That was not because I wanted to surprise them. It was because I was not supposed to be anywhere that could be traced. Medical leave, technically, though the kind that does not appear on any list, the kind where, if something goes wrong, there is no official record that you were ever present at all. The shrapnel wound sat low on my abdomen, wrapped tight and hidden under my jacket. Light duty, they had said. Apparently, carrying your own weight qualified.
I pulled up to my parents’ house just before noon and sat at the curb for a moment longer than necessary, watching the front yard through the windshield. Two catering vans in the driveway. A white tent is being assembled on the lawn. Someone near the hydrangeas was arguing about flower arrangements.
Right. The wedding.I stepped out slowly, each movement calibrated against the pull of stitches beneath my jacket. I grabbed my duffel and walked toward the front door the way I had walked through it my entire life, as if I still lived there, as if I had not been gone long enough for that to become a question worth asking.
The door was unlocked. Inside, noise hit me first. Voices layering. Someone’s phone is playing music too loudly. The controlled chaos of a household organizing itself around an event. No one noticed me. My mother stood in the kitchen, directing two women who were clearly hired help. My father paced near the window with a phone pressed to his ear. And at the center of everything, exactly where she always positioned herself, stood Chloe in a white silk robe with her hair half done and a portable rack of dresses surrounding her like she was already on display.
I stood in the doorway for ten full seconds. Then Chloe glanced over. Her eyes landed on me with the specific expression reserved for things tracked in on someone else’s shoe.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re here.”I set my bag down near the wall. “Got leave.”She frowned slightly, the way she frowned at inconvenient weather. “You could have at least called. Today’s already chaotic.”
My mother noticed me with mild irritation, the look of someone whose seating arrangements had just developed a complication. “Elena, honey. We have a full house.”
No one asked why I was pale. No one asked why I was holding myself carefully, why every movement was slightly deliberate. Chloe mattered here. Her dress mattered. Her weekend mattered. I was trying not to block traffic.I moved my bag against the wall.
“Actually,” Chloe said, as though an idea had just occurred to her, “since you’re here, you can help. Those boxes by the hallway need to go upstairs. Shoes, accessories, and some of the early gifts. Just don’t mess anything up.”
I looked at the stack of boxes. Then at her. Then back at the boxes.“Sure,” I said.I grabbed the first box. Not particularly heavy. But the moment I lifted it, something inside me shifted in a way it was not supposed to. A sharp pull, low and deep. I registered it the way you register a warning light and kept moving. First box upstairs. Second box. By the third trip the pain was no longer subtle. Spreading. Tightening. A message is becoming more insistent with each step.
I paused at the bottom of the stairs, one hand pressed lightly against my side.“Are you seriously taking breaks already?” Chloe’s voice from across the room. “Can you not be dramatic for five minutes?”I picked up the next box.
Halfway up the stairs, my vision blurred at the edges. I blinked, set the box down, and turned to go back. That was when it happened. Not a sharp stab. Something slower and heavier, like something inside had quietly given way all at once. I grabbed the railing. Made it down three steps before my legs stopped cooperating. The room tilted. I caught myself against the wall, breathing shallow, cold sweat breaking across my back.
“Chloe,” I said, and the voice that came out was smaller than I expected. “Something’s wrong.”She looked at me from across the room with the expression of someone deciding whether this warranted their time.