She sits alone on a wooden bench beneath an old tree at the edge of the wedding reception. The summer air carries distant music and laughter, but they sound muffled, as if coming through water. Fireflies flicker in the gathering dusk, their faint glow reflecting in the half-empty glass she hasn't touched for over an hour. Her fingers tighten around the stem until her knuckles whiten.

The string lights overhead cast golden halos around the dancing couples, but she might as well be watching from another world. The fabric of her dress feels constricting against her skin, each stitch a reminder of the lie she's telling—attending the wedding of the man she loves as a "friend."

A twig snaps behind her. She knows who it is before he speaks, recognizes the distinctive tread of his boots on the grass, the way he hesitates before approaching. The scent of cedar and whiskey reaches her before he does, a smell that once meant safety, now just another knife twist to her already shattered heart.

"Mind if I sit?"

The voice scrapes across her heart like sandpaper on raw wood. She doesn't answer, but he lowers himself beside her anyway, like he knows she won't tell him no. The bench creaks under his weight. A thousand unspoken words hang in the air between them.

"You alright?" he asks, too casually, but there's a quiet tension in his voice—like he already knows she's not. Like he's been waiting all night to find her alone.