So, instead of running away, I asked Emily to come back upstairs.
As soon as she saw my face, she froze.
“Claire, what happened?”
I closed the door and told her everything, word for word. By the time I finished, her expression had gone from confusion to fury.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Claire, you can’t marry him.”
“I’m not going to do it,” I said, my voice firmer than I felt. “But I’m going downstairs.”
He looked at me for two long seconds and then nodded.
“Tell me what you need.”
That question saved me.
Ten minutes later, my father came upstairs. I expected him to explode, to storm down the stairs and throw Ethan through a window. But instead, he listened silently, his jaw clenched and his eyes filled with pain. When I finished, he took my hands gently, as if they might break.
“Are you sure you want to do this in public?” she asked.
“No,” I answered honestly. “But I need witnesses.”
He nodded once.
“Then you won’t be there alone.”
When the coordinator knocked on the door and said it was time, the whole room seemed to change around me. The contractions—if that’s what they were—had slowed enough for me to walk. Emily held my bouquet. My father offered me his arm.
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