Three months after burying my fiancé, I forced myself to work another wedding.
I thought it would be difficult.
I knew the flowers would hurt. I knew the sight of a bride walking down an aisle might bring back memories I wasn’t ready to face.
What I didn’t expect was to see Adrian’s mother there.
What happened next was so impossible that, for a few seconds, I wondered whether grief had finally broken something inside my mind.
Adrian and I were supposed to get married that summer.
By spring, almost everything had been arranged.
The venue was booked. My dress had been chosen. Invitations were being finalized. We had spent ridiculous amounts of time discussing tiny details that seemed incredibly important at the time.
Even the cake had become a serious matter.
Adrian wanted chocolate.
I wanted lemon.
One night, we were sitting across from each other at our kitchen table when he looked at me and laughed.
“We’re seriously fighting over cake now?”
“We’re not fighting,” I told him. “I’m explaining why you’re wrong.”
He laughed so hard he nearly spilled his coffee.
At the time, it was nothing more than another silly moment between two people who loved each other.
After he died, those were the moments I remembered most.
Not the venue.
Not the flowers.
Not the guest list.
His laugh.
The way he leaned against the kitchen counter.
The sound of his voice when he was teasing me.
The absolute certainty I had felt that we had decades ahead of us.
Then, six weeks before our wedding, Adrian died in a car accident.
