After My Fiancé Faked Amnesia to Destroy Me

The aisle was longer than I remembered.

White petals underfoot. Candlelight in tall glass. Three hundred faces turning toward me at once, their expressions rehearsed into the same practiced awe. I heard the quartet lift into the processional. I heard my own heels on the marble.

I did not hear my heart. My heart had gone somewhere quiet.

Axl stood at the altar in charcoal gray. He smiled when he saw me. That smile had once undone me. Today it looked like a mask I could peel off with my fingernails if I wanted to.

I reached him. He took my hand. His palm was warm.

"You look beautiful," he whispered.

"I know," I said.

His eyes flickered. Just for a second. He didn't recognize the voice coming out of me.

The officiant opened his book. He began to speak.

That's when the side door opened.

She came in like a page from a magazine. White silk. Bare shoulders. A small, tremulous mouth. Zara Myers, walking down the side aisle with a bouquet of pale lilies she must have carried in from a car.

A gasp moved through the room. Someone dropped a program.

"I'm sorry," Zara said. Her voice was tissue-thin. "I'm so sorry, everyone. I tried to stay away. I tried."

She stopped ten feet from the altar. Her eyes filled on cue.

"Three years ago," she said, "she took him from me. She told everyone I was unstable. She told him I was dangerous. And I let her, because I loved him too much to fight." A tear slipped, exactly one, down her right cheek. "But I can't watch this. I can't watch her stand where I should have stood."

Three hundred heads turned to me.

Axl let go of my hand. Slowly. Like a man remembering something painful. He took a step back. Ran a palm through his hair. Looked between us with the exact stricken expression I'd seen him practice in the bathroom mirror once and told myself was a nervous tic.

"Zara," he breathed. "Cal—I—God, I don't—"

He was very good. He was so good I almost admired it.

I pressed my thumb into the inside of my wrist. One. Two. Three.

Then I stepped forward and took the microphone from the officiant's hand.

His fingers loosened around it without resistance. I don't think he knew he was letting go.

I tapped it once. The small percussive thud filled the vaulted ceiling.

"Good morning," I said.

The silence sharpened.

"Before anyone speaks for me, I'd like to speak for myself." I looked out across the pews. I found Margaux in the front row. Her phone was already up, steady, red light blinking. I did not smile at her. I did not need to.

"Two days ago," I said, "I terminated a pregnancy."

Something in the room broke. A woman in the third row made a small sound and covered her mouth.

"It was ten weeks along. It was Axl's." I kept my voice level. "I'm telling you this so no one in this room can use it. Not as leverage. Not as sympathy. Not as a reason he might have felt obligated to marry me today. There is no child. There is no debt. There is only me, standing here, with what I know."

Axl's face had gone the color of old paper.

"Cal," he said. Quiet. Careful. "Sweetheart, whatever you think you—"

"I don't think," I said. "I have a recording."

I lifted my phone.

Zara's small tremulous mouth fell open. Just slightly. Just enough.

I hit play.

His voice came through the venue's speakers like it belonged there. Calm. Almost bored.

"...tomorrow's the final performance. The hundredth wedding. I'll do the amnesia episode right at the altar. In front of everyone. That's the capstone, Zara. Three years of building her up just to watch her break in front of three hundred people."

A woman's laugh, soft and breathless, floated out of the speakers and settled over the room like ash.

I watched Zara's face while it played. I watched her spine straighten a fraction of an inch before she remembered to keep it curved. I watched Axl take one step toward me and stop, because there was nowhere to go.

The recording ran. Four minutes. Nobody moved. Nobody coughed. A man in the fifth row was crying without seeming to notice.

"...she'd probably cry, but try to hide it. Which will make the photos even better."

The recording ended.

I lowered the phone.

"Congratulations," I said. "You were right. I did try to hide it."

I slid the ring off my finger. Set it on the altar between two white candles. It made a small clean sound against the marble.

I turned around.

I walked back down the aisle I had walked up four minutes ago. The petals were the same. The candles were the same. Everything else in my life was something I would have to learn again from the beginning.

Margaux fell into step beside me at the doors. She did not speak. She kept filming until we were in the car.

"Drive," I said.

She drove.

By the time we crossed back into Manhattan, the footage was already moving. Margaux's phone buzzed twice, then five times, then continuously. She turned it face down on the console.

Something behind my ribs came loose.

I had held it for twenty-four hours. It had held me back in return. Now the seal broke and the room began to tilt.

"Cal," Margaux said sharply. "Cal, your nose—"

I touched my upper lip. My fingers came away red.

The hospital lobby was very bright. Someone was asking my name. I gave it to them. My own name, out loud, in a building full of strangers.

A mistake. I was too tired to notice.