seven, engaged to a different man, and foolish enough to lend my cousin a key.
“What words?”
He took out his phone.
“She asked what I hoped today would mean for you
