His expression was impossible to read.
He didn’t walk toward Elise.
He didn’t go to my parents.
Instead, he looked across the room until he found me.
“Ian.”
Elise inhaled sharply.
“Can we talk?”
She stared at him.
“Why would you want to talk to him?”
Carson didn’t answer.
He kept looking at me.
So I followed him outside.
The evening air was cool.
The sky had turned purple behind the vineyard.
Carson leaned against the railing and stared toward the vines.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Finally, he asked,
“That clip was real?”
“Yes.”
“No editing?”
“Nothing that changed what she said. The original even has the date stamp.”
He gave a short, bitter laugh.
Then looked away.
“I always wondered.”
I stayed quiet.
He continued.
“Sometimes I thought she was with me for the wrong reasons. Then I’d tell myself I was paranoid.”
He ran a hand through his hair.
“You basically destroyed her wedding.”
“I didn’t destroy anything.”
He looked at me.
“I showed people what was already there.”
Carson nodded slowly.
“She’s going to hate you forever.”
“She already did,” I said. “She just smiled while doing it.”
He looked back toward the building.
Then shook his head.
“I’m not going back inside.”
I said nothing.
“I’m not doing the dance. I’m not cutting the cake. And I’m definitely not marrying someone who talks about me like that.”
He started toward the parking lot.
“Carson.”
He stopped.
“I wasn’t originally going to use that clip.”
He turned.
“But when I got here, they put me at the kids’ table. Then Dad told me not to ruin the wedding like I ruin everything else.”
I shook my head.
“That was when I realized none of them were changing. So I stopped protecting them.”
Carson studied me for a moment.
Then nodded.
“Good.”
He opened his car door.
“Someone needed to.”
Then he drove away.
I remained outside for another few minutes.
Crickets chirped around the vineyard.
From inside the reception hall, I could faintly hear people arguing.
When I finally returned, the room looked nothing like a wedding anymore.
Elise was sobbing.
Dad was yelling at the AV technician.
