“I know,” she said quickly, too quickly. “Something came up at work. I can’t get the time off.”
Maris, who once flew across the country overnight just to help me after a breakup, suddenly couldn’t manage a single weekend off.
Talia followed with a long message about a family obligation. Rowan didn’t explain at all. She just called late at night.
“I’m not coming,” she said flatly.
“Why not?”
A pause. Then she said, “I just can’t be there.” And she hung up.
Three friends, three withdrawals, all within days of each other. That wasn’t a coincidence. It was avoidance, and beneath that, something heavier, like they were circling a truth they didn’t want to bring into the open.
For the first time, a thought I didn’t want appeared. What if they weren’t avoiding the wedding? What if they were avoiding Jonas?
The unease sharpened when I checked the guest preview list through the venue portal. Maris was already marked as “declined.” But I hadn’t even finalized the exact date when that status was supposedly entered. That didn’t make sense. Unless someone had seen something before I had, or unless the problem wasn’t the invitation at all.
I found Maris outside a café near her office a few days later. She stopped the moment she saw me. That was all I needed to know something was already broken.
“We need to talk,” I said.
She hesitated. “I don’t think I’m the right person for this.”
“Then who is?” I asked. “Because my wedding is falling apart and all of you are acting like I won’t notice.”
Maris closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, she looked exhausted in a way that went deeper than stress.
“I didn’t want you to find out like this,” she said. Then she pulled out her phone.
My stomach tightened before I even saw the screen. A photo: Jonas outside a dim bar, a woman leaning into him, his arm around her waist.
My mind tried to reject it instantly. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
Maris didn’t respond. She swiped. Another photo, same closeness. Another: a kiss in the parking lot. Another: them leaving together.
I felt the air thin. “When was this?” I asked.
“A few weeks ago,” she said quietly.
A few weeks ago, Jonas had been sitting with me choosing invitation fonts.
“This is someone from work?” I asked.
Maris hesitated. That hesitation was worse than the photos.
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